Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes as two of her best friends engaged in an impromptu game of tug-of-war. She had thought Rainbow Dash, who pulled on Fluttershy’s tail as hard as she could, would win without difficulty, but the soft-spoken Fluttershy was putting up a good fight. Twilight sighed and settled on her haunches for the long haul.
“C’mon, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said through her teeth, clenched tight around the other mare’s pink tail. “I need you for this!” She gave a sharp yank.
Fluttershy had her hooves dug in; each had already ripped up a small divot in the soft turf in her efforts to not be dragged away. “No! I c-can’t! I won’t!” On her back, a reclining Angel Bunny yawned.
The three mares stood in the square next to Ponyville’s City Hall, nearly empty that late in the afternoon. The sun dipped low on the western horizon and sent forth a brilliant array of blooming colors that set the sky aflame with deep reds and pale oranges. Twilight allowed a smile to spread across her muzzle; sometimes she wondered if sunsets just happened to turn out that way, or if maybe Princess Celestia could mold the late afternoon sky like her sister could during the night.
Not that there was really anyone around to appreciate the beautiful view. A few ponies passed by on their way home, but most had already finished their work and now prepared to turn in for the day. At that thought, Twilight had to fight back a yawn of her own. She had spent the previous night working almost until the sun came up and was looking forward to some well-earned rest.
Rest she would likely miss out on if her two friends didn’t resolve their differences soon.
She glanced away from the sunset to find that Rainbow had managed to drag Fluttershy a few more feet. The shallow trenches dug by Fluttershy’s hooves marked their short trail.
All of a sudden, Rainbow lost her grip and Fluttershy’s tail flew out of her mouth. Both ponies went tumbling in opposite directions, although Angel managed to stick to his spot on Fluttershy’s back; it was all Twilight could do not to burst out laughing. That wouldn’t be very nice.
Predictably, Rainbow was the first one back on her hooves, but when she darted back into the fray, she found her way blocked by a downy alicorn wing. “Take it easy,” Twilight said, still holding back a giggle. Rainbow’s one ear had flipped inside-out and she hadn’t noticed yet. “Instead of fighting, why don’t we try to talk things over?”
Rainbow scowled. “Fine. I’ll talk, but only if Fluttershy agrees to go.”
“No!” Fluttershy scrambled upright. “I don’t want to go! It’s—it’s too spooky!”
“What’s spooky about it?” Rainbow said with a shrug. “It’s just a house.”
“It’s not just a house—it’s a mansion!” Fluttershy closed her eyes and shuddered.
“So it’s a big house,” Rainbow said.
“And it’s not just a mansion, either,” Fluttershy went on. “It’s a big, spooky, scary, haunted ghost mansion on the outskirts of town that nopony has lived in for at least fifty years, and I never ever want to go anywhere near it!”
As Rainbow let out a frustrated groan, Twilight patted Fluttershy on the back. “Rainbow, if she really doesn’t want to go on a scavenger hunt with you, you shouldn’t force her.”
“Okay, first? It’s not a scavenger hunt.” Rainbow sat back and spread her forelegs out wide. “It’s a treasure hunt. As in we’re looking for treasure. And second, the reason I want her to go is because I really kind of need her help!”
Fluttershy peeked at the other pegasus through the crook in Twilight’s leg. “Wh-why do you need my help?”
“To help find the treasure.” Rainbow rolled her eyes as though the answer was obvious. “Duh.”
“Treasure,” Twilight said flatly, dropping to her haunches. She saw no need to stay standing now that her friends had settled down. “In the mansion.”
“Yup!”
Twilight’s face remained expressionless. “In the big, spooky, scary, haunted ghost mansion on the outskirts of town that nopony has lived in for at least fifty years.”
“Yup!” Rainbow’s cocksure grin spread across her face.
“This is so stupid,” Twilight muttered. She knew how this would turn out if she let it go on. Things would start out nice and calm, well within reason. Then events would take on a life of their own until everything spiraled out of her control. It happened every other time she let herself get dragged into these schemes, and it would happen this time, too. She knew all of this, and yet the curious side of her still couldn’t help but ask. “Alright, Rainbow, I’ll bite—how do you know there’s treasure in the mansion?”
Rainbow’s grin widened, and Twilight knew there was no going back. “Vinyl told me.”
“Vinyl?”
“Vinyl Scratch,” Rainbow said, shrugging. “She does music or something, I dunno. We hang.”
Twilight gave a mental groan. “Then what makes Vinyl so sure about—”
“Look, Twi,” Rainbow cut in, “this chit-chat’s fun and all, but there’s pirate treasure to be found! Can we hurry it up a little?”
“I just want to know a little bit more about what you’re doing before you go.” Twilight crossed her forelegs.
Rainbow scoffed. “Don’t worry about that now. Vinyl’ll probably tell you everything when we get there, so let’s just go!”
“Wait, what?” Twilight blinked rapidly a few times. “You want me, too?”
“Well duh,” Rainbow said. “You’re only, like, the smartest pony in all of Equestria. Why wouldn’t I want you to come along?”
“All of Equestria, huh?” A silly smile crossed Twilight’s face. “Well, when you put it that way… I guess it could be fun to go on a scav—a treasure hunt.” A whimper from Fluttershy caught her attention, and she straightened up. “But you still have explained why Fluttershy has to go.”
“Well, I was thinking,” Rainbow said. “What if the loot’s in the walls or whatever? Having a squirrel or something would let us look in lots of places where we can’t fit, right?”
“I don’t want to go,” Fluttershy mumbled, shrinking back.
“C’mon, Fluttershy.” Rainbow trotted over to pat her on the back. “Do it for me?”
“Don’t wanna.”
Rainbow’s smile faltered. “But think about all the, er—animal stuff?” She shrugged. “Yeah, think of all the animal stuff you could buy.”
“Don’t wanna!”
“Don’t force her,” Twilight said as she pushed her way in between them once more. “If the place is actually a mansion, we won’t have time to look everywhere anyway.”
“Fine!” Rainbow snapped, but a moment later her grin returned and she gave Fluttershy a sly glance. “Then how about you let me borrow a critter?” She turned to Angel. “What do you think, buddy?”
Angel crossed his forelegs and glared back.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” she went on. “Equal cut of the loot.” No reaction. “Plus a carrot.” Still no response. “Two carrots, then. I’m a reasonable mare.” Nothing. “You like carrots, right?”
“Angel d-doesn’t want to g-go,” Fluttershy choked out, straightening. “H-he’s just a baby bunny who’s as scared of gh-gh—gho—places like that as I am.”
After a moment of awkward silence, Angel’s head swung around, and he gave her a look that quite plainly said, The fuck you just say, bitch?
Fluttershy winced. “Sweetie? What’s wrong?”
Sticking his tongue out at her, Angel hopped off of his mother and up onto Rainbow’s back; he made a big show out of clearing a spot to sit down comfortably.
“Yes!” Rainbow cried. Her wings flared as she reared back; Angel barely managed to grab hold of her mane in time to avoid falling off. “That treasure’s as good as ours!”
Fluttershy shuffled up. “Angel, sweetie,” she said in a soft voice, “are you s-sure?”
“Of course he is,” Rainbow said. “Now let’s go!” She galloped a few feet away, then glanced back expectantly. “We don’t have all night!”
“Don’t worry,” Twilight said to Fluttershy. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Um, well, if he wants to go, then I suppose it’s alright.” Her lip trembled. “Just—just remember that his bedtime is nine o’clock, and—and don’t make loud noises. He’s very timid and easily startled.”
Twilight glanced at Angel, who looked as though he was trying to melt Fluttershy with his glare. “Very timid,” she agreed.
“I’m going,” Rainbow said as she spread her wings. “Hurry up or you’re gonna get left behind.”
“Oh, and one more thing!” Fluttershy wrung her forehooves. “If he starts playing with his, um—you know, with his pee-pee, just say in a firm voice, ‘Cut that out, mister, unless you want to go to the vet and get fixed!’ ”
A yelp came from Rainbow, who had just taken off. “Hey, no kicking!” she shouted. “What the hay was that for?”
“Mommy loves you, Angel!” Fluttershy said, waving. “Have fun! I’ll be waiting up for you!”
Twilight gave her a reassuring smile, then hurried after Rainbow, who had already taken to the sky. Her own wings spread and gave a powerful flap, lifting her off the ground. A few tiring moments later she had caught up. Rainbow glanced back and smirked.
“Geez,” she said. “Took you long enough.” Angel reclined on her back, using his paws as a pillow.
Their flight path carried them east, away from the setting sun; it sank into the Everfree Forest, which stretched across the horizon. Beneath them passed the smattering of houses and sheds, seemingly spaced at random, that made up Ponyville’s outskirts. Eventually they moved past even those few buildings and out over fields of golden, half-grown wheat before Twilight finally regained her breath enough to speak.
“So what’s the plan?” She swooped into place beside her friend.
“Vinyl’s gonna meet us there,” Rainbow said. “Then we’ll go treasure hunting.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “But what about the fine print? Where is this place? Why is there treasure there in the first place? It can’t be as simple as just going on a scavenger—” She cleared her throat “—a treasure hunt?”
“We’ll be there in a sec,” Rainbow said as she pushed the pace. “Then you’ll see it.”
It was all Twilight could do to keep up with Rainbow, let alone pelt her with questions, so she decided to focus on flying and worry about the details later. Luckily the scenery beneath them was varied enough to hold her attention. Rocky hills passed by until a line of trees appeared in the distance, and within moments they were soaring over a thick forest canopy. Seconds later, she found herself staring down at a wide clearing large enough to fit a castle. A short, wide hill rose in the middle, and right on top of it was what could only be described as a mansion.
Looking at it from above, Twilight could see that it looked like a three-sided square. The face stretched wide, with a wing extending straight back on both ends so that there was space between them. What looked like a courtyard took up that space and fanned out behind the building, making up the fourth “wall”. As she circled around, Twilight took note of the lines of windows and balconies that dotted the mansion’s sides. She counted three stories in full.
Something about the place made the hairs on her neck stand up. The windows were completely dark, and she couldn’t see anyone below in the courtyard. Fluttershy had called it a scary, haunted mansion, but only now did the meaning of those words truly register. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Twilight, come on!” Rainbow called from the ground, and Twilight realized she had spaced out while gliding aimlessly. “Down here!”
Rainbow had landed in front of the building, joining two other ponies Twilight hadn’t seen at first. She couldn’t quite make out their features from the air. The sun still peaked over the horizon, but the light it provided wasn’t nearly enough for her to see well. Swooping into a shallow dive, she touched down with only the slightest of stumbles just in time to see Rainbow bump hooves with one of the strangers, both of whom were mares.
“Vinyl!” she said. “My mare, howzit going?” One of Twilight’s eyebrows shot up, but she stayed silent.
The unicorn mare Rainbow had greeted—Vinyl Scratch, Twilight assumed—ran a hoof through her electric-blue mane and adjusted a pair of large, opaque sunglasses. They glinted bright red in the dying sunlight. “Glad you could make it, Dash. We were wondering if you’d forgotten about us.”
“Would that she had,” said the other mare in a tight voice. Compared to Vinyl’s, this earth-pony’s mane style was much more reserved, cascading down her neck. “Then maybe I could have gone home and avoided this altogether.”
A very neatly arranged pink bow tie at her throat caught Twilight’s attention. I wonder how she ties that.
Vinyl grinned and threw a leg around the mare’s shoulders. “And this little number is my squeeze, the ever-gracious Octavia.” Octavia threw a nasty glare Vinyl’s way.
“Whoa!” Rainbow’s wings flared. “You never told me you had a marefriend!”
“Didn’t I?” Vinyl said as she scratched the back of her head. “Huh. That’s funny. I could’ve sworn I did once or twice. Probably.”
Octavia gave a short laugh. “Funny! Yes, very funny indeed!” She turned to Rainbow. “Don’t you find it maddeningly hilarious that she wouldn’t mention her fiancé to a friend? It isn’t like I’m somepony important, after all.”
“Aw, don’t be like that.” Vinyl nuzzled her fiancé under the chin. “You know I love you, babe.”
