The Shadow Alphabet, and other tales for Nightmare Nightby Cold in GardezChaptersThe Shadow AlphabetMarginaliaPresence and AbsenceNatural SelectionThe Shadow AlphabetThe note was on the pillow beside Twilight Sparkle’s head when she woke. She sat up and stretched before picking it up. A message from Spike, no doubt, or one of her friends. She vaguely recalled that Rarity was heading to Canterlot this week, and she must’ve left this note for Twilight before departing on the train. She yawned and considered slumping beneath the covers for another ten minutes, but finally curiosity won out and she unfolded it with her magic. Her reward was a single line of gibberish. Alien characters, centered in a row and evenly spaced. She blinked and rotated the paper, but that solved nothing – from every angle the marks on the note remained incomprehensible. They were like no language she had ever seen. She peered at the page, turned it over, inspected it for any other mark, even sniffed and tasted it, but it was only paper and the strange symbols were the only writing on it. She chuffed in quiet annoyance and carried it downstairs. * * * “So it was just, like, next to you when you woke up?” Spike said. He had his adorable frilled apron on, and held a sizzling pan over the stove as he made them pancakes. “Mhm.” Twilight took a tiny sip of her coffee and closed her eyes to savor it. She liked to pretend her brain in the morning was a dry sponge, and coffee the life-giving fluid that swelled it with thought. “That’s creepy,” he said. “What’s it say?” “I’m not sure. It’s some odd language, or a code, perhaps.” The note was laid out on the table. Her investigative spells had revealed no author, no history, no touch other than her own. It was as if her dreams had given birth to it. The twenty-two glyphs written in a single line tugged at her mind, teasing at her memory like fragments of a song half-heard in the marketplace. She stared at them again. “So what’s it mean?” Twilight blinked. There were pancakes steaming on her plate. She hadn’t even noticed Spike finish cooking breakfast. “Nothing, probably. It’s just a prank.” All the same, she kept the note. It was too intriguing to discard with the morning’s trash. * * * That evening, Twilight sat with a book, but she did not read it. It wasn’t the book’s fault – it was never a book’s fault – but she couldn’t seem to muster the interest to plow through more than a few sentences. Never had the history of the Griffin Republic seemed so dull. After reading the same page for the fourth time, and remembering not a word, she sighed and pushed it away. The note weighed too heavily on her mind. She floated it closer. Its twenty-two characters seized her eyes, and she read them, over and over. Something about them seemed familiar, though she’d spent hours earlier in the day comparing them with every known language in the world. They matched nothing. Investigations of her pillow hadn’t turned up anything new, either. Her windows weren’t locked, per se, but the design of her crystal castle meant they were impossible to open from the outside – certainly she would’ve woken if somepony had tried to force them. That left the possibility that the note came from within the castle, but neither Spike nor Starlight Glimmer seemed like the types to play such an unusual prank. She squinted at the note again. It remained unmoving on her desk. Smug. That wouldn’t last long. She would break it eventually. She pushed aside the forgotten tome of Griffin history, and in its place she opened a slim volume from her school days, a treatise on advanced symbology. In time, the sky outside her window grew gray and light. Her candles, unneeded, burnt themselves down. Still she read. * * * They were letters, she decided. Part of a cypher. Each of the twenty-two symbols corresponded with a letter in the Equish language. She had no idea what they sounded like so in her mind she mapped the sound of each familiar, native letter to one of the strange glyphs. A simple, straight-forward substitution. As an experiment, she picked up her quill and wrote the word Quill with the new letters. It seemed surprisingly natural. Almost legible. She wrote it again. The motion of the quill was easier this time. She barely had to reference the note to remember how to form each of the alien characters. When she reached the final letter, the second L, she added a little flourish, as though she’d been writing such letters her entire life. Staring at it, she could read the word quill as easily in this new language as her native tongue. Interesting. She opened her mouth, silently sounding out each letter of the word. Quill, quill, quill. “Quill,” she whispered. But her tongue formed the word not with the shapes of Equish letters, but rather this new script. The sounds twisted in her mouth, dripping from her lips like drool. They sounded the same and wrong and weird and perfect to her. She said them again, louder: “Quill.” As she spoke, the quill lying on the paper seemed to shift. It bent, drinking