Harmony and Courage

Twilight held her free hoof over her mouth to ensure she didn’t accidentally release her precious air. Every now and then she would twitch her good wing to make sure Ooccoo was still safe between her shoulder blades, but not enough that it brushed against the walls of the narrow tunnel. She kept her eyes tightly closed, so the only thing letting her know she was still safe was the one hoof she kept wrapped around Link’s paw. The purple rupee was tied securely about her throat, but the water was causing it to bounce and bob against Twilight’s neck and chin.

Eventually Twilight realised she wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. She tugged at Link’s paw, hoping he’d understand. After a few moments Link changed course, dragging Twilight upwards. The alicorn felt panic begin to rise within her as air escaped from her nose. She continued to hold her breath even as her throat burned, refusing to lose consciousness yet again. The tips of her ears and horn suddenly turned cold. Her eyes shot open as she burst from the water; she opened her mouth and sucked in a deep breath. Coughing, Twilight gripped Link’s paw a little tighter and glanced back to make sure Ooccoo was still safe. The Oocca was still nestled in the hollow between her shoulders, shivering a little beneath her scrap of fabric.

Before Twilight could protest or ask where they were, Link had released her hoof and ducked under the water. The alicorn squeaked in surprise as the wolf reappeared beneath her, lifting her onto his back before continuing to swim. Twilight took the time to take in the room around them. It was somewhat rectangular, with a hallway at one end. Roughly half the room, including that hallway, was submerged in water. The other end of them room was above water and covered in a thin layer of grass, which was odd considering they were underground. Like most of the other rooms, vines hung from the walls, although this time the roof was visible, crisscrossed with cracks and covered with dark stains. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten there.

She didn’t have too much time to think about it before she was being dragged out of the water rather unceremoniously. The alicorn quickly wriggled away from Link, climbing to her hooves with a slight blush.

“No need to be so rough.” She pointed out, tugging at her knotted wet mane in annoyance.

Link replied with a serious of short growls. Ooccoo quickly translated, “’It’s not my fault you’re heavy.’ Adventurer! Don’t be rude.”

Twilight glared accusingly at her ‘friend’ until he barked once more.

“’You’re stockier than a normal horse.’ I suppose that’s true.” Ooccoo mused.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me a horse. I’m a pony! What is a horse?” Twilight exclaimed, more than a little fed up with Link’s inscrutability. “And while you’re at it, what is this shadowy stuff in the air? What was going on with those shadow walls and freaky bugs in Ponyville? Why in Celestia’s name am I talking to a member of one of Equestria’s longest extinct species using an ‘Oocca’ as a translator?”

Link stared at her for a moment as if she’d gone mad. Then he sighed and sat down beside Ooccoo, who glanced up at him uncertainly. Twilight followed his lead, although she ended up having to lie down due to her injured hooves. Her left hoof was good enough to press down on, although that might’ve just been because it was numb from the water. Her broken hoof, however, hurt just as much as when it had first happened. Probably because she hadn’t given it a chance to rest. Her wing most likely needed to be looked at properly, too.

Ooccoo translated as Link began to bark at her, “’A horse is basically a taller version of a pony, but they don’t have horns or wings. There’s more differences than that but I don’t know too many of them.’”

“And the shadow stuff?”

“’It’s called ‘Twilight’. It’s a form of dark magic. It doesn’t cause any harm on its own, but it does allow Twilit monsters to appear, and they can be deadly.’”

“So that… thing… in the room with the tree was a ‘Twilit’ monster?”

“’No, that was a Bulblin.’”

“Well, why does this ‘Twilight’ cut off my magic? Twilight is a terrible name for it, by the way.”

“’I have no idea why it stops your magic.’”

“Okay. I’m guessing you were the invisible thing running around Ponyville killing the bugs, right?”

“’Yes. I had to kill them to collect the Tears of Light, which get rid of the Twilight.’”

“Good to know.” Twilight paused for a moment, wondering what to ask next. “How do you exist? Wolves have been extinct in Equestria for millennia.”

“’I have no idea what Equestria is. I’m from another… country? World? Let’s go with country for now. A place called Hyrule.’”

“There’s no country on Equus called Hyrule.”

“’Well then I guess I’m an alien.’ Both of us, technically.” Ooccoo added.

“That explains a lot.” Twilight grimaced, looking down at her hooves. She took a deep breath to compose herself before looking back to Link. The wolf was staring down at Ooccoo, who was now resting beside one of his large white paws. The two of them seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation. Eventually Link snorted in distaste and turned his gaze back to Twilight.

“The adventurer has agreed to send you home.” Ooccoo explained. “Although I happily would’ve done it with or without his permission.”

“Wait, what? No offense to your strength, but I highly doubt you’d be able to fly me out of here, Ooccoo.” Twilight frowned, looking down at the Oocca incredulously.

“None taken, dearie.” Ooccoo reassured her. “You see, I won’t actually be carrying you. We Oocca have a sort of… magic of our own. My son is especially good at it.”

“Your son?” Twilight asked, growing more confused by the second. Link glanced at her with an expression almost like a smirk.

“Indeed. He’ll be able to teleport you out of here and then bring you back. If you want to come back, that is. He can only teleport back to me, so I’ll stay with the adventurer here so you don’t have to run around alone again.” Ooccoo explained in an oddly cheerful way.

“Okay. So, where is your son?” Twilight questioned, glancing around the room.

“Why, he’s right here.”