“Of course,” Octavia said, expression unchanging. Rainbow pretended to gag.
“Bleh,” she said. “Get a room.”
Octavia took a step back and raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, did we make you feel ill? Would you like to lie down? Maybe take a nap? Do you think you’ll survive the night?”
“Haha, what she means to say—” Vinyl pushed a hoof over Octavia’s mouth “—is we’re sorry to make things awkward. Right, Tavi?” She lifted the hoof away.
“Of course,” Octavia said flatly after a moment. “We’re sorry—let us go with that.”
For the duration of this exchange, Twilight had patiently waited in the background and watched. She gave a soft cough, but Rainbow didn’t as much as glance around. Again she coughed, this time louder.
“I just don’t like that kinda stuff,” Rainbow said, still oblivious. Twilight’s eye twitched.
“Cough cough.”
Rainbow finally looked back. “That cough sounds nasty. Did you swallow a fly or something on the way here?”
“No, I didn’t—” Twilight paused to take a deep breath. “Never mind.” She trotted up to Vinyl and Octavia. “Hi! I’m Rainbow Dash’s friend, Twilight—”
“You truly think it necessary to introduce yourself?” Octavia stared down her nose at Twilight. “Or is Princess Twilight Sparkle offended that us lesser ponies didn’t curtsy upon her arrival?” She bent her forelegs in a mock bow.
Twilight took a step back. “No, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s bad enough that I must indulge this bizarre treasure hunt thing,” Octavia said with a dramatic sigh. “Must I also deal with uppity royalty?”
As Octavia walked away, Vinyl gave Twilight an apologetic shrug. “Try not to be too mad at her—she hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”
“S-sure.” Twilight smiled, but as Vinyl trotted off after her fiancé, the smile faded away.
“Sheesh,” Rainbow said, watching them. Vinyl said something to Octavia that was not well received, if the offended expression on the other mare’s face was anything to go by. “Who d’you think crapped in her oatmeal?”
Twilight gave her a sharp sidelong glance, but Rainbow didn’t notice.
“And Vinyl has to marry her?” she went on with a snort. “What a catch, am I right?”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to say anything nasty,” Twilight said. “Let’s just give her a chance.”
Before Rainbow could answer, Octavia and Vinyl finished their hushed conversation and walked back over.
Octavia took a deep breath, then turned to Twilight. “I apologize for my rude remarks,” she said, pawing at the grass. “I… haven’t felt quite like myself as of late, but that does not excuse poor behavior. Please, would you forgive me?”
It was only through supreme force of will that Twilight resisted the urge to give Rainbow the “told you so” look.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said instead. “Everypony is entitled to a bad day, right?” Her ears dropped at Octavia’s sudden glare.
“Don’t patronize me,” she said, then added in a tight voice, “please.”
Twilight smiled weakly. “Sure!” She could feel Rainbow’s smug grin burning into the back of her head.
An awkward silence hung in the air until Vinyl clapped her hooves and cleared it away. “Alright, cool! Now that we’re all best buds, let’s get down to it.” She glanced at Rainbow. “Dash, did you fill her in?”
“Well, uh—”
Twilight snorted. “All I know is you told her about some cursed ghost-treasure or something. If there’s more, I’d love to hear it.”
“ ‘Course there’s more.” Vinyl beckoned Octavia over to listen as well. “Tavi hasn’t heard this either, so I’ll explain.
“A long long long time ago, before the Sisters showed up, this part of Equestria was actually underwater.”
“Underwater?” Twilight said with a frown. “You mean under-a-lake underwater?”
Vinyl shook her head. “No, I mean under-the-ocean underwater.”
It took a moment for Twilight to collect her thoughts. “That’s ridiculous,” she said at last. “Ponyville isn’t even near an ocean. How could it have ever been at the bottom of one?”
“I agree with Her Royal Highness,” Octavia said. Twilight’s cheeks burned, but she kept her mouth shut. “Anypony who would believe this tale is a nincompoop, a liar, or an unpleasant combination of the two.”
Vinyl glanced over the top of her shades. “Sweetie, you don’t think I’m a nincompoop, do you?”
“I don’t know, dear.” Octavia’s eyes fluttered innocently. “Would you happen to believe in the Great Ponyville Ocean? Answer carefully, now.”
A brief flash of irritation roiled across Vinyl’s face, but Twilight blinked and it was gone. She wondered if she had even seen it at all.
“I have no idea,” Vinyl said, pulling Octavia into a hug. “This was thousands of years ago. I’m just telling a story.”
Octavia sighed and rolled her eyes. “Very well. Carry on.”
“So,” Vinyl said, “there used to be an ocean here.” Twilight masked her snort behind a loud cough. “Nopony dared set sail on it, though, because it was home to all sorts of deep sea monsters that could wreck a boat, easy as anything.
“But one day, an earth pony pirate whose name nopony remembers took his crew into those waters. They had just looted a royal unicorn treasure ship and made off with tons of swag, and the unicorns were hot on their tails. This pirate captain thought he could lose them by sailing into this body of water that nopony in their right mind would ever go into, and to be fair, he was kinda right. The unicorns didn’t follow them very far, because a giant squid came up and totally wrecked the pirate ship. As the pirates floundered in the water and were pulled under one-by-one by a school of sharks, the captain shouted out a curse at the unicorns, who had turned and sailed away before they got wrecked too.”
Twilight cleared her throat. “We don’t have many records of events from before the founding of Equestria. It’s a little hard to believe that this story in particular managed to survive so long when other, more important things were lost.”
“That’s not the end,” Vinyl said, adjusting her shades. “Fast-forward to about a hundred years ago. A noble named Baron von Hoofenstein was running around here looking for a place to build his vacation home when one of his servants dug up an old, really rusty chest. Inside was a ton of ancient treasure from the old unicorn kingdom.”
“So he found the pirate’s treasure,” Octavia said with a frown. “I believe I can see where this is going.”
Rainbow shushed her. “This is my favorite part!” Twilight couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s enthusiasm. “So, cursed treasure.”
“Yeah, the baron had this treasure, and he didn’t want to let it go. He had his servants clear a spot, then built the mansion you see before you.” A chill wind passed by and raised the hairs on the back of Twilight’s neck. “He brought his family here and made it his permanent home, ditching his family’s land in Canterlot just so he could keep searching for more treasure. He found more chests full of gold and jewels over the years, and when he brought the treasure back to the mansion, he hid it away somewhere.”
Movement on Rainbow’s back caught Twilight’s attention, and she saw Angel sitting up with his back turned. It only took a few seconds of listening to the soft, repeated slaps coming from his direction for her to scowl and, horn flaring, conjure a magical rolled-up newspaper out of thin air. It cracked down between his ears, startling the poor rabbit almost into falling off.
“Knock that off,” Twilight said. Angel glared at her as he rubbed the stinging spot on his head.
Vinyl paused for a moment, then shrugged. “The more he hoarded, though,” she went on, “the less he went outside looking for more, until eventually he stopped leaving the mansion completely. He didn’t want anypony sneaking in while he was gone and stealing it away. Things got so bad that he dismissed all his servants, leaving just him and his family to take care of this gigantic mansion.”
Cursed treasure, Twilight thought with a grin. No wonder Rainbow’s so interested. Sure enough, when she looked around, she saw a wide, silly smile on Rainbow’s face.
“Nopony heard from the Hoofensteins for years,” Vinyl went on. “Then, one day, a royal messenger sent by Princess Celestia herself showed up and found the place abandoned. The doors were all wide open and the house was completely empty. He searched the area but couldn’t find any clues. While he hunted through the mansion, though, he always heard noises made by things just out of sight, floorboards creaking and hoofsteps clacking. He saw things in the corners of his vision—ponies pointing at him, waving him over, watching him, but whenever he turned to look, there was nopony there. It didn’t take long for him to leave the place far behind and return to Canterlot.
“Over the years, other families moved in, some hoping to find the baron’s treasure, but they never could. What they did find was that bad things happened to anypony who spent any amount of time in that mansion—very bad things. Things you’d read about in the newspaper the next day. After a particularly nasty death, nopony else wanted anything to do with the place, and it’s been empty ever since. One of the previous mayors even went so far as to declare it off-limits to the public."
“Hold on,” Twilight cut in, brow furrowed. “Off-limits? Wouldn’t that mean that nopony is allowed inside?”
“Well, yeah, but that was years ago.” Vinyl shrugged. “Like, at least forty, maybe fifty. I don’t think anypony even owns the land anymore.”
“Still…”
Rainbow gave Twilight a nudge from behind. “C’mon, Twi—haunted pirate gold hidden away in a gigantic mansion? I know you wanna go looking for it. It’s not like we’ll wreck the place or anything like that.”
“I know we won’t,” Twilight said, glancing uncertainly up at the mansion. “But we should still check with Mayor Mare before we do anything.” She shrunk away from Rainbow’s scowl.
“Hold up.” Vinyl scratched at the back of her head. “Why does a princess need to ask for permission? It’s not like the mayor can really say no, can she?”
“Well, probably not,” Twilight admitted.
“So let’s do this thing!” Vinyl said. She flashed a wide, toothy smile.
Twilight pursed her lips, eyes darting back and forth. “I guess just a peek couldn’t hurt…”
As she struggled with the moral dilemma, her gaze landed on Octavia. The other mare was staring right at her with a hard look. Twilight swallowed, then straightened up.
“Sorry, Vinyl,” she said in a much more steady voice than before. “Maybe later, but only after I speak with Mayor Mare.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “The mansion isn’t going anywhere, right?”
Vinyl’s glasses might have concealed whatever expression flashed across her face, but they couldn’t hide the red that tinged her cheeks. “But we’re already here, and we’ve been planning it for so long now!”
“Today was the first I’d heard of this quaint little expedition,” Octavia said, fluffing her mane.
“Me and Rainbow Dash, I mean,” Vinyl said quickly. “C’mon, Dash, can’t you—” Her voice cut off as she stared at a spot behind Twilight, who turned to see what the problem was. Her eyes widened.
Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen.
“Rainbow?” Twilight’s head whipped around. “Rainbow Dash!”
Octavia scowled. “Now where did she get to?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said as she scanned the darkening sky to no avail. “Neither of you saw her fly away?”
“Of course we didn’t,” Octavia snapped. Vinyl didn’t say anything, mouth moving soundlessly. “Clearly if we had, we wouldn’t be so surprised, would we?”
Twilight craned her head over the fence, but there was no Rainbow Dash hiding on the other side. “Yes, you’re right. But ponies don’t just vanish, you know! She had to go somewhere!” Frenzied mumbling caught her attention, and she looked at Vinyl to see that she had finally started to speak.
“This is bad, this is bad,” she said over and over in an undertone. “This is bad.”
Octavia’s hard expression softened, and Twilight saw a tenderness in her eyes that she wouldn’t have ever expected to be there.
“Calm yourself.” She patted her fiance on the shoulder. “We’ll find—”
Vinyl slapped the hoof away, wiping away Octavia’s affectionate gaze and replacing it with an acidic glare. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Vinyl said. “We need to find her fast.”
Twilight stared at her for a moment, but before she could ask what Vinyl meant by that, a raspy scream ripped through the air. It came from the mansion. Twilight noticed that the front doors, which had been shut when she arrived, now hung wide open. She smacked a hoof against her forehead.
Wasn’t that door closed when we got here? How did I miss it opening?
Another cry rang out, and Twilight forced the thought into the back of her head. She didn’t have time to berate herself—the scream was one she recognized.
Rainbow Dash was in danger.
“Wait!” Vinyl yelled as Twilight cleared the fence in a single bound and tore up the hill.
Heart racing, she focused on the open doors. She couldn’t see anything inside past the looming darkness, but even the slightest hesitation might cost her friend dearly. She put her head down and pushed herself harder.
“Rainbow, I’m coming!” she shouted. Hoofsteps from close behind told her that someone was hot on her heels. She glanced back to see that Vinyl had caught up, with Octavia following behind at a much more reserved pace.
