A split second before the white lump could knock her from the sky, Star Wind rolled from its path. With a subtle flick of her gray wings she spiralled away, and, like a lightning bolt, darted to the ground. When she gained enough speed, she flared her wings open and bumped into the air as if it was solid stone, bouncing up like a small steel ball. After a dozen seconds she pierced the cloud layer and drew her way to the rocky mountains, whose ice caps glittered in moonlight.
Star Wind pushed her wings beyond the limits of her physical ability but it was no use. Bailout mountains ran away with every stroke of her wings. It was the fifth time she’d tried to escape. She’d failed before and she failed again. Exhausting all the strength she had, she fell down.
Only a dozen meters above the tree tops, Star Wind managed to force her body into a plain horizontal flight path. Icy claws of despair squeezed her throat. Everything repeated itself again: a few pathetic minutes of flight in the opposite direction, and she was about the location where she had taken off a few hours ago. But now she had no energy left for another attempt.
Landing to a skid, the pegasus stumbled over the body of a dead comrade and rolled along the ground. A sudden flare of pain made it clear that the wing was injured. Bruises, dislocations, maybe a fracture — it didn’t matter, it was the end. Horrible laughter already came from behind.
“My little silly, haven’t you ever had nightmares where you’re running away, trying your best but staying in place?”
With a groan, Star Wind rose on her hooves but fell on her side. The shadow of the horrible mare had already loomed over her, a shadow much darker than the night skies above. Star Wind looked in awe at how the red glow of flame was gleaming on the armor of the black mare, and how her eerie etherlike mane was streaming on the ghostly wind. Star Wind was slowly losing consciousness.
“Dumb pegasi...” she mumbled. “Rose, please help me!”
“No one will help you,” Nightmare Moon croaked.
“Wh... what?” Star Wind eyed her hooves, as if she was seeing them for the first time. Then, forgetting pain and weakness, she jumped up on her legs and faced Nightmare Moon. “You!.. You are not real!”
For a split a second, a puzzled expression appeared on the nightmare’s ruler's face, but the next moment she pulled up her head to burst into laughter. And… She froze. Everything around froze: the spurts of flame on the ruins, the running clouds in the sky, and the gray pegasus mare who had dared to challenge the queen of the night.
“Okay, Chilly, well done! You managed to freeze this projection, now think about how to get out. Discord damn it! Why am I stuck in the body of this winged donkey?! What have I done wrong… again?
Now, easy, easy...”
The pegasus lifted her front leg a bit. Nightmare Moon jerked towards her.
““Ouch! Don’t! Stop. That won’t do. Holy skies, if only I still had my horn!..
So, what if I try to imagine my horn still sticking out of my forehead? Anyway, it’s the way it is, isn’t it? And then remember how to cast spells. Just one simple spell! Only one... And simple. Rose, please, I’ll do all the tasks you’ve given me, but please help me. Just help me now!”
The world around the pegasus came alive again: her nostrils were filled by the smell of cinders, and terrible pain came from the damaged wing.
“Chilly, I don’t know what your mark would be look like, but it’s necessary to have a very special talent to distort all the more or less complicated spells this much.” It was still the same Nightmare Moon’s voice, but now it sounded completely different.
“Ro.. Rose, is it y-you?” babbled the pegasus, staring at the black mare.
“And how do you think I should look like? This scene you created contains not too many persons which are possible to use as avatars.” The mare pointed her hoof at the dead pegasus with his wing tearing off. “It is an episode of Star’s Wind’s troop’s battle against Nightmare Moon, I suppose?”
The pegasus rushed to the black mare and hung on her, tightly embracing her neck. Former Nightmare Moon sat down and hugged back the sobbing pegasus mare both with her hooves and with her wings.
“Rose, please… please stop it. I... I can’t break it by my own,” she said, interrupted by sobs.
“My Chilly, you silly filly, you messed up everything again and conjured something completely different instead of the regular mental projection.”
“Wha… What?” Chilly pulled back and looked up.
“I don’t know. I have never encountered something like this before.” Rose, who’d taken over Nightmare Moon’s body, shrugged. She stood up and, with a couple strokes of her wings, rose above the ground. Then, spreading her wings in the soaring position, she made a couple laps around the site. “It seems you changed your drawing into something like a small closed world. But the worst thing is that...” She embraced pegasus with her wing. “...you immured yourself here. You see, if I stop it like any other projection, you will stay just a drawn pugasus mare forever.”
“I don’t understand,” whispered Chilly, turning cold with horror.
“No one has been able to find you for three days already. Your father rages and fumes. First he thought you ran away, then he decided you was kidnaped. Now he’s going to declare a war but hasn’t yet chosen to whom. So there is no way I can leave you here! I’m already trying hard day and night to resolve the puzzle you made with this drawing of yours. A spontaneously created spell is a pain.”
