My Little Proletariat

The thing about the Everfree that you always forgot, was how big it was.

Equestria was bigger, sure. But Equestria was just a line on a map. The Everfree Forest and the Dragonspine Mountains and the Great Plains were all parts of it, but they were at their heart different places, bound together by one name. You could look at them on the map and marvel how much paper they took up, but if you travelled by train from Canterlot all the way out to Appleoosa, well, you knew you’d gone from one neighbourhood to the other.

The Everfree, on the other hand, was one vast unknown country. Even Celestia’s power didn’t extend far into the undergrowth. The greater depths of the forest proper were truly unexplored territory -  true “here be dragons” territory.

There was no better place to hide from the  Princess and her guards.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash made their way north and east through the forest. They kept about half a day’s solid travel from the edge, which was plenty far enough into the forest for either of them. Dash would periodically take to the skies, to track their progress. To Twilight, stuck on the ground, it was monotonous, the endless hours of tramping through the undergrowth punctuated only by a seemingly endless progression of course changes and doublings-back as the pegasus guided them.

They didn’t encounter anypony - or anything - else. A couple of times, Dash rocketed to the ground and told Twilight to hide, minutes before one of the Everfree’s many inhabitants came blundering (or clattering, or buzzing) past. At night, they dared not risk a fire - smoke and flames could attract guards from one side -  and worse from the other.

It was only an hour after sunrise on the third day of their exile (Twilight had counted their initial flight from Ponyville and the headlong dash through the outskirts of the Everfree as day one) that they got their first sight of Canterlot. They crested a hill that poked up baldly from the body of the Everfree to behold stone walls and houses in the middle distance. Smoke drifted lazily from chimneys, and ponies went about their everyday chores.

Rainbow Dash sat down beside her, shrugging to rearrange her saddle-bags. Late yesterday afternoon they’d stopped in a clearing, and the pegasus had rummaged about under a rotten old tree stump. She’d retrieved a few days’ worth of trail rations and some bedrolls, all held in a leather saddle bag and wrapped up in an oilcloth. She’d bragged about always being prepared until Twilight had stared her into submission, and finally admitted that her parents had mentioned the spot in passing when she was a filly.

One of these days, Twilight thought, she’d have to meet these parents.

“What’s the plan?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Unless they’re really paranoid, they’ll still let everyone into Canterlot proper.” Twilight squinted, trying to make out the town gates. “The Palace is a different story, but I have Rarity’s pass to let us in. We’ll go just before dinner time, around when they change shift. It should be busiest then - hopefully they don’t ask too many questions.”

“She gave that pass up voluntary?” Dash asked.

“She did.” Twilight gave the pegasus a level look. “She is sorry about what happened, you know.”

Rainbow Dash stared back, but in the end she was the first to drop her gaze. “Let’s just get this done,” she said. “So, what, we waltz up and say we’re two operatives and we need to get in quick fast?”

“One operative,” Twilight said. “The pass only works for one pony.”

“I know I’m not a math genius like you, Twi, but there’s two of us. What am I going to do while you wander around the palace?”

“Oh,” Twilight said, getting up. “Don't worry. I have a plan to get you in too...”

“You found her where, exactly?” the guard asked.

Twilight flipped her main. Rarity did that, right? “Oh, skulking around the edge of the forest, watching everything that was going on. She clearly knew what was happening, and we already have reports of her taking part in subversive activity.”

Rainbow Dash strained against her makeshift bonds. Between the outdoor equipment, some nearby vines, and Twilight’s considerable telekinetic fine motor skills, they’d managed to truss the pegasus up in a believably prisoner-esque manner. Twilight just hoped she hadn’t cut off blood flow to anywhere important.

The guard looked singularly unimpressed. His colleague didn’t seem particularly inclined to help out. And Twilight was aware of a small queue forming behind her. No one had recognised her yet - a few days’ worth of grime and the heavy saddlebags obscuring her cutie mark would help in that regard - but she was sure it was only a matter of time. Canterlot was only so big, after all.