Twilight steeled herself moments before she passed beyond the threshold and into the thick gloom of the mansion. She could feel her hooves sink into a thick, soft carpet that in most other situations she would appreciate, but here just barely earned a footnote in her thoughts along with the cloying smell of mildew and the damp air.
“Rainbow Dash?” she called. A spot of light appeared at the tip of her horn, flaring brightly and casting a cold, ghostly light into the far corners of the entry hall as Vinyl cantered in to join her.
The room was large—larger than Twilight’s old library—and looking up, she could see a railed second-floor walkway, supported by wooden pillars as it moved along the three inner walls. A pair of wide stairways both led to the upper floor, meeting each other to make a half-circle. At the top of the stairs stood a pair of wooden doors, and Twilight noted two more doors down on her level on opposite sides of the room.
“Rainbow Dash!” she shouted again. Shadows danced around the pillars as she walked a few steps forward. “Rainbow, where are you?”
“Sshh!” Vinyl’s legs shook were shaking. “Don’t be so loud!”
Calm hoofsteps announced Octavia’s arrival right before she trod onto the carpet. She glanced at her panting, sweating fiancé, then pushed past to join Twilight.
“Any sign of our little runaway?” she asked.
Twilight’s eyelid twitched at the title. “I don’t know where she is. You haven’t heard any more screams, have you?”
“Seriously, don’t be so loud!” Vinyl whispered.
Octavia pinned her fiancé to the floor with a fierce scowl. “Hush, dear.” Vinyl squirmed beneath that awful glare. “The adults are talking.”
Twilight had her mouth open to call yet again when something slammed into her side. Both she and her attacker went rolling. Her back crashed against a wall and she drew a hoof back to kick out at whatever it was lying on her chest.
“Rawr!” Rainbow said, tapping her stunned friend on the nose.
“R-Rainbow?” Twilight blinked a few times.
Rainbow let out a barking laugh. “You should see the look on your face!” As she laughed again, Twilight shoved her off. “Aw, c’mon—don’t be like that.”
“Like what?” Twilight said with a snarl. “Scared because I think one of my best friends is dying, or furious because it was just a stupid prank?”
A few steps away, Vinyl dropped to the ground at her fiancé’s hooves. “Oh, geez,” she said, chest heaving with every labored breath. Twilight, admittedly no athlete herself, barely felt any fatigue from the short dash. She shook her head.
“It wasn’t just a prank,” Rainbow said, drawing Twilight’s attention back. “That part was just icing on the cake.”
“Then why?”
Rainbow smirked. “I got you in here, didn’t I?”
“You—” Twilight’s expression went blank. “What?”
“You weren’t gonna come with because of some stupid rule,” Rainbow said. She held out a hoof to help Twilight stand up. “But now that you broke it, it won’t hurt to just poke around a bit, right?”
Twilight bit her lip. “You did this so I would go treasure hunting with you.” Rainbow nodded. “In spite of how angry I am, that’s oddly touching.”
“I know, right?” Rainbow threw a leg around her friend’s shoulders. “I’m good at pretty much everything.”
“Uh huh.”
Vinyl had finally stood up and was in the middle of a conversation with Octavia—a heated conversation if the intensity in their voices was anything to go by. Twilight glanced at Rainbow.
“Fine, I’ll go along with this,” she said. “Just this once.” Rainbow’s victory leap was interrupted when Twilight added, “But tomorrow we’re having a very, very serious talk about getting what we want and what not to do to our friends. Okay?”
Rainbow stuck out her lower lip in a pout even Rarity would have approved of.
“Okay?” Twilight pressed.
“Okay…” Angel bunny grinned, clearly enjoying her mount’s discomfort.
“You girls ready to go?” Vinyl asked, trotting away from the still-fuming Octavia.
“I guess,” Twilight said. “Do you have a plan?”
Vinyl gave a cocky grin. “Yep! We split up into two groups and—”
“Wait.” Twilight snapped a hoof out to cut her off. “Split up? Haven’t you ever read a horror novel before? Splitting up is something lazy authors do to isolate the characters and force tension into an otherwise dull scene. Real ponies don’t do that because it makes no sense.”
“It totally makes sense,” Vinyl said, and again Twilight saw a frown mar her face for a split-second before the grin was firmly back in place. “There’s no reason for all four of us to bunch up.” She paused for effect. “Unless…”
Twilight gave her a flat stare. “Unless what?”
“Unless you’re scared,” Vinyl said.
“Scared.” Twilight snorted. “What is there to be scared of?”
“Ghosts?” Vinyl offered, glancing at Rainbow, who nodded. “Pirate ponies? Monsters? Ghouls? Spiders?”
The light from Twilight’s horn seemed to flicker ever so slightly. The wind outside began to blow in through the open door. She shook her head and trotted over to kick it shut. “I don’t know about you girls, but I’m not even sold on the treasure, let alone ghouls and ghosts.”
Rainbow groaned. “Just go with it, Twi—we’re wasting time.”
She was right about that much. Before she had shut the door, Twilight saw that the sun had finally dipped out of sight; twinkling stars already dotted the deep-blue sky, partially covered by clouds. At the thought of that dark sky, a yawn slipped its way past her lips.
“Fine,” she said reluctantly, thinking of her soft bed back home.
“Right.” Vinyl clapped her hooves together. “So we’ll split up, me ‘n Tavi and Dash ’n Twi—”
“No.” All eyes turned to Octavia, who had a deep scowl trained on her fiance.
"What was that, babe?” Vinyl asked.
“I said, no,” Octavia snapped. “As in, no—I refuse to pair up with you.”
Vinyl blinked a few times. “Why not?”
“Because I want to go with—” Octavia’s gaze wavered back and forth between Twilight and Rainbow until she sighed and pointed at the latter. “You. I will accompany you. Uh, colorful pony.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “No way! And I’ve got a name, you know!”
“And I’m sure it’s a delightful one,” Octavia said, patting the air between them.
“Ha! Such a joker, my Tavi,” Vinyl said as she pushed them apart. “But you and Dash can’t be a group—unless you can see in the dark.” She pointed at Twilight’s glowing horn, then produced a much dimmer light at the end of her own. “So, sorry, but it looks like that won’t work.”
Twilight knew with startling clarity what was going to happen. She knew it as Octavia’s head slowly turned her way, and she knew it as the condescending mare opened her mouth. Afterwards, Twilight realized that she should have snagged Rainbow and ran off to start combing through the mansion, but fatigue had dulled her normally razor-sharp intellect until it was merely butter knife-sharp.
“Then Her Royal Majesty shall be my partner,” Octavia said, mouth twisting into a crooked grin. Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief.
“Um.” Twilight raised a hoof. “Do I get a say in this?”
Octavia snorted. “No. Now let us get this over with.” She trotted to one of the doors and pushed it open.
Twilight glanced at Rainbow pleadingly, but the pegasus just grinned back with a shrug. “Sorry, Twi.”
“Loyalty, my hind leg,” Twilight grumbled, which got a laugh.
“You’re the Princess of Friendship, right? Go do your thing and make friends.” Rainbow turned to Vinyl, who had been at her quietest since Twilight had met her. “You ready?”
It took Vinyl a moment to glance up, and for what must have been the hundredth time that evening, Twilight wished she could see through those obnoxious glasses.
“Yeah,” Vinyl said after a few seconds. “Sure.”
A harrumph brought Twilight’s attention back to the frowning Octavia. “Royalty or not, I do not appreciate it when ponies keep me waiting.”
“Ugh! Fine!” Twilight stomped towards Octavia, who tapped an impatient hoof. “We’ll meet back here in an hour.” She shouldered her way through the door into a dark hallway.
Her horn threw its pale light a few yards ahead; beyond that, everything was shrouded in gloom. The wallpaper rotted and peeled away in sheets, clinging on in some places and hanging loose in others. A long carpet stretched down the hallway, probably to the very end. Twilight could smell mildew, likely coming from the rug. At some point it must have gotten wet, perhaps during a leak from the last time it rained.
“Finally,” Octavia said, letting her shoulders slump. The door clicked shut behind them. “Would you like the first nap, or shall I have at it?”
Twilight glanced back over her shoulder. “What?”
“Nap.” Octavia gave a fake snore. “You know, when you lie down, close your eyes, and sleep? I know princesses inhabit a higher plane of intellect than lowly ponies such as myself, but surely you must rest sometime.”
“I know what a nap is,” Twilight said dryly.
“Good then!” Octavia clapped her hooves. “How about you rouse me after, oh, say half an hour? I’m sure we can track down someplace nice and cozy to rest in a house this big.”
The darkness seemed to crowd in on her, but Twilight brushed the illusion away. “Octavia, both Rainbow and Vinyl are counting on us to help.” She started a slow pace down the corridor; soft hoofsteps from behind told her Octavia followed.
“But you said it yourself—the silly story probably isn’t real and the treasure likely doesn’t even exist.”
The light from Twilight’s spell crawled over a doorway set in the left wall; the door itself was nowhere to be found, but old, rusty hinges indicated that one had been there at some point in the past. She glanced inside to find an old washroom. A copper tub, long since turned green in the humid atmosphere, sat in the room's center. To the side was what Twilight guessed would have served as a sink for ponies to wash their hooves after using the chamber pot. Speaking of which, an ornate metal pail stood in the corner, and her mouth twisted into a grimace. Not even scientific curiosity could coax her into taking a look in that. Octavia, who likely hadn’t seen her stop, bumped into her from behind.
“Right,” Twilight said as she resumed the slow walk. “The treasure probably never was here, and if it was, somepony would have probably found it years ago.”
“Yes, exactly!” Octavia slid around Twilight and faced her head-on. Her violet eyes looked larger than normal in the pale light, which cast shadows over her face. “So why bother going to all this effort for something that isn’t real?”
Twilight gave a wide grin. “Because c’mon, even though this is a wild goose chase, don’t you think it’s at least a little neat?”
“It—” Octavia blinked. “Neat? What?”
“Take the washroom back there,” Twilight said, pointing around behind them. “This place didn’t have running water, so all the bathing, cooking, and—well, you know, the other stuff—they had to improvise.” She couldn’t help the surge of excitement that washed over her. “This mansion is the real treasure! It has so much to teach us, even just from its bathrooms! What’s a little fatigue compared to a tour of this historical repository?”
“Are you always like this?” Octavia asked, looking at Twilight askance.
“Like what?”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Geeky. Dorky. Nerdy. Bookish.” She paused, then added, “Annoying.”
“If by that you mean ‘well-learned’, then yes,” Twilight said. “I am. Now let’s go”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Octavia said with a sigh. However, before either mare could make a move, her eyelids fluttered and she staggered against the wall. “Ah.”
Twilight arched an eyebrow. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Octavia said in a suddenly distant voice. “Just a—just a little dizzy.
Over the next several minutes, the two made a thorough search of a few rooms—at least, Twilight searched while Octavia trailed behind her and yawned. Another washroom, a pair of near-empty guest rooms, and a broom closet all yielded no tangible treasures, until even Twilight began to lose her enthusiasm. The cloying smell of decay and mildew grew stronger and stronger the further they went until Twilight almost had to cover her nose. It certainly didn't help Octavia's dizzy spells, which left her reeling every few minutes. Twilight began to wonder if maybe she should let the other mare have that nap after all.
As if on cue, Octavia yawned again. “Are you sure you won’t be talked into a nap?”
“No,” Twilight said automatically, pushing open yet another door.
“I’ll sing you a lullaby,” Octavia said. “Ponies tell me I have a lovely… voice…” Twilight glanced back to see her once more leaning against the wall, eyes glazed over.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” she asked.
Octavia groaned, then straightened. “Just a dizzy spell. I’m sure it’s because of a lack of sleep.” She cleared her throat. “Is it just me, or did it get hot in here all of a sudden?”
“Hot? I don’t think so.” Twilight glanced back the way they came. “If you don’t feel well, we can go back to—”
“No,” Octavia said sharply.
That set Twilight back a step. “A minute ago, you asked to stop. Why the change?”
“Because I’m not some infirm old biddy who can’t handle a little dizzy spell,” Octavia answered. She stomped to the next door and kicked it open, then pushed in. “Would you mind bringing the lamp, Your Majesty?”