in the light around it, casting a new shadow on the page, larger and darker and sharper than before. Her mind bent with it, seeing it anew. Quill changed, and her understanding of quill changed, and she changed as well. She smiled. * * * Soon Twilight could speak easily with the new alphabet. She no longer even had to look at the note. The strange characters had ceased to be strange – they simply were. She laughed. She spent the day naming everything in her room with the new alphabet. As she called them out, each item became greater, darker, more perfect in the telling. Her pillow wrapped around itself, cloaking itself in livid shades that bled out to infect the bedsheets. The curtains embraced their new names and began to billow in an unseen wind. It took an hour to name every book on her shelves. They shuddered as she opened their covers. The pages fluttered and sighed as they changed. What a joy it would soon be to read them. On and on she went. Shadows welled up from the cracks in the floor, smothering everything, until only one item remained untouched. She froze, seized by a sudden realization. A flash of fear washed over her like cold water. But fear was for foals. She was a princess, now. She could only ever be greater. She inhaled and viewed the old world for the last time. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said. * * * Later, the being that had been Twilight Sparkle, but now was something so much greater, left her room to its darkness. The candles and their wicks and their flames had all simply vanished when she spoke their names – the new alphabet needed no light. She floated down the stairs, her hooves never touching the crystal steps. She gazed around the castle with wonder. So many things, all waiting for her to speak them. Waiting for her to share this joy. A beautiful chorus heralded her as she reached the castle foyer. A choir assembled to exalt in the glory she had found. It was Spike, screaming. She smiled at him in passing as she went out the door. She had to find her friends. They needed perfect names as well. MarginaliaThe crystal chime of the castle’s nightbell roused Twilight Sparkle from the pages of slumber. She marked her pillow with a phoenix quill bookmark, stood, and trotted through the castle’s long halls to the foyer. “Good morning!” she said, opening the castle’s cover. “How can I—Oh, it’s you.” “Uh, hey.” The Nightmare ground her hoof into the dirt and looked anywhere but Twilight’s face. She seemed out of place, standing in the sun. Diminished by it, little more than an inky afterimage on Twilight’s retina, shifting and dancing and refusing focus. “Look, this is gonna sound kinda weird, but would it be okay if maybe I stayed with you for a few days? Luna kicked me out.” “Good.” Twilight tried to slam the door in the Nightmare’s face, but it had melted and fused with the floor again. She scowled and made a mental note to buy more crystal carpet cleaner. “About time. She finally got sick of your cheating?” The Nightmare winced. She scratched at the side of her neck and mumbled something. She was naked, Twilight noticed, bereft of her usual regalia. Presumably all left behind in her flight from Luna’s wrath. “I ought to say no,” Twilight said. “But my castle’s broken, so I guess you can stay. You know where the guest room is?” “Actually, I was hoping I could share your—” “The guest room,” Twilight repeated. “Or back to Luna. Your call.” The Nightmare shivered at that. “The guest room is fine. Can I eat your brain real quick?” “Sure, sure.” Twilight braced herself. This part always stung like a— Twilight woke with a start. The blanket had tangled around her legs, binding them, and her sweat soaked the sheets beneath her. Not even a hint of the dawn encroached upon the nightscape outside her window. She groaned quietly as the dream settled into her memory. Its edges were sharper than a dream’s should be, as real as darkness smothering her room. She let out a shaky breath. “Dammit, not again.” * * * “So, it’s like, haunting the castle?” Rainbow Dash asked. She peered around at the shadows. “Not the castle. Me.” Twilight took a sip from her chamomile. “Again.” “Wait, this ain’t the first time?” Applejack asked. “No, Luna loses track of it once a year or so. Usually it runs off to one of the other princesses, then we have to hold it for her until she can take it back. Last year Cadence had it for a week.” “Well, that sounds lovely,” Rarity said. “What do we do about it?” “Nothing,” Twilight said. “It’s harmless. As long as you don’t give into its temptations.” * * * The Nightmare was waiting in Twilight’s bed when she retired for the evening. Twilight frowned. “I said the guest room.” The Nightmare ignored her. She stretched atop the sheets, expressing the graceful contours of her chest and belly and legs, somehow contriving to reveal everything and nothing at the same time. It seemed impossible for such long limbs to even fit on her bed, but there she was. Twilight tore her eyes from the sight and hopped up beside her. This