***
“What! Again?!” the grey-winged pegasus cried out. She reared up and, swinging her front hooves, spread her wings, but immediately screamed from pain in the wounded wing. Chilly fell down on the stone surface and muzzled her hooves, letting tears out.
The grim black mare moved her gaze from the sorrowful pegasus to the gate, which led to such a violent reaction. Greenish aura wrapped the black mare’s horn and a massive copper handle attached to the opened leaf of the gate. It flickered for a second and faded. Through the gate she could see a gray boring wasteland which now encircled a court. Forests were gone, just like distant mountains and like the ruins which took all ferocity of the magical battle. Even the clouds in the sky melted into a flat dull medley. And now from all directions there was a pale light which almost didn’t cast a shadow.
Only one thing stayed the same — the rough stone floor of the court. Here and there on this floor there were doorframes, pillars and even whole pieces of walls with rectangular gaps. Some doors were ripped off from their hinges. The one which was the copy of Night Chilly’s room’s door was torn into flinders by vigorous bucking.
Shaking her head, Night Rose began to study the gate.
“It looks amazing after all.” She looked at her pupil but didn’t get any reaction except suppressed sobs and squeaks. Rose ran her hoof across the carving that decorated the massive oak gate leaf and halted for a while on the magic star symbol. “You have never been in Сanterlot. Have you? And you have never seen this with your own eyes. It makes me wonder how you reproduced this?”
“Y-you… You told me,” a quiet answer came mixed with sobs. “And Father too… and my brother. But they were discussing the thickness of walls and how many ram’s kicks would be enough to break a locking bar.”
Muffling with her hoof, Rose chuckled. She sat down next to her pupil wrapping her with her wing.
“It was hard to see from my position,” Rose said, “but I felt your, er… I felt how some excitement grew up and ran over you, while you were redrawing this.” Rose shoot a look towards unfortunate marble arc with oak gate. Then she put away strand of hair against Chilly’s face. Their eyes met.
“Er… I don’t know. It was so joyful… Not exactly. But it was like I was hearing everything I know about this gate and, with every stroke I drew, I was seeing it more vivid. It was like...” Chilly stopped to try catch accurate word.
“Anticipation?” Rose prompted.
Chilly held a breath and for a second she stared away into the distance.
“Yea. Suddenly I started to believe that there will be something behind it and we will be able to just exit through these doors out of here.” She sobbed once again and burrowed her muzzle into her hooves.
“Do you understand what you have done? You drove yourself to depict things you’ve never seen but only have some information about. At the same time you depicted these things exactly as they are in reality.”
“Is it something magical?”
“It is like a vision but you’re able to let the others see it too. And it isn’t an art which is possible to learn the common way. It looks like a manifestation of a natural talent.”
The unlucky young magician who had changed herself into a pegasus turned up her head and smirked. Her barely dried eyes flooded with tears again. The black mare pulled Chilly closer to herself and hugged her with her wings.
“It’s funny.” Rose patted Chilly’s nape. “When you cuddled me this way before, you always pricked me with your horn.”
The filly flattened herself against the black fur and emitted a weak chuckle. “Will I stay here forever?”
“We need to make one more attempt.”
“But how?!” Chilly pulled away from her mentor. “Every new line on the magical drawing eliminates two or even three old ones. There is nothing left around. This dumb gate was the last chance.”
“All these doors and wickets are still here. And there is something more...” Rose stood up and looked to the dark blot on the spot where the dead pegasus had lain before. “A pony’s body consists of a lot of lines and strokes.”
“What?! What do you want to say?”
“As a last resort you can disassemble me.”
“NO!”
“Yes! Listen, now we are staking in the middle of nowhere. Just now we are two drawn mares who have not existed in the real world for two hundred years. We can not get out of this bog by pulling ourselves by our own manes. If the only way for you to swim out is to drown me down, you must do this! Because you do not exist outside, you are all here. But I do not.” After a short pause she mumbled: “I hope so.”
“But how?”
“When everything has been tried out without any result, it is time to recall the ancient traditions of the steppe shamans. It is time to appeal to the sacral family spirits.”
For several seconds Chilly stayed with her mouth open and her eyes wide open, showing her stunning and fear.
“But what if I muddle and crash everything again?”
“You're young enough for the foal effect to still act about you. Do you remember what it is?”
“It happens when young foals are turning out to be extremely lucky with magic. Isn’t it?”
“Correct. But it is about not any magic, it is about extremely dangerous magic. Remember it, Chilly. And not only for children, but for...”
“...pregnant mares too!” picked up Chilly and two mares hugged each other giggling.