“Is something wrong?” Twilight craned her head around both to light the room and glance inside. Her eyes widened; bookshelves lined the walls, with a large, crooked chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Octavia chuckled. “Yes, I thought as much,” she said at Twilight’s vacant expression.
“So… many… books!” Twilight burst out, trotting by Octavia. Her head twisted around to take in the entirety of this veritable treasure trove. None of the myriad shelves were packed with books—some had none at all—but even so, there were more than she could count with a quick glance. Another door stood opposite the one they had come in through, crooked in its frame. Twilight ignored it to instead examine a few of the dusty volumes on an eye-level shelf. “ ‘Masterful Mechanisms for a Mischievous Mind’, ‘Here There Be Gold’, ‘Your Dragon’s Horde and You’... I guess Vinyl got one thing right about the story. The old baron did like hunting for and hiding treasure.”
A soft thump caught her attention; Octavia had dropped to her haunches on the thick carpet, breathing heavily.
“Why don’t you take a break while I look around?” Twilight suggested.
“Not necessary,” Octavia said in a thick voice. She pushed herself back up onto wobbly legs. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
Twilight flipped through a few more of the books with an expert hoof. “Vinyl did mention how you hadn’t slept well.”
“Again with that mare.” Octavia’s knees stopped shaking, and she reached up to straighten her bow tie, which had been knocked askew.
“Who?” Twilight asked, sparing her a second’s glance before returning her attention to the shelf. “Vinyl Scratch?”
“Of course I mean Vinyl Scratch!” Octavia stomped to the other side of the room, then retraced her steps. “And we were having such a lovely time until you brought her up, too.”
A little voice that sounded exactly like Rarity spoke up in Twilight’s head, telling her to push the topic, to scrounge for every last scrap of juicy gossip she could dig up and bring it all back to Carousel Boutique, where she could regale her friends with it over a cup of tea. Her lips curled into a wry grin.
“Sorry,” she said instead.
“I don’t want to hear about her,” Octavia went on anyway as she paced back and forth between the two doors. “I don’t even want to think about her, much less marry her, so what does that tell you, Miss Princess?”
“It tells me that anything I say is like walking into a minefield,” Twilight said in a dry voice.
“Just listen, then.”
Twilight glanced around to see that Octavia stared back with an odd look in her eyes, which no longer slanted aggressively like they had been all evening. She sighed inwardly.
“Of course I’ll listen to you,” she said. “But are you sure you want to talk to me about these things? Aren’t they kind of… personal?”
“I need to get this off my chest,” Octavia said, resuming her pacing, “and there are few ponies I’d want to tell. Right now, it’s either my colleagues—a dry bunch, by my estimation—or my mother, and I am in no mood these days for that conversation.”
“So instead you choose a random stranger you just met.”
“Call it a hunch,” Octavia answered without missing a beat. “Now, I’m sure you could tell that things aren’t exactly sunshine and rainbows between me and my loving fiancé.” The last few words dripped with sarcasm.
Twilight wanted to roll her eyes and scoff, but managed to keep herself in check. “It was fairly obvious, yes.”
“Well, over the past few months, it has become apparent to me that Vinyl Scratch is not the mare I fell in love with.” Again, Octavia reached up to straighten her bow tie with a shaking hoof. “She seemed so… roguish, so delightfully uncouth when we met. It enchanted me, and I was still charmed when she asked me to marry her just a few weeks after that.”
This feels like a bad romance novel, Twilight thought as she sat down.
“But then I learned how possessive she could be, how childish she could become when she didn’t get her way. That rebellious attitude I had found so endearing was skin-deep, a result of how selfish she is.” Octavia gave a dramatic sigh, and once again Twilight was reminded of Rarity. “Of course I tried to overlook these issues. Everypony has their issues, even one as kind and sophisticated as myself.”
“Of course.” This time Twilight did roll her eyes.
Thankfully for her, Octavia didn’t notice. “I do not believe that she loves me so much as she simply wants me and my resources. That mare was nearly penniless when I first met her, but she has since become accustomed to a life of relative luxury. Neither my interests nor my worries matter to her—all that concerns her is what she can get from me. She wants me to fall in line with what she says, and after all this time, I have had enough. Tomorrow I plan to call off our engagement.”
“Tomorrow?” Twilight took a moment to sort out her thoughts before speaking. “That’s a fairly big decision,” she said slowly. “Have you tried to speak with Vinyl about this?”
“Do you think me so daft as to not try?” Octavia said, pounding a hoof against the floor. “I have tried numerous times to resolve these issues with her. I have tried talking to her. I have tried getting her friends to talk to her. I have tried to arrange sessions for the two of us with a therapist. She is simply not interested in having a meaningful relationship.”
“But does she have any idea that you plan to cancel your wedding?”
“I certainly have mentioned it,” Octavia said. “And we’ve been sleeping separately for more than a week, so she must suspect something.”
Twilight had her mouth open to speak further when the dull clap of hooves on wood sounded from above. The ceiling creaked, showering the two mares with particles of dust. She gasped at the sudden noise, then mentally slapped herself for being startled so easily.
“Do you suppose that’s them?” Octavia asked, staring up.
Twilight’s heart pounded in her chest. “Rainbow and Vinyl? Probably.”
“Ah.” Octavia yawned loudly. “Your Majesty, I honestly appreciate you hearing me out. Nopony likes to listen to another pony’s love troubles.”
“Some do,” Twilight said with a shrug.
Octavia snorted, then realized what she had done and covered her muzzle. “True enough, I suppose. Would you like to continue on?”
“Sure.”
Twilight trotted back out the door and into the hallway. However, after only a few steps, her light spell revealed that she had come to the end. One final door stood in her way to explore. She reached out and jiggled the handle, then frowned. It was locked.
“This is the first locked door we’ve run into.” She turned to address Octavia. “What do you think might be in—” The words died in her throat. The hallway behind her was completely empty.
Octavia had disappeared.
Author's Note
So this is happening.
Rainbow Dash was bored.
“Viiiinyyyyl.” All alone and draped upside-down across a padded chair, she whined to nobody in particular. “Where are you?”
Beside a crooked chandelier, a dull golden blob of light shone down from the ceiling above the dining room’s long, wooden table. Hanging out with Twilight had spoiled Rainbow when it came to unicorn magic—where Twilight could have kept the entire room lit without blinking an eye, the spell Vinyl had left in her absence barely kept the room’s center lit enough to see, let alone the perimeters and corners. Liquid shadows oozed in from all sides like a roiling mass of water throwing itself against a flimsy, quivering wall.
After a moment of staring into the inky darkness, Rainbow swallowed and glanced away. Her attention settled on the table. A dusty white cloth covered the entire thing, and she could imagine Rarity nattering over how whoever had lived here last should feel the deepest of shame for ever letting such a thing happen.
She suddenly groaned and shook her head. Being sensitive and considerate was fine and all, but actually seeing things from Rarity’s perspective was where Rainbow drew the line. She was too cool for that.
Without sitting up, her head turned towards the room’s other occupant, Angel, who had spent the last few minutes slowly sidling towards a dark corner of the room. “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”
Ears flat, Angel glared back over his shoulder.
“You know any games we could play?” Rainbow went on, ignoring his acidic stare. “Tic-tac-toe? I spy?”
The glare continued.
“Maybe any idea where the treasure is?”
Angel’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, me neither,” she said.
Aside from the long table and the chairs around it, the dining room didn’t have much in the way of places where someone might hide their treasure. Rainbow had already looked behind all the faded portraits of important-looking ponies to no avail, and Angel’s journey under the table came up with similar results. She briefly considered pulling up the carpet to see if a trapdoor lay beneath, but quickly discarded that plan. That would take effort.
Angel had once more began to slowly shuffle into the shadows when a groan from Rainbow brought him to a halt.
“When’s she coming back?” she said in a loud voice. “It’s been, like, ten minutes!”
Angel scowled and sat down.
“I mean, I’m all for finding this dumb treasure as fast as we can, but c’mon!” Arching her chest, she stretched all four of her legs. “This is a team effort, right?”
A gust of wind rattled the windows. She almost jumped, barely managing to rein herself in. That wind was odd, though—she didn’t remember any weather like that on the forecast, just clear skies, warm temperatures, and a very slight breeze. Perhaps a rogue front had slipped under her team’s radar. She shrugged and returned her attention to Angel Bunny.
Just in time to see his fluffy white tail vanish around the doorway’s cusp and into the pitch-black hallway.
“Hey!” Rainbow cried as she tried to sit up but instead only managed to slide off of the chair and land on her back. Her legs tangled with each other, and it took her a few seconds before she managed to regain her footing. “Hey, rabbit! Get back here!”
She darted after him, then skidded to a halt right at the doorway, which marked the end of her light and the beginning of the deep shadows. Her head craned around, trying to see into the darkness, but it was hopeless.
“Yo! Bad bunny!” she shouted. “Bad! We’re supposed to look after you!”
Before she could decide whether or not to brave the shadowy corridor, something crashed against one of the windows. Rainbow did jump this time, spinning around. All thoughts of Angel Bunny were blown from the front of her mind, and she instead focused on the window. The heavy curtains, partially moth-eaten yet still functional, prevented her from seeing anything outside. Another powerful gust shook the glass.
“Probably just the wind,” Rainbow muttered, swallowing. “Just the wind.”
Despite her attempts to reassure herself, her heart was pounding. She slowly put one hoof in front of the other, then did so again, then again. Her legs carried her to the window, which continued to rattle.
“The wind,” she said again, reaching out to slide the curtain away. Then, another heart-stopping clatter rang out from the window, and she fell backwards. If before her heart had pounded, now it hammered in her ears, almost making her head throb with every beat.
She knew she should just sit there and ignore it, or even walk away and take her chances in the darkness. Every last instinct she possessed told her that, whatever she did, she should not look to see what might be outside. Perhaps it was a sort of morbid curiosity, then, that led her to reach out and tug the drapes aside. Her trembling eyes gazed out.
Nothing.
“Huh.” Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief as the crushing weight that had settled on her back sloughed away. “Wow. It really was the wind.” She stepped forward to glance out for a better look. “Not like I was scared or any—
The window shattered inward as something crashed into it at full speed.
A shriek tore unbidden from her mouth, and before whatever had broken in could so much as think of tearing her to pieces with its no-doubt long, sharp claws, she turned and galloped out of the room. She didn’t even hesitate to plunge herself into the darkness.
And that was how Rainbow Dash went from bored to hopelessly lost.
Twilight gawked at the corridor, which had a notable lack of other ponies.
“Octavia?” she called, brow furrowed.
A quick trot took her back the way she had come, and seconds later her pale light slid over the door to the small library where she had last seen Octavia. She reached out towards the door handle when she came to a realization that made her heart skip a beat—the door was shut.
And something other than her had shut it.
Shivers danced down Twilight’s spine as she pulled her hoof away. Would Octavia have closed the door? If she wanted privacy she could have simply asked instead of letting Twilight go on without her. Twilight briefly considered the possibility of a prank, then shook her head; something told her that Octavia wasn’t the pranking type.
But Twilight hadn’t shut the door, so if Octavia wasn’t responsible, then… who was? Doors didn’t close themselves, after all.
She scowled and shook her head. The late-night study session from the previous day must have affected her more than she realized. Of course Octavia had shut the door for some reason, or maybe Twilight had done it herself out of habit without even noticing. And to think she had almost considered the possibility of a gho—
Without hesitation, she jerked the handle down and threw the door open. Her light cascaded into the room, showing her that little had changed in the few minutes she had been gone. That is, little except for the fact that there was no Octavia in sight, and the room’s other door on the far wall hung wide open.
All by herself and confronted by a conundrum that didn’t particularly make a whole lot of sense, Twilight felt a cold bead of sweat roll down her forehead. “Octavia?” she said, only partially successful in keeping the tremor from her voice.
The light from her spell only fell a few inches into the next room, almost as though the darkness was pushing back against it. She knew that Octavia must have left through that door—where else could she have gone?—but the thought of following after her made the hairs on Twilight’s back stand up. Some little voice, a survival instinct that all living beings possess to some degree, whispered to her that she should turn away, that she should walk back into the hallway and get out of the mansion as soon as possible.