The guard peered at her pass. He was an earth pony stallion, obviously hired for his intimidating looks and not his intellectual prowess. His burnt-orange coat clashed horridly with his armour, all gilt and stylised sunbursts, and his brown mane hung down over his eyes as he squinted at the writing.

Twilight tried not to appear nervous, and failed.

“Says here you’re supposed to be white,” he said finally.

Twilight gave a sigh. “I’m travelling incognito,” she said. “I don’t want everyone to know I’m here.”

“She’s not on the pass,” the guard said, nodding to Rainbow Dash.

Twilight attempted a withering glare. “When they issued me the pass, they didn’t know I’d get a captive, did they?”

“Let ‘em through," the other guard said, leaning against the palace wall. "We haven’t got all day.”

“Idunno,” said the first one. Twilight repressed an urge to yell at him. If this was the calibre of earth pony intellect in the Party, she could almost see why Rarity-

No, that’s a bad thought, and we’re not thinking bad thoughts.

OK, this guard was just a particularly stubborn, unkempt example of the probably proud and noble earth pony line, and it wasn’t his fault that luck or genetics played him a particularly-

“Nope, yer not getting in,” he said. “Now, shove off.”

OK, that’s it.

“Really?” Twilight advanced on him. “I have the pass,” her horn glowed as she yanked it from the guard’s hooves, “I have a captive, and I can’t even trust my handler. I’ve spent two days trekking through the wilderness to get here, just to make sure the Committee was informed of what happened at Ponyville. We have this sort of measure in place just to deal with situations like these, and you’re going to be the horse-shoe in the gears that stops this whole machine working?”

She was eye-to-eye with him now. Well. Eye-to-shoulder.

“Yup,” he said, glaring at her. “That’s me. Now, shove off.”

Her mind was racing. Usually, getting angry with other ponies worked. She could feel the glares of the growing queue of ponies behind her.

“Well,” she said quietly, “I guess you’ll just have to report to your superiors why you didn’t let a Committee operative into the palace to discuss vital and time-sensitive information with them.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Sounds good to me,” he said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his companion open his mouth to say something, and then think better of it.

Celestia damn it, what’s it going to take to get him to crack? What would Rarity do?

Ah.

Her lip quivered slightly. She thought sad thoughts.

The guard stomped a hoof nervously.

Twilight thought about that one time as a filly, when she’d scrimped and saved enough to buy an icre-cream from the pony on the street corner a block down from her dad’s work. Then on the way back, someone had bumped into her and the ice-cream had gone flying off the cone, into the street.

She could feel tears threatening.

The guard looked nervously at his buddy, who gave a shrug.

She’d spent weeks saving up that money.

A single tear traced its way down her cheek.

“Fine!” the guard said, rolling his eyes. “You can go in. You!” he pointed a hoof accusingly at the other guard. “Take her to reception. Get her checked out.”

Twilight hid a smile as they proceeded through the gate. Rainbow Dash gave her a glower - she wasn’t sure if that was for getting the pegasus to stand out here tied up, or for her excellent acting job. Regardless, they were in.

One of the joys of youth is that afternoons tend to last forever. You can spend an eternity with just yourself and a stick, if you really put your mind to it.

Of course, this means that when you’re hunkered down under a bush watching guards do nothing much, each minute seems like a year.

“Can’t we ambush them or steal their stuff or tie them up or something?” Scootaloo asked.

“Nope,” said Sweetie Belle. “Because it doesn’t work like that in real life.”

“But I’m boooooored.”

Sweetie Belle cast an annoyed look the pegasus’ way. “Then you should’ve stayed behind with Applejack and Big Mac, rather than coming along with us. Now quiet, before they hear us.”

“They’re movin’,” said Apple Bloom, eyes fixed on the village.

The three of them were hunkered down just outside the village boundary, as close as they could get to the Town Square. While the Everfree didn’t extend right to Ponyville proper, you could still get pretty close if you didn’t mind darting from bush to bush. The three of them had a lifetime’s experience hiding from older sisters and teachers: evading the gazes of a couple of guards was no problem.

“They’ll be on rotation,” said Scootaloo, attention focussed once again. “At some point they’ll change over, and that’ll be our chance.”