was her bed, dammit. She wasn’t going to let some two-bit imaginary hussy chase her from it. “Hey,” the Nightmare whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.” “I bet. Go back to your room, or go to sleep. I don’t care which.” “Liar.” The Nightmare snuggled up behind her. In the darkness, at night, she was far larger than Twilight. Long legs curled around Twilight’s body, hugging her close against the Nightmare’s chest. Her coat was cool against Twilight’s back. “Trying to sleep here.” “Silly, you’re already asleep.” Oh. That explained why they were lying tangled together on a giant book floating in the sky above Ponyville. Twilight frowned. “Bit for your thoughts,” the Nightmare whispered. Her voice was filled with spiders. Twilight rolled over in the demon’s grasp. “What do you want?” “You. Luna is so boring these days. But you? We could rule the world, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight snorted. “Try offering me something I want, instead.” “Something Twilight Sparkle wants?” A wide grin exposed teeth like stars. “Knowledge, perhaps? Forbidden knowledge?” That had a dangerous sound to it. Twilight tried to push herself away, but the Nightmare’s grip was too strong. She stopped struggling when it became clear how futile it was. “There’s no such thing as forbidden knowledge. Anything can be used or misused. What matters is the pony.” “So naive. Your youth is delicious, Twilight. I could drink it all night.” The Nightmare pressed her muzzle up under Twilight’s chin and inhaled deeply. “You think everything is in your books, don’t you? Everything worth knowing, locked away on those pages. Safe and harmless.” “The written word is the greatest invention in pony history,” Twilight said. “You’re a monster. A parasite in my dreams. Don’t pretend there’s anything you can teach me.” “Pretend? No, no need for that.” the Nightmare whispered. She released Twilight and spread her legs, exposing every forbidden bit of her to Twilight’s hungry eyes. A seam appeared in her flesh, from groin to chin, and her body opened like a book. Lines of black text covered her organs and bones and all the spaces in between. The scent of hot iron filled the room. Twilight read all the night long. As always, the truth was in the margins. Presence and AbsenceRumble lay awake in bed. It was a warm night for late autumn, and even the open windows offered no relief. His curtains hung limp and motionless from their rods, undisturbed by any breeze. Outside, the quiet call of cicadas puzzled by their extended lease on life filled the stale air. Sweat prickled in his coat. His whole body seemed to itch with it. He rolled from one side to the other, rubbing against the sheets in a desultory effort to find some relief. He stretched his wings, but even those faint, cooling eddies died after just moments. The wet cotton air pressed against every inch of his exposed coat. In frustration he rolled onto his back and kicked away the sheets, exposing his naked belly to the night. He was tired. Exhausted, even – a long afternoon playing with the Crusaders, then flight practice with his brother until the sun dipped below the horizon, had drained all his youthful energy. He had collapsed into bed after his bath, fully expecting to close his eyes and not move until morning. It was not to be. Tired though he was, sleep refused to come. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to empty his thoughts. Surely, if he could just relax, sleep would follow. But his thoughts refused to empty. He closed his eyes and saw back to that afternoon, running with the Crusaders, chasing them and being chased by them. He remembered being struck by how much they had changed over the years, and how those changes had made him aware of the changes in himself. They were teenagers now, almost young mares, and he found his memory drawn to a brief moment, when Apple Bloom glanced over her shoulder and caught his eye— Nope. Nope. He shook his head and rolled onto his stomach. Sleep most definitely didn’t lie down that line of thought. He focused all his attention on the thin linen sheets beneath him and how blissful their momentary cool felt before his body warmed them to the same stultifying temperature as everything else in the room. He stretched his forelegs beneath the pillow. It was still cool there, at least. If he reached his hooves a little further, it was like dipping them into the waters of the pond outside the Whitetail Woods – cool and endless and all of it unseen. He let out a long breath and closed his eyes. The weariness that had been lurking in the corners of his mind slowly stole over him, and he felt his body sink deeper into the sheets. His hoof brushed against something beneath the pillow. Soft and fibrous and springy. A curled bit of the pillowcase. It sparked a brief moment of interest in his fading mind, but the encroaching tide of exhaustion was too much to resist. He fell asleep, and thought nothing more of it. * * * Rumble woke in the morning feeling like a million bits. No