After a moment’s inaction, she quashed the voice into silence.
“Octavia?” Twilight called.
She pushed through the door and into a small sitting room, where her nose immediately wrinkled; something in this new room reeked, so much so that it felt like she had run into a wall of stench. A glance showed her exactly what—a deer lying in the corner with a chunk of meat missing out of its side. Flies buzzed over the poor animal’s corpse.
For a moment, Twilight lost her focus and simply stared. Regardless of whether or not the wound was responsible for killing this animal, the fact remained that something had bit into its flank. What that something was, though, she couldn’t say. A bear, maybe? The thought of running into a bear in the dark mansion sent a shiver down her spine. However, before she could speculate further, a noise like hooves stepping on hardwood came through a doorway across the room, followed by more. Someone in the next room was walking about.
“Octavia!” Twilight cantered over and poked her head through the frame. “Is that you?”
She found herself in another short hallway, this one with two plain wooden doors on either side, just in time to see the door across from her close. For a moment she wondered if it had just been a trick of her light playing across the wall, but then the loud click of a deadbolt resounded loudly in the small space and proved that someone was indeed trying to get away from her.
And Twilight wanted to know why.
“Hey, who is that?” she shouted, trotting up to the door and knocking. Nobody answered. “If that’s you, Octavia, then please just tell me what’s wrong.” Still no answer.
An irritated sigh slipped past her lips. Normally she would just teleport to the other side, but she had no idea what might be sitting over there. Celestia had told her a few stories about unicorns who ended up teleporting literally into a chair, or, in one grisly case, becoming trapped inside a thick stone wall. But the only other option was to force the door open. A close inspection told her nothing about the wood’s state; it might be weak from age, or it might be as strong as the day it was carved. She sighed again.
“Sorry,” she muttered to the house as she turned around.
Her hind legs lashed out in a powerful kick that slammed into the door and sent a deafening crash echoing through the wing. The door blew open, and Twilight wasted no time in running through. She tried to ignore the expected surge of guilt she felt from damaging such an old door, a task made easier at the sight of the shadowy figure who darted out of the perimeter of her light.
“Who are you?” Twilight shouted breathlessly as she galloped into the room, which might have served as a kitchen back in the mansion’s glory days. She couldn’t spare a moment to appreciate it, though, as her quarry had already slipped through yet another door.
She followed, then skidded and jumped backwards into the kitchen just in time to avoid a large cabinet that came crashing down in front of her. Porcelain and glass shattered, filling the air with a brittle tinkling sound.
“Please,” someone said from the darkness ahead. Twilight squinted; she could just barely see a pony’s silhouette on the other side of the cabinet, but her spell didn’t carry far enough to give any other details. The strangled, choked voice didn’t sound like anyone she knew. She couldn’t even tell if it belonged to a mare or stallion, assuming they were even a pony. “Get away!”
Twilight hopped over the fallen cabinet into yet another hallway. The fleeing pony, still not close enough for her spell to clearly illuminate, galloped away. She bounded off in pursuit.
“Octavia, is that you?” she managed to shout. The distance between them shrunk, and she saw that the fleeing figure wore a cloak. Its body was bulky and misshapen, and its posture was stilted and lurching, almost like it wasn’t used to running.
“You have to stay away,” the figure yelled back, and Twilight recognized it as a mare’s voice. “Please, Twilight, just—just go!”
Before she could say anything else, the mare dashed sideways into another room. The door closed behind her, and Twilight heard another deadbolt slide into place. She skidded to a halt and pounded her hoof against the smooth wood.
“Open up! I don’t care what happened—this is ridiculous!” She hit the door a few more times. “Just tell me the problem and we’ll fix it, I promise.”
An agonized moan seeped out from the room. “You don’t understand,” Octavia said. “I’m—something’s wrong. I’m changing!” She cried again, a noise that sounded like a cross between a shriek and a snarl. “Get away from me so I don’t—”
One final cry rang out, then silence.
“Octavia?” Twilight put her ear against the door. “Hey, say something.” When nobody answered, she turned around to kick the door open just like she had before. She leaned forward onto her forelegs—
—right as the door exploded outwards underneath the weight of something massive. Twilight fell forehead-first into a closed door across the hallway. Her horn crashed against the door handle in an impact that made every nerve in her face scream out in agony, and for a moment she lost her concentration along with the illumination spell. She staggered to her hooves and even managed to take a few steps back down the hallway before she collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily. The entire world spun around her in the near-complete darkness. A shaking leg came up to feel her forehead, only for her to snatch her hoof away when it touched a particularly sensitive spot on her horn. A tiny piece of the keratin had been chipped away.
As Twilight groaned and fought to regain her senses, a loud snuffling noise came from the darkness. She could hear wood splintering and cracking beneath someone’s hooves, but without her spell, she couldn’t see exactly what had barreled out of the room.
Again, the voice of her survival instincts spoke up. Something huge had nearly crushed her flat, and now it sniffed around, maybe for prey. The voice told her to run, to run and never look back until she stood someplace far, far away.
The repeated sniffs grew louder, as though whatever creature shambled about in the darkness wanted to pick out a particular scent but was having trouble. Briefly Twilight considered going back the way she had come and regrouping, but this idea was brushed away as soon as it came. Octavia needed her, and Twilight couldn’t just run away from that. Taking a deep breath and gulping loudly, she tried to reproduce her light spell. Although her horn sputtered in protest and started to throb, after a moment the bead of light once more coalesced at the tip and cast a flickering light upon her immediate surroundings. The creature cried out, and she finally got a good look at the thing that had almost flattened her.
She immediately wished she had run away while she had the chance.
I told you so, the voice whispered much more smugly than it had a right to.
Like a pony it stood on four legs, but the obvious similarities ended there. A stubby fin flapped about errantly partway along its barrel-like body, with another probably on the other side out of view. Its tail, sweeping back into a point, whipped back and forth almost as though it was trying to propel its owner through the water, and a dorsal fin on the creature’s back had a wicked curve of its own.
However, Twilight’s attention was focused entirely on the monster’s triangular head jutting forward, the beady eye blinking in the light of her spell, and the cavernous mouth filled with rows and rows of jagged yellow teeth, each more than capable of shredding a pony’s flesh. Her gaze traced a line from the tip of its lower lip, back towards the corner of its mouth, and then up to a white cloth band that circled the thing’s neck.
A white band holding a very familiar pink bowtie in place.
Maybe her fatigue had finally started to play tricks on her, or maybe she hadn’t fully recovered from hitting her head, but for some reason that would forever elude her, Twilight’s first coherent thought was to wonder if bowties were in that season, and to speculate at whether or not Rarity would like one for her birthday. Her next thought was that the tie matched quite well with the beast’s silken black mane that flowed down its back, rippling mesmerically in the light with every jerking movement.
Then everything snapped into place in a moment of gut-wrenching clarity. The bowtie, the black mane, Octavia’s fainting spells and subsequent flight—the puzzle snapped together. Twilight’s eyes widened as she realized just what this monster was—or rather, who it was. All of a sudden, her warm, soft bed back home began to look a lot more appealing.
Octavia?” she whimpered, ears lying down flat against her head. The fish-beast rounded on her upon hearing the name and snarled. “Octavia, is that you?”
The monster took a step towards her; every instinct told her to run, but her legs were frozen. It took another step, and then a second, and within seconds it loomed over her. Its breath reeked of rotten meat, whipping her mane around with every exhalation. Up close she could see that the bow-tie was nearly torn in some places from having stretched so far, and the thing’s mane was slick with something—water, she hoped.
The Octavia-thing—this was technically Octavia, Twilight’s racing mind decided—took a whiff of the terrified mare in front of it. Its nostrils flared, then it turned to get a closer look. Maybe it was just the numbing terror, but Twilight imagined that she could see some sort of intelligence in the thing’s pupil-less eyes.
“Octavia,” she breathed. At the sound, the shark twitched. It pivoted to look at her from the other side of its triangular head. “Can you understand me? Do you remember me?”
It didn’t say anything or make any indication that the words meant anything to it, but it did take a step away so that it didn’t tower over her quite so much.
“You’re still in there, aren’t—”
The shark’s flaring nostrils were Twilight’s only warning before it sneezed, showering her with warm mucus. She let slip a high-pitched squeak that would have left Fluttershy green with timid envy, and in response, the monster belted out a deafening roar that would have left Fluttershy dead from sheer terror.
Instead of taking that option, Twilight chose to spin around and dart back the way she had come. Her heartbeat had begun to pound in her ears, just barely slower than the tempo of her hoofsteps. The obsessive-compulsive part of her mind considered slowing the pace so both would fall into perfect rhythm when another roar brought her crashing right back to reality. She shook her head, then darted around a door that she thought would lead back the way she had come and slammed it shut behind her.
The room was long and narrow, with a row of moldy coats and rotting coat-hangers hanging on either side. An archway on the other end gaped wide open. It took her beset mind a few seconds to realize that she had gone through the wrong door.
“Bad, bad, bad,” she mumbled, thoughts whirling.
Then her face lit up, and she nearly laughed. All she had to do was teleport to safety, then find Rainbow and Vinyl and regroup. She took a wide-legged stance and drew the magic like she always had, but before she even had a chance to shape it into any sort of meaningful spell, a searing stripe of agony lanced across her skull, emanating from the horn’s base.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the ground—she hadn’t even realized that she had fallen—and her illumination spell had once more been lost.
“Small spells,” Twilight mumbled with a groan, pushing herself back up. She collected the magic to again light up the room, careful this time to make sure her injured horn could handle the strain. With that accomplished, she turned her mind towards escape.
Would it be worth it to go out into the hallway and try again to find her way back to a familiar path? Was the monster still out there? Maybe it was worth a peek. She had just turned around and reached for the door handle when a distant rumbling made her pause. From beyond the door, loud thumps approached, the sound of heavy hoofsteps making the floorboards creak and shaking the walls. The noises came to a sudden stop right outside the door, and she heard something grunt loudly.
Backing away, Twilight gulped. The idea of going back no longer enticed her, not with a massive, hungry, fish-looking Octavia ready to burst into the room. Briefly,she considered hiding in behind the coats. Maybe the reek of decaying cloth would throw off the thing’s sense of smell, and if she released the light spell, it wouldn’t be able to see her. Then, she could wait for it to wander off before backtracking to find Rainbow and Vinyl. But what if the thing could smell her amidst the mold? The thought of trapping herself and then relying on assumptions left a sour taste in her mouth.
Something sniffled against the crack underneath the door. Whatever Twilight did, she had to make up her mind—the longer she waited, the longer the monster had to break in. As though responding to that thought, the door shook beneath a massive blow, making her leap back. Her heart, which had begun to slow a bit, once more resumed its relentless pounding. The door shook again, and Twilight made up her mind.
She spun and galloped towards the archway.
Just as she passed through, a loud crash from behind told her that she had chosen just in time. She glanced back to see the shark-Octavia shaking splinters out of its mane before letting loose another chilling scream and charging forward.
Twilight barely had time to register the room's contents—a small lounge with a few dusty bottles of liquor adorning the shelves—before she shot towards another door. The monster barreled into the room behind her right as she slammed the door shut and galloped across this new room, which, judging by the four dusty, round tables, probably used to be a dining area. Another crunching noise made her wince, and she realized that this time the door hadn’t even slowed the beast. She put her head down and pushed herself to run faster.
Through a sitting room, down a short hallway, into a bedroom, through a shared bathroom—she wasn’t even stopping to think anymore about the rooms that she passed through. All that mattered to her was the thing that had once been Octavia, always close behind, flattening any obstacle Twilight threw in its way. Closed doors, flipped tables, and even at one point an old set of glass marbles—it barreled through everything unfortunate enough to get in its way, all the while gaining on its quarry inch by horrifying inch.