“What,” Sweetie Belle asked, “when there’s twice as many milling around?”

“Their attention will be...” Scootaloo waved her hoof. “They won’t be paying attention.” She traced a line across the landscape. “We go one bush, two bush, chariot.”

Apple Bloom looked up. “One bush, two bush, what?”

“Chariot,” Scootaloo repeated. She pointed. Just behind the guards, parked up against someone’s house, was a chariot. It was a two-wheel affair, with enough room for two ponies to stand inside and a chest for luggage firmly attached to the back.

“How do you even know they’re on rotation?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Guards are always on rotation,” said Scootaloo.

“Says who?”

“Says books.”

“What’re we going to do with a chariot?” Apple Bloom asked in a hoarse whisper.

“We’re gonna climb into the chest on the back,” said Scootaloo, “and hitch a ride to Canterlot.” She grinned.

“Oh no,” said Sweetie Belle. “No way are we doing that.”

Scootaloo gave her a glare. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Too chicken to hitch a ride?”

“This isn’t a game. If they catch us, it’s not just early bed-times for a week.”

“Girls,” Apple Bloom said, “girls, they’re moving again!”

They piped down, eyes on the guards. The two guarding the town’s edge - both burly stallions in armour - where holding a conversation with two others, who’d just arrived.

“OK, fine,” said Sweetie Belle, “so they’re changing-“ she glanced in Scootaloo’s direction. The pegasus was gone. Apple Bloom pointed towards another bush, one that was rustling suspiciously. An orange hoof stuck out and waved them over.

Sweetie Belle exchanged glances with Apple Bloom. “She doesn’t actually think...”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “If she does it an’ gets caught,” she said, “we’ll hear no end of hell from Rarity an’ Applejack.”

Sweetie Belle gave the situation an appraising look.

“Ah reckon we could at least hold her down ’til they leave,” Apple Bloom volunteered.

It was sane. It was well-reasoned. And it would stop them having to deal with Canterlot guards and goodness-knows-what-else. So why wasn’t she immediately acting on it?

Oh, right. Some part of her wanted to stow away, infiltrate Canterlot, and save the day. Joy.

“Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom asked.

The unicorn sighed. “Come on, Apple Bloom,” she said. “Looks like I'm getting a cutie mark in really bad decision making.”

“You’re sure you can get in this way?” Dash asked. She was pacing nervously back and forth, occasionally running a hoof over her wings where her improvised bonds had cut her a bit too tight for comfort. Their escort was in some sheltered nook in the Palace gardens, sleeping off a telekinetic brick cocktail. On the one hand, Rainbow Dash was impressed with Twilight’s precision and control. On the other, her devotion to the task was just a bit unnerving.

“Sure,” said Twilight. “I used to sneak in this way heaps when I was a filly. The kitchen’s right next to it, and the cook used to cool apple turnovers overnight. All you’ve got to do,” she said, squinting as her horn glowed, “is lift the latch and also push on the corner...” There was a click, and the door swung open. “Presto,” Twilight said, giving a little bow.

“Huh,” said Rainbow Dash, refusing to be impressed. She trotted through, into the palace proper, glancing up and down the corridor nervously.

It was big, and wide, and Dash couldn’t help noticing that there was a severe lack of places to hide if guards came charging from elsewhere in the palace. The floor was covered in faded rugs, which at least muffled their hoof-steps, and the blue-grey stone of Canterlot Palace arced up over their heads, drawing the eye up, up.

Rainbow Dash launched off the ground and hovered a few feet in the air. It wouldn’t change much, but she felt more comfortable like this.

“Turnovers,” she said, as Twilight crept in behind her and closed the door quietly.

“Yeah,” said Twilight, “what about them?” She looked both ways down the corridor, paused for a moment, and then proceeded left.

Rainbow Dash followed, occasionally looking behind them. There was no sign of anypony else, but she wasn’t taking any chances. “You know, Applejack could make you as many turnovers as you wanted. All you have to do is ask her.”

“It’s not the same if someone just gives them to you,” said Twilight. “Hold on.”

