I
It is a merely normal day for Twilight Sparkle, an average, ordinary day as many before. Until, that is, she will look behind her basement door. It is a large castle, her castle, and has more rooms than she can ever use, more doors than she has ever opened, and some are still new.
There is purpose, naturally, behind her urge to explore. Certain failed experiments by certain over-eager foals have led her to believe that certain tomes of magic spells are not to be seen by certain eyes. She needs a restricted section, well-hidden, well-warded, and safe. She thinks the castle's largely unexplored basement may just be what she's looking for.
But she does not know what lies behind that basement door, one of many she hasn't yet had use for.
She travels down the long and sloping hall, not a care, not an inkling of what lies ahead, not at all. One by one she opens the doors along her way. This room is too large, that closet too small. Another is more or less right, but its door has a clear crystal window – it would be terrible at hiding books that should not be seen by all.
And then, of course, she comes to the door. Without the slightest hesitation, without any thought that she might later curse her luck, she opens that doomful door.
Behind it, she hears a quack, as from a duck.
The room behind is a black abyss, its adamant veil holds proof against her eyes. She cannot pierce it, no matter how she tries.
There comes again, from the dark, a single ugly quack.
She knows now already, this room is not the one she seeks. She knows, already, her life will go better if turns away, not another peek – if she closes the door, merely turns and steps away. She could forget it, in time, forget what she has seen, forget what she has heard.
But Twilight Sparkle is a curious pony, to a fault. She knows, already, she cannot leave this room unknown, even if she should. She wouldn’t turn away now, even if she could. The dark room's mystery calls her, its unknown depth tempts her. It is a bright and wiggling lure, and she the hapless fish.
Light flares from her horn, springing from her wish. For a time, the dim room holds fast, and reveals no secrets yet. So she gives more power, piercing into the limitless dark.
Finally, there comes a few reflection, scant pricks of light. Ripples as of cold, shallow water, but two more, spaced rather like eyes. She doesn't like what she sees, but she cannot help but see more – she must know. All her life, she has struggled to know, needing ever more. For this fell purpose, her horn brightens yet its glow.
More yellow eyes join the first, pair after pair in a row. The darkness yields before her strength, it shows her what she should not know.
For there are, in her basement room, eight ducks, ducks in a row. One, the third in line, opens its mouth, and there again is that ghastly quack. They are all the same, these ducks, their feathers black and white. They stare at her, as from darkest night. Again the third makes its ugly voice heard: quack.
Twilight Sparkle has seen enough. She slams that fowl door shut.
But the thought is in her head now, a door she can never shut. Behind that door there are eight ducks. They menace, and they scheme ... to which ends, Twilight knows not what. She knows only that these eight ducks do mean her ill. She needs no reason; for all that she may think, she knows this still.
Yet she comes not unprepared. She has seen many trials, many errors. She and her friends have seen many such terrors.
For what it's worth, she casts a spell, the strongest ward she knows. It will hold fast this door, if any spell can. Already she can feel that this is not enough, that this doom cannot be stayed. But she knows her friend, for whom any creature can be swayed.
II
She appears in Fluttershy's home, in a flash of light. Fluttershy jumps and hides, mastered by her fright. But she is soon found, soon assured, by her friend Twilight.
“I need you, more than ever before!” Twilight exclaims. “Please come – please come quick!”
“My goodness, Twilight, what's the matter?”
Twilight comes close, then closer still. She glaces to either side, sweeps with magic the door and windowsill. “There is something in my basement.”
“Oh my.”
“Something evil, of dark malice and intent. Eight such somethings, to be precise.”
“Oh goodness.”
“They're hiding down there, plotting, I know. Oh how I wish I could not know! But perhaps we have a chance now, a chance to stop their hideous plan.”
“What are they, Twilight?”
Twilight looks her, straight in her eyes. “Ducks. Eight ducks.”
Her friend, Fluttershy laughs, much to her consternation. “Ducks? Oh my goodness, you had me scared there for a minute!”
“You should be scared!” Twilight insists. “These ducks are not the ordinary kind. They are evil. Pure evil.”
“I've never met a duck who was anything worse than slightly mischievous.” Fluttershy shakes her head.
“Fear them! Don't underestimate their power, don't underestimate their malevolence,” Twilight insists.
“I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Let's go and clear things up.” Fluttershy heads for her cottage door. “Besides, I wouldn't mind meeting these basement ducks. I've never seen that before.”
Twilight followed, sure that Fluttershy would know their evil when she saw. She was secure, though, in knowing: if there was salvation to be found, it would be Fluttershy who could make the ducks withdraw.