As the chase went on, Twilight found herself tiring more quickly than she cared to admit. Her breathing came faster and more labored, and her hooves began to feel like she was wearing lead horse-shoes. The light spell that she had maintained for so long without so much as a flicker started to waver and fade along with her energy. Unfortunately, shark-Octavia didn’t seem to have the same problem; it kept up its relentless pace without faltering. The distance between them closed at an ever increasing rate. When she glanced back over her shoulder, she could see its gaping mouth chomping at the air in anticipation for the upcoming meal.
A sudden realization hit Twilight as she rounded a corner and forced her quickly tiring legs to carry her down yet another hallway. If things carried on like they were, she would end up ripped to pieces when the monster finally caught up to her. She needed to do something to throw it off, and she needed to do it soon. Then an idea hit her. All she needed was another room to appear.
Within seconds she saw a pair of double doors thrown wide open on her left; she hurried through without a second thought. Then, before shark-Octavia had a chance to come roaring in after her, she spread her wings and, with a few powerful strokes, lifted herself right above the entrance. Hovering was still difficult for her, but at least the muscles she used to fly were still fresh after the madcap dash through the mansion. She released the magic that fueled the light on the end of her horn; absolute darkness descended over her as her eyes struggled to adjust to the change, but she had no other real choice. The thought of trying to sneak behind the monster only to be foiled by her own magic almost made Twilight chuckle. Almost.
Pounding hoofsteps beneath her heralded the monster’s entry as it blew into the room and skidded to a stop. She could almost see its confusion in the near-darkness. However, that confusion would only last for a moment until it smelled around and found her. Before that could happen, Twilight descended on silent wings, then drifted back out into the hallway. She thanked whoever had built this place for making these double doors wide enough for her to pass through without clipping her wings on the frame.
Having lost its attention, Twilight half-flew and half-glided down the hallway, back the way she had come. Staying airborne in such tight quarters wasn't easy and quickly burned through what little energy she had left, but she couldn't land and risk the monster hearing her hoofsteps. Hopefully it would just stay put in the room back there until long after she hunted down Rainbow and Vinyl; maybe, if they all put their heads together, they could figure out just what was going on.
Then her head smashed into something hanging from the ceiling and sent a loud, metallic clattering ringing through the air. While the darkness meant the monster couldn’t see her, it also meant that she couldn’t see the chandelier that she had blundered into. Her horn screamed in protest from the unintentional impact, and her flapping wings faltered. She landed on shaky hooves as a loud roar from behind told her that her cover was blown. Reigniting the blazing light on the end of her horn, she spotted an open door and slipped in, hopefully before shark-Octavia could see anything. The door shut with a soft click behind her a second later.
No need for sneaking now, Twilight thought, glancing over her shoulder.
A dim, flickering flare burst forth from her horn, and she glanced around—not that there was much to glance at. Her forehooves had fallen inches short of sending her tumbling down the dusty, wooden stairwell before her. The walls pressed in on either side as she stared into the gaping maw that awaited her below. She hesitated; pursued by a hungry pony-turned-monster, the last thing she wanted was to get lost, or—even worse—trapped beneath the ground.
Heavy hoofsteps and familiar grunting from right outside the door sent shivers skittering down her spine, reminding her that she didn’t have much in the way of alternatives. Again she tried to focus her magic enough to teleport herself to safety, and again her forehead cried out in agony. She collapsed against the wall and rubbed the base of her horn; it felt as though her skull had been stabbed, cracked, split open to expose its steaming contents to the still, dry air. Twilight shuddered at the imagery.
“Great,” she muttered as the once-Octavia monster bumped up against the door. Heaving a weary sigh, she put her best hoof forward and began her descent into the dark unknown.
If an average, everyday pony found herself wandering aimlessly through a supposedly haunted manor with no idea where she was or where she should be going, she would likely come to the conclusion that she was lost. Armed with that knowledge, she could then either try to backtrack to a more familiar location or stay put until someone found her, amongst a number of other solutions. An average, everyday pony would probably not press forward with the assumption that everything would turn out alright in the end.
Rainbow Dash was not an average, everyday pony. Besides, she wasn’t even lost—only losers got lost, and she was certainly no loser. She just didn’t quite know where she was. Or where she was going. Or how to get back to her friends.
She gave her head a hard shake—definitely not lost.
The door creaked open before her, and she crept into what she felt must have been the hundredth hallway. Shaking eyes, just barely able to see in the near-darkness, darted down one side of the hall, then the other in search of anything waiting for her in the shadows.
She yelped and jumped when the walls shook; over the past few minutes, the wind had picked up to the point where she could hear it anywhere in the house, not just in a room with windows. Her heart felt like it wanted to burst out of her chest from how hard it was pounding. Suddenly, she smacked herself across the face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said to the empty hall. “It should take more than darkness and a bit of wind to scare Rainbow Dash!”
The only answer was the howling wind, keening its mournful song.
“And a dumb haunted house,” she added begrudgingly.
Suddenly a loud thump from behind brought her spinning around. It had sounded like something falling onto a wooden floor.
Rainbow gulped. “Hello?” she said. Her voice cracked on the second syllable—she was thirsty, of course—and she cleared her throat. “Vinyl? Twilight?”
When no answer came forth, she shuffled in the direction the sound had come from. Her hooves slid silently over the thick carpet, and she fought to bring her breathing under control. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid at all.
A dark doorway that she could barely see loomed to her right. She could vaguely make out some dark shapes inside—furniture, probably—but still nothing specific. Curiosity warred with not-fear as she stood there, knees quaking.
“Twilight?” she whispered. “Rabbit?”
Suddenly, everything was enveloped in pure-white light; through a now-visible window, she saw a forked bolt of lightning arc through the sky. In that instant, she could make out a large bedroom before her, with a bed against the far wall and a wardrobe to the right. Then the light winked out and she was once more left in the darkness, sparks dancing in her eyes.
She grunted, then screamed when thunder cracked the sky apart, shaking the house more fiercely than the wind ever had. By the time the rumbling died down, Rainbow found herself huddled against the wall.
Blood pounded in her ears, seemingly in contest with her heart-beats to see which one could pulse more loudly only to find themselves easily outdone by her chattering teeth.
“Should’ve gone with Twilight,” she mumbled.
Another flare of lightning filled the house, and this time she made out more details—the torn curtains haphazardly flung across the windows but failing to cover much at all; the mattress which lay half-on the bed, with the other half hanging over the edge; the foal’s crib with railings only on one side.
And the round goblet lying in the middle of the floor, still rolling back and forth from when it had fallen. The lightning vanished, but the image remained branded on her eyes.
Rainbow’s heart stopped beating entirely for a full second before it resumed its race towards the end of her life. Had the goblet truly been moving? If so, who had knocked it over? She and her friends were the only ones in the manor, and if it had been one of them, they would have answered her call earlier.
“Which means nopony knocked anything over and that dumb cup’s been sitting there forever since the beginning of time not moving forever,” she concluded. After saying the words out loud, she felt relief blossom in her chest, only for it to immediately wither as a thunderclap crashed down over her.
A third bolt of lightning flashed, and Rainbow gasped. The goblet was right in front of her. Her hooves had carried her over to it without her even realizing. Up close, she could make out the ornate jewels set into the rim. She reached out to take it.
Something fell on her shoulder. “Hey, kid, what are you—”
She didn’t hear a word of it. With a wordless shriek, she bucked out with her hind legs. Her hoof connected with something solid, but instead of waiting to see what, she tore out of the room and down the hallway.
Not that she was scared or anything; she just wanted to be not-scared somewhere else..
The cool, damp air made Twilight shiver as she made her way down the stairs. The walls had been smooth and wooden when she began her descent, but along the way they had transitioned into roughly hewn rounded stone right about the same time the tunnel had started twisting and turning instead of continuing in a straight line. As the staircase led further into the depths, the air had grown damper and damper until finally condensation began to form a slick sheen on every surface. More than once Twilight’s hoof had slipped, almost sending her skidding the rest of the way down on her chin.
She came to another bend in the tunnel and glanced behind her. The pale, flickering light from her horn glared so harshly on the slimy walls that she had to squint in order to see. How many stairs she walked down so far? At least a hundred, but probably more. She wished she had been counting the whole time, but she hadn’t thought this would lead to anything other than a simple basement. Instead, she found herself on the stairway to the center of Equestria itself.
Her ears swiveled around as discordant, snarling echoes crashed down around her from back up the stairs, and she wasted no time in resuming her descent, wings spread just enough to help her balance.
“I should’ve just gone home,” she muttered, pulse quickening. “But nooo, Rainbow Dash had to eep!” The yelp came from her forehoof slipping to the side as she put her weight on it. Only frantic scrabbling with her other legs kept her from falling forward.
Ahead, the tunnel twisted left and she turned with it, only to come to an immediate halt. Her eyes grew as wide as saucers. She had finally reached the bottom of the stairway, where the tunnel leveled out.
Too bad it was also flooded.
Turgid brown water lapped at Twilight’s hooves; it felt disturbingly warm, considering the air temperature. At least she finally knew why the air was so moist.
Although the walls on the way down were rounded—likely because of the effort required to make them perfectly flat, Twilight postulated—they had been more meticulously hewn down here at the bottom, such that the tunnel almost looked like a proper hallway. The ceiling was still fairly rough and uneven, but at least it didn’t look ready to collapse on her. Bottle racks lined the walls on either side, and Twilight could see in the quavering light that at least half of the spaces were still occupied.
“A wine cellar,” she said to herself, grinning as she took the sight in. “It has to be deep to keep the temperature low.”
The tunnel continued forward for a few dozen yards before twisting to the right and out of sight. She wondered how far it actually went.
A thunderous roar from behind made her jump, reminding her that she didn’t have the luxury of indulging her inner scholar. The monster probably still had a long way to go before it caught up, but that last bellow had sounded clearer than the ones before. It was gaining ground.
Twilight eyed the water; it probably wasn’t so deep that she couldn’t wade through it. A full four or five feet separated the water’s surface from the ceiling, which meant it would likely come up to her belly at the most. The small lake had a vivid brown color in her spell’s illumination, one that would have given even Applejack pause before hopping in. Twilight noticed a few bits of debris drifting around lazily. In particular, a large board knocked up against the bottle rack on the tunnel’s right side. She would have to be careful not to run into any hidden obstacles or step on something sharp underneath the water where she couldn’t see it. It wasn’t a sure thing that an open wound would get infected, but considering how dirty the water was, she didn’t want to chance it.
Once more her head twisted around to stare back up the stairs, only to snap forward as a splashing noise echoed in the tight space. Ripples fanned out from a point right by the tunnel’s bend, and the wooden board now rocked as though something had just bumped into it.
“Hello?” she called in an undertone, hoping that Rainbow or Vinyl would poke their head around the corner. “Is somepony there?”
Nobody answered.
She glanced up at the ceiling; it looked like parts of it had crumbled in the time since it had been hewn however many years ago. Maybe the splash had just been a bit of stone dropping into the water while her attention was focused in a different direction. Or maybe it was an animal that had somehow made its home down here.
After a moment’s thought, Twilight frowned. The mansion was in a normal stretch of woods, which should have normal woodland critters as opposed to the far more intimidating specimens found in the Everfree. The most dangerous creatures Twilight had to worry about were wolves, bears, and maybe even a mountain lion, none of which would hide underwater in an attempt to ambush her.
Then again, never in her wildest dreams would she have predicted she would be on the run from a pony-turned-shark, so her conclusion had to be swallowed with a very large grain of salt.
Yet another snarling roar came down, and Twilight realized she was out of time for deliberation. She could push on into the cloudy water and take her chances with whatever might live in its murky depths, or she could wait for the monster to catch up and kill her for certain. Without a second thought, she leapt forward, wincing as she sank almost up to her neck before finally touching the floor. It was deeper than she had imagined, but there was no going back. She could hear snuffling, which meant that her pursuer was close. The spell lighting the hallway winked out with a sputter, and she waded on. Her wings spread out to touch the walls and keep her from running into anything when the tunnel turned.
After the first bend right, the path hooked right again almost immediately, then continued straight. Every step she took stretched her nerves to their limits; she couldn’t afford to take the time needed to test the ground before moving forward and constantly expected to crash into something blocking her way.
A sharp cough came from behind, followed by loud splashing. The shark had moved into the water, a fact that made Twilight want to hurry.