They’d come to an intersection, where their corridor joined onto another. Twilight kept flattened against the wall while Rainbow gave a couple of solid wingbeats, rising into the air. Once she was near the ceiling, she poked her head around, before quickly pulling back and descending.

“Guard,” she whispered. “Headed this way.”

The two of them withdrew to a handy alcove, squeezing in alongside a life-size statue of some unicorn or other, cast in bronze and rearing on two feet. Twilight adjusted the pack - whatever Dash had in it, it was heavy.

The pegasus risked a peak out of the alcove. “He’s headed this way!” she whispered, torn between yelling in fear and clamming up. “What do we do what do we do what do we do?”

“I’ve got this,” said Twilight. She has an irrational urge to drop the saddlebags right now and itemise everything in them, but she pushed that thought to the back of her brain. Her horn glowed - just a little bit, just enough. “Stay very, very still,” she muttered.

The guard made his measured pace down the corridor. This was the cushy shift: no one was interested in this section of the palace, and they kept it patrolled more for policy’s sake than anything else. He paused for a break next to an alcove, and admired the statue someone had placed there. Three bronze figures looked out - a rearing unicorn, his companion, braced with horn presented, obviously ready to cast a spell, and a pegasus, cowering underneath the two of them.

He cast an eye over the figures. He wasn’t an afficionado of art, not by any stretch, but even he could appreciate the life the sculptor had managed to put into them. You could almost feel the determination radiating off the spell-casting mare, or the fear in the heart of the pegasus. It was like whichever pony had made this piece had really captured a piece of life in the bronze.

He let out a sigh. They kept an eye on how fast you did your rounds, these days. Maybe when he had time off, he could come back and find out who’d cast this particular piece. In the meantime, there was guard duty to do. He turned back and continued on his rounds.

Twilight waited a good twenty seconds before she let the spell drop. Rainbow Dash let out a ragged breath. “Let’s...” she said. “Let’s not try that again, shall we?”

Sundown meant their guard shift was over. They’d drawn lots and Storm Front and Jetstream had lost, so they got to pull the chariot.

“Don’t forget to give it a wash when you’re done!” one of the luckier ones called out, as they assembled in the town square. Storm Front considered giving him a rude gesture, and thought better of it. The last thing she’d need after hauling this thing back to Canterlot was half an hour’s physical as punishment for Disrespecting a Senior Officer.

One by one, the pegasi launched into the air, keeping a holding pattern once they were up. Jetstream shrugged into the harness and stretched his wings, giving the chariot an experimental pull.

“Jeez,” he said, “either I ate too many doughnuts again, or this thing is heavy.”

Storm Front rolled her eyes, ducking into the harness. “Stallions,” she muttered, as she took up the slack. The two of them tensed, and launched themselves into the air.

A pair of eyes peeked out of the luggage compartment.

“We’re fly-mph!”

“Quiet, Apple Bloom. It’s working!”

“Did you have to say that?”

“But it is!”

“But it only stops working after you say it’s working!”

“Shh! They’ll hear us!”

Up front, Storm Front gave a grunt. “Maybe you did eat too many doughnuts,” she said. “Feels like I’m having to lift the whole cart, plus you.”

“Hey,” Jetstream said, “you want to pull this thing by yourself?”

Grumbling all the way, front end and back, the chariot made its way toward Canterlot.

Their luck ran out about the same time they got to the front of the palace.

Dash was still flying point, trying to keep out of sight on the basis that guards never looked up. It was working quite well, until she and Twilight rounded a corner just as a squad of guards piled out of a room.

The one in the lead looked them over dismissively. "Shouldn't you be with the tour groups?" he asked.

"Uh, tour groups? Oh, yeah," Twilight said. Bouyed up by her recent success in bluffing, she continued. "I think we got lost? I was looking at this marvellous statue..."

She trailed off. The guard was looking above her, at Rainbow Dash - Twilight glanced up - strike that, to the spot of air that Rainbow Dash had until very recently been occupying.

Their eyes met. Twilight gave a sickly grin.

"Guards!" the stallion yelled. Twilight turned tail and bolted back around the corner.

"Dash!" she yelled, galloping down the hallway. Walls and windows blurred past her. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the squad giving chase.