III
Twilight leads her friend deep, deep down, into the basement seldom trod. How far down these chambers go, she can hardly guess. What further horrors may await in some deep recess? But she has one pressing problem now, one task that cannot wait. Eight ducks lurk down here, all of them filled with hate.
“Is this the door you were talking about?” Fluttershy asks, showing none of the warranted fear.
“Yes,” Twilight replies, “this one right here.”
“Okay then.”
Before Fluttershy can open that door, Twilight stays her hoof. “Careful now. I don't know what they have planned. What if they attack?” How could fragile Fluttershy – how could any of her friends – hold those black-heart ducks back?
“Just let me see them. I'm sure it will be fine.”
Twilight makes to block her friend again, but this time, it's her own hoof she stays. This is, after all, the reason she brought Fluttershy – this could be the salvation for which she prays. Whatever horror may lie behind that door, she must let Fluttershy in ... or she must face the thought of it, evermore.
Slowly the magic ward upon the door is felled; with trepidation Twilight cancels out her spell. It opens, and the darkness inside is revealed.
“It's kind of dark,” Fluttershy says. “Could you give me a little light?”
She gives her friend what she wants, sure that it will send her fleeing in fright.
But Fluttershy does not flee in fright, not even in the slightest. “Oh, look, what a wonderfully cute bunch of ducks,” she exclaims. “Aren't they ever so cute!”
“Cute? Cute?” Twilight proclaims. “They are not cute!”
“What are they then?”
“They are terrible!”
“My goodness, you shouldn't speak so badly of them.”
“But they are – just look at them!”
Fluttershy does look, but she also does smile. “Still cute.”
“Please just tell them they have to leave!”
Though it pains her quite clearly, Fluttershy does what she was asked. “I'm ever so sorry, little ducks, but could you maybe find somewhere else to live? Twilight seems to think you must, and I like her quite dearly.”
Quack.
“What did they say?” Twilight inquires of her friend.
“It doesn't bear repeating.”
“So they're not going to leave?”
“I'm afraid I'm not sure.”
“Make them!”
“I'm afraid I can't.”
IV
For three more months, these terrible ducks did lurk in Twilight's basement, and they bored a hole in the back of her mind. There was no relief at all she could find. No pony she tried could make them leave ... and the thought of trying it herself, that was impossible to achieve.
So the ducks stay where they are, and Twilight stays in a state. The pressure is ever-growing, ever-building. She hasn't opened the door in months, but the presence of those ducks becomes an obsession in her mind, warped and smoothed by its turbid currents.
On the hundredth day of Twilight's secret torment, she can take it no more.
No matter what Fluttershy said, no matter what Fluttershy pleads, the time for the showdown has come. She will end the terror of these ducks, or the terror of the ducks will end her.
Filled with her fell purpose, she goes down the stairs. Down, down, down she goes, from the highest tower to the deepest dungeon of her modest castle. With every repeated step, the cloud of darkness falls. Dour thoughts thunder through her head, and her magic brews as a storm front, building and flashing in preparation for the conflict to come.
And at last, there it lies: the much dreaded door. Behind it lurks those detestable ducks. Soon they will be no more.
Twilight Sparkle cracks open that door, her magic surging to blast the first 'quack'.
Yet none comes.
So, subterfuge will be the ducks' stratagem. Twilight has prepared her mind for this. The first step is to break the ducks' veil, to shatter the invisibility within which they must be hiding their tricks. She sends forth a blast of light, more than enough to brighten the darkest night.
What lies before her is a barren room. The steps down remain, but none else. Even the dark and mysteriously rippling water is gone. All is now a void. Twilight blinks, and she thinks. This, she did not expect.
V
Twilight Sparkle stands before Fluttershy's door. Her hoof hesitates to knock.
The search of her castle was exhausting, grueling, tedious ... and fruitless. She detected not a single quack. And yet, those quacks still resounded within her head.
She must know. She knocks on the door.
Fluttershy opens it straight away. “Oh, good morning, Twilight.” She takes a second look. “Are you okay?”
“No, no I'm not! Where are the ducks?”
“The ducks? I thought you wanted them gone.”
“Of course the ducks! Where have they gone?”
“Aren't they still in your basement?”
Twilight Sparkle gives her friend a frightful stare. 'I would know if they were,' says her baleful glare.
“Oh, then they must have left.”
“You said they would not leave!”
“I said I wasn't sure.”
From Twilight, there comes a long pause. “Where have they gone?”
“There's no way to know.”
In the back of her mind, Twilight Sparkle hears a quack. From this torment, there is no going back.
VI
From Fluttershy's upper window, Discord invisibly watches, rubbing his claws with glee. One princess already has been driven mad by his ducks. There remain only three.
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