Then she froze solid as something slimy brushed up against her left leg.
She strained her senses in an effort to hear or see something, but it did her no good. All was silent aside from her raspy breathing and the splashing, which clearly was coming closer. She gulped. Maybe it had just been a bit of debris. Maybe she could just keep going and nothing would attack her. She took a hesitant step forward.
That same something slid alongside her right flank as it passed by. She wasn’t alone.
Unfortunately, she also had very few choices to act upon. With her horn injured, she couldn’t do anything more than light everything up and maybe lift light objects, so magic was out. That left the same two options as before—move forward and probably get attacked and eaten, or stay still and definitely get attacked and eaten. She gulped indecisively.
A moment later, the choice was taken out of her hooves when something long and supple wrapped around her foreleg.
“What—“
Whatever she had been about to say turned into a yelp; she found herself hurtling down into the water, which barely had time to crash over her head before the thing holding her leg pulled her down the hallway at an alarming speed. It whipped her left around a corner, then right along a bend, and then left again; after the tenth turn, Twilight lost track of what direction she was going in and instead focused on getting free. Her free legs reached out to grab hold of something—anything, really—but whenever they found anything even remotely promising, they were yanked free by her abductor.
She punched at the thing holding her; its spongy flesh gave under her hoof, so she struck again and again. There was no indication whether or not she had hurt it at all, but at least it felt like she was doing something useful. She lashed out over and over until her leg began to ache, and then smacked the soft limb a few more times for good measure. Suddenly it stopped dragging her and slithered around both her forelegs, pinning them together before resuming the madcap race through the flooded tunnels.
Twilight’s lungs began to sear; she needed air, and whatever this thing was, it wasn’t giving her a chance to breathe. Her thoughts grew fuzzy as she desperately fought to breach the water’s surface, hind legs flailing frantically in all directions. At that point she had no idea which was up or down.
Then, just as she began to realize she was about to die, the tentacle's grip disappeared and her momentum slowed. Her scrabbling hooves found the ground, and she pushed up as hard as she could. Her head burst out of the water into the chill air, which she gulped at hungrily. None of the fancy meals she had eaten during her tenure as a princess even came close to how delicious the briny-smelling air tasted in that moment. Her lungs burned with every breathe, telling her that she hadn’t died.
A full minute passed before her fuzzy thoughts returned to reality, and she realized what, exactly had just happened. She couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of water lapping up against the walls. No snarls, no growls, no roars—nothing. With a gulp, she dared reignite the light spell, wincing when her horn throbbed in protest. Cold light filled the space.
Instead of a tunnel, she now stood in a large, square room, with a pillar in each corner. Gigantic kegs rose out of the water and stretched almost to the ceiling. Those kegs, however, didn’t do nearly as good a job of catching her attention as the staircase set into the wall behind her. Without thinking twice, Twilight swiped a swathe of soaked mane out of her face and scrambled up the steps.
On the way up she slowly regained her composure; the harsh breathing diminished and finally returned to normal, although her lungs still reminded her that they ached every few seconds. Similarly, her heartbeats slowed to the point where she couldn’t hear them pounding in her ears. Her thoughts raced between Octavia’s transformation, whatever that thing in the water had been, and her role in all of it.
Rough stone walls soon transitioned to brick as she moved further and further away from the wine cellar, and the stairs went from being carved into the rock to proper wooden steps. Before she knew it, she found herself coming up beneath a sturdy looking trapdoor. She gingerly pushed against it with both hooves, and a grin split her muzzle as the rough wooden door lifted up. She slipped through before dropping it back down, careful not to make any loud noises.
The stairs had led her into a small room with a single door, aside from the trapdoor Twilight had emerged from in the corner. Short stacks of rotting wood teetered against each other. The brick walls were mostly intact, with only few spots where the mortar had begun to crumble away.
Focusing on a pile of logs, she stepped up to it for a closer look. “Firewood?” A rusty axe leaned up against the wall, and she nodded. “Probably firewood, yeah.”
It hadn’t occurred to her on her way back up, but now Twilight inspected the walls with a more critical eye. Where the parts of the mansion she had walked through earlier had been made of wood and stone, this room and the top part of the stairwell used brick instead.
“A more recent addition, maybe?” A hoof reached up to rub her chin.
Any further musings were cut off when a sharp slapping noise rang out. A second later she heard the noise again, then again. She slowly swiveled towards the room’s only doorway, which looked ominously in her flickering hot light.
Twilight, well-read pony that she was, had read at least a dozen horror novels that she could remember. In these stories, the characters always split up, as she had told Vinyl earlier. They also investigated noises and sights that they clearly shouldn’t. Looking back at what she had gone through over the past hour, Twilight recognized this sound as one she shouldn’t even think about going towards.
She was only mildly surprised to find herself tiptoeing through the doorway, where the noise had come from.
Thunder cracked overhead, but Twilight didn’t even flinch, so set was she on whatever evil monster waited for her in the next room. She heard it make that slapping sound again and again, each one coming at even intervals. As she emerged into the next room—a boiler room, it looked like—her eyes darted back and forth.
Serpentine pipes crawled along the ceiling and the walls. The room was cluttered with a few rusted gears, at least a dozen scattered tools, and a pile of metal parts left in the corner. Distantly, she wondered what all of this had been for, and which of the mansion’s former inhabitants used this as their workshop. An old furnace stood in the room’s center, looming over everything else but not presenting anything of interest to Twilight; her gaze slid right past it, only to snap back a moment later when that noise came again. Whatever made it was right on the furnace’s other side.
Last chance to run, she thought, even as she craned her head around to take a peek. A second later, all of the uncertainty sloughed from her face, replaced by a hard expression. Her horn began to glow purple as she cast a simple spell. The expected stab of pain didn’t even slow her down.
“Bad!” she shouted, whipping her magically conjured newspaper at Angel Bunny, who sat hunched forward on the furnace’s far side. The makeshift club cracked down on the poor little would-be horror’s head right between the ears. “Bad bunny! I told you to knock that off!” Even though her horn stung from the use of magic, the gratification she felt was more than worth a little bit of pain.
After failing to shield himself from the third smack, Angel tried to dart away; he didn’t even get close to the doorway before Twilight caught him up in her magic. She floated him over to dangle right in front of her face, upside down and most certainly unhappy if the daggers shooting out of his eyes were any indication.
“Don’t you give me that look,” she said, matching his glare. “After what I went through, I’m in no mood for your horse hockey, buster.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Oh you have no idea. I got chased through a mansion by Octavia, who by the way turned into a giant shark with legs! With less luck, she’d be picking me out of her teeth right now. Then some weird creepy tentacle monster I never even got a good look at dragged me through a flooded basement! Did I mention that there’s a flooded basement? Because there’s a flooded basement. I almost drowned!” She paused to take a breath.
Angel simply snorted.
“Hold on,” Twilight said, putting her nose an inch away from his. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Nod.
She shook him from side to side. “Have you ever even met me? You think I’m the type of pony to make up stories about shark monsters and underwater tentacle things?”
He began to nod again, then paused. With a sigh, he begrudgingly shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.” She gave him a smug grin. “Now let’s go.” Her magic lowered him to the ground before letting go. “We need to go find Rainbow Dash and Vinyl Scratch before shark-Octavia does.”
Angel dusted himself off and hopped over to her leg, ostensibly to climb up onto her back. He squeaked when she shoved him back.
“Nice try,” Twilight said. “No way are you touching me with those paws ever again. I know what you were doing back there.”
Fluttershy tapped her on the shoulder. “What was Angel doing?”
“I caught him doing that—” Twilight shrieked and leapt away, cracking her head on a low pipe. The searing agony that stabbed through her brain left her crouching on the floor. She heard Fluttershy’s scream a split second after hers.
“Sorry!” Fluttershy said with a hoof over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to frighten you!”
Twilight took a few hissing breaths, then straightened up. “It’s—fine.” Her horn, which had only seconds ago stopped aching, began to throb again in nauseating waves. “It’s—Fluttershy, what are you doing? When did you get here? Why did you get here? I just—I have no idea what’s happening.”
Fluttershy’s gaze drifted to the floor. “Well, um, I was just thinking that Angel is only a baby bunny, and he’s so little and vulnerable, and I just couldn’t bear to let him wander this place all by himself, so…”
“You know we’re looking after him, right?”
“Oh, of course I do!” Fluttershy said. “It’s just, with Rainbow Dash here and all, I was worried that, um…”
Twilight snorted. “I get it.”
“Please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t.” Twilight rubbed her head a bit more, hoping she could touch it without her horn throbbing. She was wrong. “It’s weird, though—I thought you’d be terrified of this place, but you seem totally fine.”
Fluttershy gave a sweet smile as Angel Bunny scurried up onto her back. “Oh, no, I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life. I’ve just come full-circle after getting thrown through a window, followed by a bunch of creepy noises, and ambushed by an icky clown doll. Oh, and don’t forget the ghost pirate. He had a peg leg and everything!”
“I doubt you actually ran into a ghost,” Twilight said.
“It was more running from him than into him.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Of course. Still, I’m proud of you for making it this far by yourself.”
Still smiling, Fluttershy pointed behind her. “A few minutes ago, I threw up in some cute little washroom back there! That’s just ridiculous of me, don’t you think so?”
“Insanity made manifest,” Twilight agreed, grimacing in tandem with Angel. She sighed; at least she could kind of ignore her headache if she didn’t think about it too hard. As though on cue, her horn twinged, making her wince.
“Are you alright?” Fluttershy tilted her head. “Did something—” Her eyes widened as a dramatic gasp slipped past her lips. “Twilight, your horn! Oh my gosh, what happened? Does it hurt? Are you hurt? What are you going to—”
Twilight shushed her yammering friend. “Relax. It’s just a chipped horn. It’ll heal.” She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “But forget about that—we need to go. If you start feeling like you need to rest, just let me know and I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you, Twilight, but that won’t be necessary,” Fluttershy said with a proud smile. “Just so long as I don’t let myself stop and think about all the horrifying things I’ve experienced, everything should be perfectly fine.” After a few moments, her grin melted away. “Oh, poo.”
“Yep,” Twilight muttered. “That seems about right.” Of the two doors, one only led back towards the wine cellar. The other, pipes crawling around the cusps, ostensibly led back into the mansion proper, so she chose that one to walk towards.
“Um.” Fluttershy cleared her throat. “Twilight?”
Twilight paused in the doorframe. “Yes?”
“I my nana—” Fluttershy cut herself off with a high-pitched titter, then tried again. “I might need just an eensy, weensy, teensy bit of help. Um, please.”
“What is it?” Twilight fought the urge to scowl. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“I cana—I cahana—” For a moment she couldn’t force the words out until Angel gave her a supporting pat on the shoulder. “I c-can’t, um, move.”
Twilight sighed. “Can’t because you’re scared, or can’t because you just literally cannot?”
“Um.” Fluttershy shrunk in place. “Yes.”
“I see,” Twilight said, taking a step forward. “Fluttershy, I know this is absolutely awful for you, but it’s alright—no matter what happens, I’ll keep you sa—”
A hoof slid out of the gloom and grabbed her shoulder. “You think you can answer me a few questions, gorgeous?” came a stallion’s voice.
At the contact, Twilight screamed again and jumped away. Fortunately, she managed to twist out of this unknown stallion’s grasp. Unfortunately, her skull cracked against another pipe in exactly the same spot as before. She collapsed in a blubbering heap.
“Was it somethin’ I said?” The stranger stepped forward into the light of her spell, which she had miraculously maintained even through all the blunt trauma. She couldn’t see his face due to both his wide-brimmed hat and the high collar on the trench coat he wore. She couldn’t even tell what kind of pony he was. “You okay, doll?”
“Haven’t you ponies ever heard of calling out?” Twilight sobbed, rocking back and forth. “Is that so hard to do?”
The stallion crouched down. “Babycakes, where I come from, you don’t go callin’ for trouble. Trouble goes callin’ for you.”
“That makes no sense!” The last word turned into a wail as Twilight’s horn sputtered and sent a particularly unpleasant pulse through her skull. “Start making sense!”