The pegasus was streaking in front of her, a back-draft of disturbed air from her passage causing tapestries to billow and vases to rock on their stands. "Sorry!" she yelled over her shoulder. Then, "look out!"

Twilight looked behind her. The guards were gaining - even with her head-start, she figured they only had a minute or so before they got caught.

And it was going so well, too.

She looked ahead, and almost ran into another guard.

"Hey!" he yelled.

She dodged, almost ran into the wall, corrected, ducked, continued. Her lungs were started to burn. Unicorns weren't made for long-distance running.

"Hey, you!" the guard said. There was a clatter of hooves as he turned and started on her tail. She dare not look back.

"Dash," she said, "slow down!"

"Do what?" Rainbow Dash turned, mid-flight, to look at Twilight, and ran smack into an archway. The pegasus tumbled from the air, landing on the thick carpet with a grunt. Twilight's eyes narrowed. She could hear the guard on her heels, and behind him, the squad who'd originally been chasing them. They were bearing up on the pegasus, who was just getting to her hooves, when she closed her eyes, took a breath...and leaped.

She tackled Rainbow Dash just as the pegasus found her feet, and the two of them tumbled along the carpet like a pastel-coloured bowling ball. Twilight got a glimpse or two of the end of the corridor, where it turned ninety degreees. Occasionally she got a look behind her, at the cadre of angry guards chasing them. One of them was close - too close - and as she tumbled she saw him bunching his muscles, ready to leap on them.

No time. She closed her eyes. Her horn glowed. There was a pop.

The guard landed on thin air, tumbled a few feet along the carpet, and slammed into the wall.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash were nowhere to be found.

"Where are-"

"Shhh!"

There was a clatter of hooves as the rest of the guards arrived.

"Where did they go?" one asked. His voice was muffled.

"Damned if I know." A different voice. "One minute here, the next minute...poof."

"Damn unicorns. Snow, sound the alarm! The rest of you, start searching."

"Captain, she could be any-"

"Do I look like I care? Lock down the palace! Get the night shift up. And someone get me my armour!"

There was a chorus of acknowledgements, and the sound of retreating hoofsteps.

"Well, drat," said Twilight, eventually.

"Er, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Where are we? And why's it so dark?"

"Well, if I fix the second problem," Twilight said, "it might help with the first."

She closed her eyes (not that it made much difference right now), and her horn glowed with a faint light. Just enough to see by - hopefully not enough to get noticed by.

They were in a corridor, although it was considerably less opulent than the one they'd come from. There were no statues, no tapestries, and definitely no carpet. There was also a notable lack of windows.

"Excellent!" Twilight said, pleased with herself.

"Excellent?"

"Well," she started, "I figured that since we spent so much effort getting into the palace we'd want to stay within the palace (not to mention that teleporting myself and another pony outside of the palace would probably put me out of action for days). Unfortunately, I need a good image of where I'm headed, and just before I didn't have anything like that, but I figured that where the corridor turned there should probably be something on the other side of it, like a room or another corridor or something, and I figured if I just put that image in my mind, with a strong association of where it was relative to us, it would work."

"But we're not in a corridor or-"

"A-ha! See, that's where the stroke of genius comes in. The guards would expect me to do that, and they'll be fanning out from where we vanished from."

"So...we didn't do that?"

"Nope!"

"So...uh," Rainbow Dash looked around again. "Where are we?"

"Down." Twilight grinned.

Rainbow Dash scratched her head. "Down?"

"I worked out we were headed down one of the sixteen main corridors in the central section of the palace: you can tell because of the archways and sometimes because of the carpeting, but mainly the archways. Under each of those there's a service tunnel, for the staff and for storage, but apparently they hardly ever get used any more."

"Apparently?"

"Well, I only know this from talking to some of the cleaning staff when I was here as a filly. Anyway, I figured that if the service tunnels were any good, they'd have to be at least two ponies high and probably three times that wide, and even given a pretty strong archway you need so much masonry and packed earth between levels to distribute stress, so I took what I knew of ancient Equestrian building practices and...well, guesstimated."

