Chapter 2

Exhaustion had set in hours ago, but as Twilight plodded along she could feel the ambient magic in the air sustaining her past the point of collapse. What little sunlight that made it through the forest canopy was rapidly giving way to darkness and Twilight had yet to find water, though she knew she was close due to the sound of running water she was following. She pushed past yet another bush into a clearing, losing another feather to its thorns, and would have screamed had she not clamped her muzzle shut around the sound. Twilight started slowly backing away, her eyes glued to the unaware manticore seated in front of her.

The moment Twilight thought she was far enough from the manticore she ran as fast as she could, forgetting that her legs didn't work quite the same way they usually did, and tripped over herself, rolling to a stop with a series of thumps. A loud grunt from the clearing alerted her to the manticore’s imminent arrival, and she scrambled to her hooves and started running again, crashing through bushes and leaves alike in her haste to escape.

If I can just get to that stream the sound of running water should mask my movements, and I can get away from the manticore!

Twilight sprinted toward the stream again with her tail streaming out behind her and burst out of the trees into another clearing, this one winding its way through the night time forest alongside a large stream. Stopping for a moment, Twilight caught her breath and listened intently with her ears at attention, searching for any sign of the manticore. Twilight stood silently for several minutes staring at her reflection in the stream before drinking deeply, soothing her parched throat. Ahhh...water tastes much better than blood. NO! Bad Twilight! You can't think about that right now! Moving on, why am I a five year old alicorn filly? I look exactly like I did when I was five, only with wings!

A thunderous roar derailed Twilight’s train of thought as the manticore came sailing out of the trees, landing with a thump where the tiny alicorn had been mere seconds before. The manticore whipped its head around and glared menacingly at Twilight before once again leaping impossibly quickly towards her, claws outstretched. Twilight dived aside and unknowingly flared her wings to give herself a boost, catching the air and throwing off her balance. The manticore’s return swipe came too fast to dodge and carved three deep gashes along Twilight’s right flank. A bloodcurdling shriek of pure agony tore itself from her throat and her muscles spasmed in protest, leaving Twilight sprawled helplessly on the ground. The manticore lunged forward, intending to make a snack out of the tiny alicorn, but Twilight lit her horn and forced as much magic as she could into it. In the last second before she was eaten the energy vomited from the end of her horn with a thunderclap of sound and light, burning straight down the manticore's throat and skewering it on a horizontal pillar of magical power.

Twilight let out a small squeak of surprise.I didn't put that much power into the blast. I- I didn't mean to kill it! She cut the power to her horn and the manticore slumped to the side, leaving Twilight to check the seriousness of her injuries. Steeling herself for a gruesome sight, she craned her head around to gaze at her flank. Huh. As if things could get any weirder, now I'm bleeding magic. Maybe this is a dream after all. Slashing horizontally down her side were three parallel claw marks, but as well as blood oozing from them as Twilight expected, a dim light shone through along with wisps of a pure white mist seeping out into the air.

I need to find something to patch this up with before I bleed out. For the second time.

Pushing aside the morbid thought, Twilight folded her wings down to her sides, wincing as her right wing came into contact with her wound. For now I suppose I can use my wing to stem the bleeding, not sure what to do about the mist though. She pressed her wing tighter against her barrel, letting out a hiss of pain before heaving herself to her hooves, nearly collapsing as she put weight on her right side. The smell of smoke distracted Twilight, and she noticed a blackened groove cut into the ground behind the dead manticore, bordered by still smoking trees and bushes.

Did I do that? I really need to get my magic under control if I do that by accident. Turning her gaze skyward she noticed a not-insubstantial amount of smoke drifting towards the clouds above. The Ponyville weather team have probably noticed that by now, I can just wait here until they turn up and hitch a ride back to Ponyville. Twilight sighed. Wishful thinking. The alarming rate blood was soaking her feathers and the way her vision swam told her time was running out until she passed out from blood loss.

Limping towards a nearby patch of relatively soot-free moss, Twilight pulled a large chunk from the ground with her magic and placed it on her back for future use. Levitating a large stick behind her to gouge a trail for the weather team to follow, Twilight set off again in search of something to bandage her side with. If I can find some vines, I can tie the moss to my side to soak up the blood better than my feathers can. She lifted her blood-soaked wing and gave it a look of disgust before folding it to her side again. And hopefully I can clean my wing of all this blood soon. Ugh.

Several minutes of searching yielded only a single vine, and Twilight estimated she had maybe minutes before she collapsed. Guess this will have to do for now. Taking care not to pull on her wound Twilight sat down and lifted her wing away from her barrel, exposing her still bleeding injury. Using telekinesis she swiftly pressed the moss against the wound, laid her wing over top to hold it in place, and tied the whole lot tight against her flank with the vine.

With barely any energy remaining, Twilight stumbled over to the base of a tree and flopped down against it, letting out a small grunt of pain as it jarred her tied up wing.
Finally as comfortable as she was going to get, she let sleep claim her.

Author's Note

Chapter 2. Bit more action, bit more pain. Poor Twilight can't get a break!

On a side note, chapter 4 is being a pain in the butt to write, so I decided to post this anyway. Hopefully chapter 4 onward will be more along the lines of 2k - 4k words. Again, constructive criticism is welcome. I can't get better if I don't know what i'm doing wrong.