Twilight looked back to Ooccoo to see a small creature hovering beside her. It looked kind of like Ooccoo, but with only a head and a small set of wings. Twilight blinked in surprise. Apparently Ooccoo had a similar ability to Pinkie Pie when it came to hiding things… people? Oocca.

“So, um, h-how does this work?” Twilight asked worriedly, staggering to her hooves and watching the floating head with suspicion.

“Ooccoo Jr. here will simply use his ‘magic’ and send you to the entrance of the dungeon.” Ooccoo told her.

Way to be vague. Twilight sighed inwardly, but simply straightened her back – as best she could with a sprained wing – and lifted her head a little. Noticing she was ready, Link, too, rose to his paws and shook himself off, scattering drops of water everywhere. The alicorn suddenly took an interest both in her matted fur and the fact that Link seemed just as perfectly groomed as he had before the river. She pouted a little but made sure not to let Link see it.

Ooccoo Jr. acted next, flying up to Twilight’s head height and beginning to fly slow circles around her. She watched nervously as he began to pick up speed.

“Don’t look so anxious, dear!” Ooccoo called to her. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Link barked a quick agreement.

By this point, Twilight was nothing if not trustful of Link. So she closed her eyes and waited for… whatever was happening to happen. She could feel Ooccoo Jr. speeding up, actually managing to catch her mane in a noticeable breeze. The alicorn forced herself not to panic when she felt her hooves leave the ground. Or when she lost all sense of direction. Or when she crashed harshly onto a muddy, grassy piece of earth.

Twilight waited a moment for the urge to vomit to fade before opening her eyes. She was back in the clearing where she’d seen Link disappear into the ground and made the regrettable decision to follow him. The alicorn forced herself to stand and look around. With a slight jolt of surprise she noticed Ooccoo Jr. hovering next to her. Before she could protest, he had disappeared into her mane. She groaned a little before examining her surroundings and trying to figure out which way was home.

Twilight arrived back at the castle covered in mud, twigs and, of course, blood. She forced the door open with her hooves and staggered inside. The alicorn headed immediately towards the bathroom, where she awkwardly locked the door and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Ooccoo Jr. had the decency to leave Twilight’s mane and bury himself in a pile of towels as the purple mare began to clean herself up.

Twilight removed her new necklace and placed it next to the sink before focusing on her broken hoof. She carefully removed the fabric and splint and thoroughly inspected it. If ponies saw her walking around with a broken hoof, they would ask questions. She couldn’t heal it herself… one curious pony was better than a town full of them.

The alicorn turned to Ooccoo Jr. and said, “I want you to stay here while I go heal my hoof, okay?”

Since he was just a head he was incapable of nodding, but he gave a small chirping noise to show that he understood. Twilight rolled her eyes and unlocked the door. She limped hurriedly towards Starlight’s room, where she knocked on the door and waited impatiently for somepony to answer.

Starlight opened the door and looked at her mentor worriedly. Twilight ignored the suspicion and weakly pushed past her student, collapsing on the bed and displaying her broken hoof.

“Twilight!” Starlight gasped. “What did you do?”

“That’s not important. You need to fix it.” Twilight insisted.

“Why can’t you just use your magic?” Starlight frowned, although she lit her horn for a spell anyway.

“Think of it as a test.” Twilight improvised, hoping her eager-to-impress student would fall for it.

Whether she did or not, Twilight wasn’t sure, as for the next couple moments all she was aware of was a searing pain in her hoof. She could’ve sworn she screamed at some point, but it was only to be expected. She was condensing weeks of healing into about a minute, after all.

When she finally came to, she was on her stomach in the bath. It was filled with warm water up to her chest and Starlight was scrubbing her down with soap and water. Twilight winced as the unicorn touched her injuries, but bit her lip and held back anything louder. She couldn’t risk Spike hearing and seeing this.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened or should I not even bother asking?” Starlight questioned, pausing in her washing.

“I was on an important mission.” Twilight answered quickly. These lies are definitely going to catch up to me at some point.

“Then why didn’t you leave me or Spike a note?”

“I didn’t have time.”

“You weren’t organised enough to leave a note?”

Twilight fell silent, focusing on the pain across her body to keep herself concentrated. Starlight sighed and returned to washing, cleaning every one of her mentor’s cuts before moving on to her mane. Twilight forced herself not to complain as Starlight tugged the knots free in a purposefully pain-inducing way.

“I healed your wing while you were out, too.” Starlight told her before pulling the plug and leaving the room. Twilight lay there for a moment while the water drained from the tub. She then sighed and stood, surprised at the lack of pain from her bad hooves. The alicorn tested her sprained wing, spreading in fully and flapping it experimentally. Nothing.

Ooccoo Jr. made a sudden reappearance, flying over to Twilight and chirping oddly. It seemed like too normal a sound for a creature like him to make. Twilight brushed it off and climbed out of the bath. She gently dried herself with a towel before running a hoof through her mane. Damp and messy but mostly knot-free. Not that it really mattered.

She considered retrieving her necklace. On one hoof, it was way too precious at this point to risk losing. On the other hoof, it was almost like a symbol. It had joined her during the dungeon, taken a break with her and so forth. Twilight sighed and slipped it around her neck. If it had survived that river, it could survive a… what had Link called them? Bulblins?

Twilight looked herself over once more before turning to her new companion. “I think it’s time we head back to your mother.”

The purple mare kept her eyes open this time as Ooccoo Jr. swirled around her, speeding up constantly and not stopping until Twilight was being lifted from the ground. She took a deep breath as her world fading into a windy, swirling mess.