"Guesstimated?" Rainbow Dash was starting to feel well out of her depth, her only contributions to the conversation being parroting words back at Twilight.

"Well, how far down we needed to go."

"And if you got it wrong?"

"Oh," said Twilight, grinning, "you don't need to worry. If I teleported you into solid matter, death would be instantaneous. You wouldn't feel a thing!"

Rainbow Dash should be angry at that. She knew she should. It was the sort of thing you normally got angry about. But there were too many things happening right now, and at least Twilight seemed to know what she was doing.

"How did you figure all that out while we were being chased?" she asked.

Twilight gave her a look, and shrugged. "Well, you're not using your brain when you're running. And we needed to get out of there somehow."

Rainbow Dash shook her head. Unicorns, she thought. "OK," she said. "What's the plan now?"

"Well, I guess we try to find our way out of here. The guards'll be on the lookout for magic use now they know I'm here. But I figure that if the service tunnels all meet in the centre, there should be a way up there."

"So we walk?"

Twilight nodded. "We walk."

They set off, headed toward where Twilight reckoned the centre of the Palace was. Their hoofsteps echoed off the walls, up and down the corridor. The only thing lighting their way was Twilight's horn, which showed them about twenty feet up the corridor, twenty feet behind - and nothing more.

They walked in silence. Support beams, solid grey stone, the same colour at the mountain Canterlot was built into the side of, hugged the wall every ten feet or so. Rainbow Dash started counting them, trying to keep track of the distance they'd travelled, but lost count at either sixteen or seventeen, and gave up. Every minute or so she'd jump into the air, hover for a few feet, then come back down to earth.

The underground made her feel nervous.

Eventually, the pegasus looked over to Twilight. "So, ah," she said. "What's down here?"

"Well," said Twilight, "obviously they keep cleaning stuff down here - or, well, kept. Apparently they have three different sets of furniture down here for feasts too, and at least one set of ceremonial armour for the guard for parades. Although they'd have to clean the dust off of that. And, uh..."

"And what?"

"Well, there's always rumours that there's dungeons down here too."

"Dungeons?" said Rainbow Dash. This sounded less boring than furniture.

"Well, back from when Equestria wasn't quite as civilised. Apparently they used to keep prisoners in the lower levels of the basement, and sometimes they'd well..." Twilight swallowed. "They'd interrogate them down here."

"You mean torture?"

"But I'm sure that's all locked up!" Twilight added hurriedly. "I'm sure they haven't had to use the dungeons in...oh my."

They'd emerged into a room. It was circular, and big enough that they could only just see the far wall in the faint light of Twilight's horn. In the middle of the room was a pit, extending up ten feet and down as far as they could see. Around the edge ran a stone staircase, at least three ponies wide.

"Uh...Twi..." Dash said. "Did those cleaners ever mention a giant pit boring right into the centre of the earth when they were talking about the tunnels under the palace?"

"You'd expect that sort of thing would come up, wouldn't you." Twilight walked forward and peered over the edge of the staircase, acutely aware that there wasn't any railing or ledge or anything to stop her tripping and falling, falling for minutes, hours, days, down, down into the dark...

She felt dizzy, and took an uncertain step backward. "OK," she said to herself, "no more staring into the abyss."

"What's down there?" Dash asked.

"I don't know," Twilight replied. "It looks like the staircase keeps going, and I think I saw a door, but I can't see a bottom to the pit at all."

Rainbow Dash sprang into the air, hovering above the pit. She shuddered, landed back on next to Twilight.

"It makes me feel weird," she said, settling her wings back against her body.

"It makes you feel weird?" Twilight asked. "You regularly do nose-dives from the cloud layer."

"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash, looking anywhere but at Twilight. "Shut up." She paused. "Hey, Twi, did you say no one used these corridors?"

"As far as I know, yeah. Why?"

Rainbow Dash pointed with a hoof, silent.

The staircase was layered in a film of thin dust, fine and grey. There was a morass of hoofprints surrounding the two of them, where they'd walked back and forth. And leading down the staircase, further into the darkness, there were several more.