***
The door to Night Chilly’s room ripped off from its hinges with a loud crack, and a tall Pegasus rushed inside. It was the captain of the castle guard. Immediately he hopped into the air holding in his front hooves a halberd with a shortened shaft. He soared under the ceiling and gazed hard on mares in the room moving his eye from one to another.
“Storm Cloud!” Rouse yelled. “How dare you?! At first you make the castle full of your brigands, and then you’re breaking the doors! What’s next?!”
“I… Beg your pardon, milady” The Captain was stumbling and choosing words with effort. “I did… A scream. You know... I heard it. So it is. And here...”
“Whom are you going to battle against here? Little fillies and and rag dolls! Aren’t you?”
Night Rose picked up with her magic a plush figure of Nightmare Moon which was scattered on the floor and levitated it next to Storm Cloud’s face. He gritted his teeth and squeezed the halberd’s shaft tighter.
“Your uncle ordered to strengthen the protection of the castle. And I...”
“My husband...” Night Rose interrupted the captain. “...Is invested in politics and affairs of the duchy, but in the castle I'm giving orders. Everything that you do here outside the guard’s quarters, you have to coordinate with me. Especially since I found the missing Night Chilly without any of your help.”
“Yes ma’am! You are right, milady.” Storm Cloud landed on the floor and put away his halberd into a baldric on his side. “What are your orders?”
“Immediately take away all of your headcutters from everywhere in the castle and then you may be free.” The Captain started to turn towards the door but hesitated. Rose intercepted his gaze aimed to the hidden-in-the-corner Night Chilly and added: “You can report to the Duke that the missing one was found and that she is all right. All the details I will tell him myself, as soon as the young lady will explain to me what a discord’s damn mess she has made.”
“Yes, milady! Everything will be done.”
“Captan! One more thing...” Rose halted Storm Cloud as he already stepped out of the room. “Two days ago I saw two young twin pegasi mares in the castle yard...”
Storm Cloud kept silent for several seconds till he understood that the question had been already asked and he had to answer.
“Ah… They are… my nieces. They just came from Cloudsdale. I sent them to town. Here, there is nothing to do for this two in the hut.”
“Ah, I see.” With her levitation, Rose grabbed and pulled next to her a pillow scattered on the floor nearby and sat down on it. “You see, captain, I will need some help soon.” She rubbed her bulged out belly with her hoof. “Could you send those two to me?”
“Certainly, milady.”
“Good. Now go, captain.”
“Young mistress has been found! Everyone must return to the barracks!” echoed from the hallway.
“Teneg Tulpar...” Rose uttered under her breath and lit the magical aura around her horn. “Hush there!” She raised her voice in response to muffled giggles from the room’s corner. Then a flickering glow enveloped the crumpled and torn from its hinges door, and after several seconds the door was fit in its right place. Immediately still sitting on the pillow Night Rose was attacked by a unicorn filly with dark coat. Night Chilly hugged her alive and unharmed mentor, almost hung on her neck.
“Ouch, your horn! You’re pricking me,” Rose kindly reproached her pupil, patting her back. “Don’t try to huggle me, young lady. You still have to tell me about too many things so we’re able to explain to your father what your mark means and where you have been all this time.”
“Wait… My what?” The filly broke hugs and started to spin in place like a dog trying to bit its own tail in an attempt to get a better view of the picture on her flank. “How… What is it?”
“Obviously, it is a lead or charcoal pencil crossed with a writing quill” Rose uttered, rubbing her chin with her hoof.
“Are you kidding me? And what about this?!” In the filly’s voice appeared somewhat scared. She poked with her hoof against her flank a bit higher than the pictured drawing tools.
“No. I’m not. I’m trying to contrive some story for the inquisitor why on your mark among all other things there is a shaman’s eye. It is our family tamga as you know. And acquire it as the part of the mark is possible only in our family sanctuary, but access to that place is denied. By the way, it makes me curious as to how you got there?”
“But you should… Do you remember?”
“What should I remember?” Rose strictly looked at the Chilly’s eyes rapidly filled with tears.
“In the picture you was… And me… It turned out to be some closed world and I locked myself there. You had explained… Er...”
“So.” Rose interrupted “Let's go step by step. Magical picture you said. I remember this. Bring it here.”
Almost stumbling over her own feet, the filly ran across the room and came back with a sheet of thick grayish paper.
“Em-m, it seems there was something different here. Is it exactly that picture?”
“Yeap!” Chilly nervously nodded.
“So...” Rose took a deep breath. “Here it is. It is our family sanctuary. The old castle was built around it five hundred years ago.”
On the awkwardly primed surface appeared an image of the seven granite plates of various shapes and sizes. They all stood vertically in the circular formation and in the middle of this by a few strokes there was a lined-out, barely visible figure of unicorn mare.