“You want sense? Dollface, sense is a luxury ponies like me don’t get. My world is a rough one. Dark. Dirty.” He paused to readjust his hat. “Dangerous. Like an Apploosan outhouse right after the rodeo. In my line of work, a stallion can’t walk down an alley without getting mugged three times and murdered twice, and that’s on a good day. The ponies want a hero, but they’ll settle for the next best thing. That’s where I come in.” From the depths of his coat, a hoof whipped out to present a small white card. “The name’s Noir. Pinot Noir, private eye.”
Twilight took the card with a sniffle. “Thank you?”
“Thank me later. For now, something smells fishy, and I don’t mean the tomato over there with the shaking legs.”
“Sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered.
He waved a hoof in her direction, then returned his attention to Twilight. “Now, Duchess, tell me everything you know about sharks.”
“Sharks?” Twilight clambered to her feet.
“Sharks,” Pinot said. “And I ain’t talking about the card-playing variety.”
She had her mouth open to answer when she got a glimpse of his face. His white, creamy coat was stained blue by wicked-looking bruise around his left eye. “Did somepony hit you?”
“You mean this shiner?” He lifted the hat, letting the light fall over his face. “Some crazy broad upstairs slugged me good. Trust me, dollface, it ain’t the first time. Now, the sharks. Sing for me.”
“What do you want to know about sharks for?” Twilight said.
“Some bird wants me to ice a four-legged one.” Pinot’s eyes shifted back and forth as though the shark were in the room with them and would reveal itself if only he looked hard enough.
“Ah.” Twilight glanced at Fluttershy and Angel, both of whom shrugged. “Sorry, but I haven’t seen any sharks around here.”
His gaze stopped dancing around and focused on hers. “Don’t be taking me for a bum, doll. Nobody—and I mean nobody—plays me for a sucker and gets away with it.”
“If we run into any sharks, you’ll be the third pony to know.” Twilight wiped at her eyes, then rose onto wobbly legs.
“Um.” Fluttershy gave a delicate cough. “Shark?”
“You’re sure you ain’t seen no sharks lurking around?” Pinot said. At Twilight’s nod, he added, “Absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent sure?”
“Nope, not in this mansion!” Twilight said with a laugh. Before she could say anything further, a faint cry warbled through the air. Her ears swiveled around. “Fluttershy, did you hear that?”
Fluttershy stood stock-still, wide-eyed and staring at her hooves. Twilight trotted over and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Fluttershy.”
“Eeeek!” Fluttershy recoiled so quickly that Angel tumbled to the floor. He glared up at her.
“Fluttershy,” Twilight said again. “Did you hear that?”
Fluttershy’s chest heaved with every breath. “Twilight! Hello! Um, what a—what nice night we’re having this weather! We—”
“Fluttershy.” Twilight held her groan in check. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here!” Fluttershy stammered. “With you! I mean, here with you! Right here, in the basement, here with you, in the haunted spooky giant creepy haunted basement creepy thingy I’m here I’m with—”
Twilight sighed and turned back to Pinot. “At least tell me that you heard—”
She found herself talking to empty air; Pinot had disappeared.
“Seriously?” she said, spinning on Fluttershy. “Would you believe that’s the second time this has happened to me tonight?”
“Right here, with you,” Fluttershy mumbled as she cowered in place.
“I think I heard somepony cry out.” Twilight closed her eyes and listened as hard as she could, but other than the sound of her breathing and Fluttershy’s muttering, nothing presented itself. “We need to go find Rainbow Dash and Vinyl as soon as we can
This time Twilight didn’t even try to keep the exasperated groan in. “Fine. Fine, if that’s how it’s going to be, then that’s how it’s going to be.”
She glanced at Angel Bunny, who had resumed his place on Fluttershy’s back. Before he could finish making himself comfortable, though, a magical aura snared him up into the air, only to drop him back down on a grimacing Twilight.
“This is a one-time thing only,” she hissed at the glaring Angel. If looks could kill, she would have been vaporized on the spot. “I can’t run and maintain two spells at once, so just this once, you get a ride.” She coughed in Fluttershy’s direction. “Alright, Fluttershy, Angel and I are going, now!”
Fluttershy gave her a blank look. “Pardon?”
“Angel and I are going, I said.”
“Going?” Fluttershy shook her head, expression still glazed over. “Going where?”
“Oh, you know,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Taking a walk, watching the stars, feeding Angel to the evil hungry shark monster—average, everyday things.” She trotted towards the doorway.
“I see. Have fun, then.” A few seconds passed before Fluttershy’s eyes shot open. “Wait, what?”
Angel tried to jump off, but Twilight pinned him down under a wing. “Just giving Mr. Shark a nice, fuzzy snack.”
Through the door she found a set of dusty stairs to the next floor and began to make her way up. She wondered if Pinot Noir had come this way or if he had somehow snuck back in the direction Twilight had come from. He was in for a nasty surprise if he did the latter, but she didn’t have time to worry about him. First on her list was to get Fluttershy moving, and after that she had to make finding Rainbow and Vinyl her top priority. Despite the throbbing in her head, she allowed herself a small smile when she heard light hoofsteps on the stairs behind her.
“You—you weren’t really going to feed Angel to a shark monster,” Fluttershy said softly. “Were you?”
Twilight glanced back, allowing her friend to catch up. Angel hopped off of Twilight and scrambled up his mother’s leg. “Only if he behaves himself and doesn’t do things he’s not supposed to.”
“Like what?”
“He was—” Twilight broke off when, from Fluttershy’s back, Angel dropped to his knees and made a pleading gesture. Her mouth snapped shut.
Fluttershy blinked. “He was what?”
Angel continued to beg silently, fear etched onto his face. Twilight gave a loud sigh. “He knows what he did, and he knows not to do it again.” Angel collapsed forward.
“I hope it wasn’t that, um, that thing we talked about before,” Fluttershy said. “Nopony likes to take their pet to get fixed, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it!” Her chest swelled as she let a confident smile spread.
Twilight stared at her for a moment longer before slowly resuming her pace up the stairs. She felt a sudden wave of sympathy for poor Angel. “You’re absolutely right, Fluttershy.”
A few moments later, they came to an open door at the top of the stairs, Twilight saw everything light up for an instant, followed seconds later by a crack of thunder that shook the walls and made Fluttershy shriek. Little bits of debris from the ceiling came free and showered the two mares.
“Has it been storming this whole time?” Twilight wondered out loud.
“Ever since I—” Fluttershy yelped again as more thunder rumbled through the house. “E-ever since I got here, y-yes.”
Twilight paused to scratch her chin. “I don’t remember any storms in the forecast, though.”
They trotted through the door and found themselves at the end of a long hallway with doors up and down either side. The light from Twilight’s spell only reached part of the way to the hall’s other end. Now that they had left the basement, she could faintly hear the sound of rain pounding on the mansion’s roof and wind whistling past the outer walls.
She glanced back at Fluttershy, who had deathly pale, but before she could speak, a long creak came from outside of her spell’s range. Someone had opened a door. Twilight strode ahead and spread her wings.
“Fluttershy, stay behind me.” Her eyes strained to see anything in the darkness, but the light ruined her night vision. “And be ready to start running.”
“Alright,” Fluttershy squeaked.
Another squeak resounded in the tight hallway, and then Twilight heard a hoofstep, followed by another. They were coming closer.
“Who is it?” she called, fighting to keep her knees from shaking at the thought of another chase through the mansion.
Just when she was certain that the approaching steps belonged to yet another monster, a voice called out. “Twilight? That you?” Out from the shadows, a dirty Vinyl Scratch stumbled into the light. What looked like black soot covered her coat, and her mane was even more disheveled than before. “Oh geez, thank Celestia. I actually found somepony.”
“Are you alright?” Twilight galloped up for a closer inspection. “What happened?”
“Well, ah—” Vinyl cleared her throat. “It’s a little embarrassing, so, uh, you think you could keep this a secret from Dash?”
Twilight glanced back at Fluttershy, who shrugged. “Sure?”
“So I’m wandering around looking for the loot, see, and I find one of those old-timey fireplaces, right? And I think to myself, maybe there’s something hiding up the chimney, so I stick my head in, and, uh—” She gave a nervous laugh.
“And you got stuck,” Twilight offered.
“Yeah.” Vinyl scratched the back of her head. “Yeah, I got stuck, but I got out. So, where is everypony? I left Dash behind in some random dining room, so we can go pick her up next. Where’s Tavi?”
Twilight winced. “Vinyl, I have some terrible news for you.”
“About Tavi?” Vinyl took a step forward, concern dripping from her voice. “What happened? Did she sprain a leg or something? Where is she?”
“It’s…” The light from Twilight’s spell glanced from the other mare’s glasses, making it nearly impossible to look her in the face. “I… We were just looking around, and she… I don’t honestly know how to put this.”
Vinyl moved right into Twilight’s face. “Just tell me. What happened to my fiance?”
“She turned into a shark!” Twilight yelled, falling back. Her words hung in the air for the long moment of silence that followed.
“She turned into a shark?” Vinyl said at last.
Twilight couldn’t look into the other mare’s face, so she glued her eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t—” A sudden peal of laughter cut her off.
“She turned into a shark?” Vinyl said in between chuckles.
“No, really!” Twilight yanked her gaze back up, then remembered that she couldn’t even see Vinyl’s eyes behind those shades anyway. “She really did! She turned into some kind of-of pony shark and tried to murder me!”
“Stop it!” Vinyl said, leaning against the wall so she could clutch her ribs with both forelegs. Her laughter echoed off the walls. “You’re gonna make me pee myself!”
Twilight felt a twinge of irritation, but before she could act on it, Fluttershy tapped her on the shoulder. The timid pegasus wrung her forehooves together. “Um, didn’t you tell that stallion downstairs there were no sharks here?”
“Well, yes,” Twilight said, “but that’s because the shark is Octavia and he wanted to kill her. Of course I told him there were no sharks here.”
“Oh.”
Roaring with laughter, Vinyl pounded the wall. Tears rolled down her cheeks and cut furrows in the ash-coated fur. “Okay, Tavi.” She pushed herself up onto trembling legs. “Come on out, now, the joke’s over!”
“Vinyl—” Twilight began.
“Where is she?” Vinyl craned her head to peek around the other mares. “Is she hiding behind you?” Another round of chuckles slipped past her lips. “You really got me. Tavi a shark—ha!”
As Twilight’s eyelid twitched, a pulse of agony ran through her skull. She took a deep breath. “Vinyl. This isn’t a joke.”
“Knock it off,” Vinyl said as she straightened up, still grinning. “It was funny, but we got stuff to do. Where is she?”
“I told you, she turned into a sha—”
“I said to knock it off!” Vinyl snapped. Her smile vanished in an instant. “I know you’re lying. This is just the type of thing she’d do, making up some story about turning into a monster or whatever so I look stupid when I believe it.”
“I’m telling the truth!” Twilight said, ears lying down flat. “The thing that chased me through half of this stupid mansion was not somepony trying to prank you.”
Vinyl stomped a few steps away, then spun back. “You really think I’ll fall for this, won’t you?” Her lips curled into a sneer. “I wouldn’t believe you if you said she turned into a nicer pony, so no way will you ever sell the story that my fiance transformed into a big, dumb shark.”
Twilight had a retort ready to go, but before she could fire it off, the wall beside Vinyl exploded. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the monster that had once been Octavia fell over her fiance and shoved the poor mare head-first into her cavernous mouth. With Vinyl’s hind legs still kicking in the air, the beast crashed through the opposite wall and kept on going.
In the aftermath of the shark-Octavia’s appearance, all that could be heard were her pounding hoofsteps, growing quieter as she galloped away, and the sound of splinters still falling from the broken walls. A cloud of dust had been kicked up and now drifted lazily through the air.
A state of numb clarity draped itself over Twilight. The responsible part of her demanded that she charge after the escaping beast, but her hooves were glued to the hardwood floor. She turned her dumb gaze back at the shaken Fluttershy and uttered the only three words that seemed to make sense at that particular point in time.
“Told you so.”