Twilight looked at the pegasus. "We've got a mission here, Rainbow," she said. "We can't just run off after everything."

"Twilight, you said this is where they threw prisoners, right?"

"Well, yes-"

"Prisoners like Fluttershy?"

"I...Rainbow, we don't even know if they took her back here! She could be anywhere in Equestria by now! They could have secret holding facilities off in the Griffon Islands or something for prisoners like her!"

Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed. "What, and you're going to walk off without at least  checking?"

Twilight stared at the pegasus in the light of her horn. The tunnels were silent, even after this time. She knew the search would get down here eventually, and their tracks in the dust would let the guards know right where they were - and where they'd gone. They needed to make the most of this advantage.

But Rainbow Dash was looking at her with her heart in her eyes. And worse, the pegasus was right.

Twilight sighed. "Fine," she said, "but after that - we're going straight to Celestia."

The staircase went down two full turns before they found the next door. Twilight was getting dizzy - from the downward spiral or the presence of that black pit, she wasn't sure. It had an effect on both of them, that was true enough. Rainbow Dash, who positively loved heights, was hugging the wall religiously. She was glad when they reached the door, and the hoofprints in the dust stopped.

The door was solid oak, almost black in the violet light of Twilight's horn. She pushed it open and it swung inward easily. Twilight didn't trust that - door this big should creak, or groan, or make some sound when they opened. A silent door was a well-maintained door, and Twilight didn't want to think why this door was well-maintained.

They emerged into a corridor, curving both ways around the Pit. (It didn't need a capital, she knew. Just "the pit" would do, but after so much exposure to it, the proper noun just slid into place, sitting there insolently in her thoughts like it had always been there, and meant to stay around just as long as it could.) Every fifty feet or so there was a door, thick wood, of the same material as the door they'd entered by. A tiny iron grille sat at head height, giving a brief glimpse into the cells beyond. For cells they were - tiny, just enough room for one pony, and bereft of comfort or convenience.

Worse, the corridor had been swept clean, and recently.

"We need to split up," Rainbow Dash said.

"That's a really bad idea," Twilight said, almost instinctively. She'd read books; she knew what happened when ponies split up.

"No, look, we need to split up," Rainbow Dash said. "If this thing runs all the way around the Pi-"

"Don't call it that."

Rainbow Dash shot her a glare. "Around...it. If the corridor runs all the way around, that's a lot of cells. The guards will get here eventually. We need to find Fluttershy and get out of here before that happens."

"But what about light?" Twilight asked.

"I'll be fine, don't worry." Rainbow Dash rested a hoof onher shoulder. "We'll find her, Twilight."

And the pegasus trotted off into the darkness, without a backward glance.

Twilight stared off after her for a good minute. She could hear the sound of hoof-steps echoing off the corridor, reverberating from wall to wall, and every so often the sound of Dash's voice as she called Fluttershy's name. Each time it was slightly fainter.

She shook her head. This place was getting to her. She turned and started checking the doors.

The first ten were empty. Each one the same as the last - a small bench of stone, for sleeping, a space maybe ten feet by ten feet, for pacing, and a hole in the corner of the cell, presumably for everything else that a pony needed to do. At each door, Twilight peered in, her horn pushing feeble light into the corners of the cell. Each time she found the cell empty, a combination of relief and growing anxiety coursed through her.

As she approached the eleventh, she heard weeping.

There was a figure in the corner of the cell. It was too dark to see anything else - the light from her horn didn't do much more than cast silhouettes and shadows.

"Hello?" Twilight whispered.

The sobbing stopped. The figure turned to look at Twilight, and she did so a pair of wings unfolded - deep, navy blue in the faint light. Their eyes met, and as they did, Twilight realised that she knew the pony in the cell.

"Luna?" she asked.

The pony galloped to the door and put her hooves on the grille. Her wings were twitching - Twilight wasn't sure if it was nerves or the terrible conditions. She kept looking at the Princess' forehead. She had no horn. She looked away, but her eyes crept back there.

She had no horn.

"You're not a guard!" Luna - or the Luna lookalike - was saying, quietly, hurriedly, "you're here to get me out, aren't you? Did my parents contact you? How did you get past the guard? Do you have a key?"

Twilight blinked. She looked so much like Luna...

"Luna?" she repeated. "Princess?"

"What? Who?" the pegasus asked. Adjusting to the light, she focussed on Twilight's face. "Wait, you're the purple one!"

"Twilight, Twilight Sparkle. I rescued you. It...is it you? What are you doing down here? Where's your horn?"

"Rescued me? You attacked me! Or...she attacked me. You're here to rescue me?"

Twilight banged the bars in frustration. "You're not listening to me!" she said. "Look, what happened-"

There was a clang further down the corridor. As one, both of them froze. The light from Twilight's horn winked out, replaced by the flickering glow of torchlight.

"...come down here if they wanted to," said a voice - somepony entering the corridor from the staircase, Twilight imagined. "The pit gives me the willies."

There was a clang as the door closed, then the muffled clop of hooves as a pony - no, two ponies - started walking down the corridor.

"Look, we got orders," said a voice, "just check, then we head back up."

Twilight glanced back at Luna - or the Luna-imposter, or whatever. The pegasus' eyes had gone wide. "Oh goddess," she whispered to herself. "Oh goddess oh goddess they're coming back you need to help me get me out get me out get me out!"

Twilight looked down at the door. It was thick, solid wood, with a large iron lock embedded in it. She'd never done this before, but, well, she'd read about locks...

What're you doing? part of her mind screamed. They're guards, they'll catch you, they'll ruin everything!

"Oh my goddess they're coming they're coming to take me away and then they're-"

"Shut up," said Twilight, her horn glowing again. She knew what locks looked like. She'd read books about them. It was a bunch of tumblers, one after the other. Assuming this one wasn't any different...

It's just like a series of linear equations, she thought to herself. I just have to make them all line up.

"Don't worry, girlie," came a voice from down the corridor. Twilight almost bolted. They must be talking about Lu- about the pegasus, she thought. Part of her was whimpering along with Luna, begging her to flee, to leave this pony to her fate. Twilight was ignoring that voice.

"Yeah," said the second voice, "just a routine checkup. Seems like one of Celestia's pets has got loose in the Palace, so we just need to hunt her down and bring her back to her owner."

That caused Twilight to flinch. Celestia knew it was her. Of course. A bunch of guards had seen her, someone would have passed her description up the chain. Which meant-

"Oh goddess get me out please, I'll do anything, just get me out of here," the pegasus whined.

Twilight frowned. Focus.

She could feel the tumblers in her mind, each one positioned differently, each one needing just the right amount of force to click into place. It was a bit more intricate than she'd predicted, keeping tabs on each, pressing and holding in the right locations.

She emptied her mind. No guards. No Luna-lookalike-pegasus. No Rainbow Dash running around here too. No Celestia, with whatever game she was playing. No friends back in Ponyville.

Just her, and the lock.

Everything faded out. She could still hear it, sure - the guards calling out in jest, Luna screaming at her now, the little voice in the back of her head telling her to run - but it wasn't as important. Not as important as a little magic here, a little magic there, and then...

...and then it clicked.

And the door creaked open, and time reasserted itself. The pegasus flung herself against the door, which flew open, slamming Twilight against the wall. Then she felt the weight of a pony's body against her - armoured, sweating. A guard's face leered at her. "Gotcha," he said in a whisper.

"She's free!" the other guard said, galloping past. "The prisoner's free!" The first guard looked up, hooves still pinning Twilight against the wall.

Twilight shook her head. Thoughts felt..fuzzy. She needed to get out. To safety. Where could she go that was safe? Her horn glowed.

The guard turned back to her. He saw the glow. "Hey," he said, raising his hoof, "none of tha-"

He was too late.

Silence.

Not the silence of the underground passages, where nopony ever went. Not the silence of the Everfree, where at least three different species were watching you, working out if you were lunch.

Instead, the silence of study. The silence of civilisation.

Twilight took a breath. Then she realised where she was. She kicked herself. This wasn't safe. She really must have taken a bang to the head if she thought-

A page turned behind her.

"Hello, my faithful student."