shred of the night’s exhaustion remained. He stretched all his limbs and was about to hop out of bed when he noticed something dangling from his forehoof. It was a hair, dark. He brought it closer to his face. It was damaged, he noticed, and dirty. It smelled of earth. He looked at his pillow. Nothing about it seemed out of place. He reached for it, hesitated for just a moment, then flipped it over. There was nothing beneath – just the plain linen sheets he’d had for years. Weird. He shook his hoof to dislodge the stray hair and flew down the stairs to get ready for the new day. * * * The weather cooled throughout the day. His brother, Thunderlane, said a cold front was moving in. By the time Rumble turned out the lights and settled into bed, the gentle tap of rain against his window produced a soothing, soporific soundtrack for the night. Hours later he woke with a full bladder demanding relief. He groaned and tried to see if it was getting light outside yet, and if it was worth simply waiting in bed and ignoring the growing pressure in his groin and the shadow of pain that lay beneath it. No dice – full dark, still, and probably hours until the dawn. He stumbled out from beneath the sheets, wandered into the bathroom to do his business, and then flopped back down into the bed, ready to surrender instantly to sleep. He was in that half-awake state on the edge of sleep when the sound of bedsprings interrupted the darkness. In an instant he was wide-awake, frozen, staring at the wall and the window. The mattress behind him seemed to sag, as though a new weight rested upon it. It’s Thunderlane, Rumble thought. His breath froze in his chest, every muscle locked rigid with fear. It’s Thunderlane. He heard me get up to use the bathroom and came in to see how I’m doing. But Thunderlane said nothing, and Rumble remained frozen, not daring to roll over. His heart hammered in his chest. A sickening, thoughtless panic began to build, crawling up his throat, desperate to escape as a scream. No. No. He willed the panic back into his body. None of this was real. He had imagined it – dreamed it. All he had to do was roll over and see that the bed was empty. He marshalled his courage, counting down to the moment he would turn and reveal the figment for what it was. But every time he reached zero in his mind, he hesitated. His courage always failed. And in time the light grew outside his window, and dawn beat back the night, until finally he heard hoofsteps in the hallway and his bedroom door open and Thunderlane’s voice, “C’mon sleepyhead, you’re missing breakfast!” Hoofsteps slowly faded down the hall and stairs to the ground floor. Rumble slowly turned, ready to scream and to bolt, but nothing waited for him on the bed. It was empty, and always had been. Just a dream. But he could barely stop shaking as he made his way downstairs. * * * Rumble nearly forgot about the nightmare. All day, at school and at play, the bright autumn sun burned away those nighttime memories, evaporating them like the morning dew on the grass. Aside from a faint weariness that dogged his steps, the consequences of not enough sleep, it was as if nothing had happened last night. By the time evening approached, though, a hint of the fear returned. As the sun set he imagined he could hear footsteps where there were none, smell the damp earth and rotting hair in his family’s impeccably clean home. With each passing hour his dread grew. He thought, for a moment, about asking his brother for help. Thunderlane wouldn’t mind – he might rib him for it later, but his brother would gladly share the bed with Rumble if asked. He’d done it before, as a foal, when the dark was too frightening to bear alone. It was just a nightmare. He shook himself. He was a big colt, now. Fear of the dark was for foals. Night terrors were for foals. He bid his brother goodnight, and made his way to his bedroom. He closed the door and considered the lock. It hadn’t always been there – one day, over the summer, Thunderlane had installed it without being asked. He was reaching the age where he needed some privacy, Thunderlane said. At the time, Rumble didn’t understand what he meant – now, recalling the look Apple Bloom gave him, and the memory of her lithe form running through the autumn grass, he thought he had an idea or two. Locks couldn’t keep out nightmares, though. Rumble closed the door and left it unlatched. He turned out the light and stood unmoving in the darkness. Nothing changed. All the objects in his room behaved exactly as they had with the lights on. It was nothing to them, of course – the only object in the room concerned with light or dark was his mind. Everything else, all the actual, real items, cared nothing for it. He stood, breathing in the darkness, until his heart slowed. In time, he made his way to the bed and crawled beneath the covers. They were extra thick tonight. * * * Rumble dreamed there was a noise in his room. He woke, and for a panicked moment couldn’t remember why he was in bed with the lights out. He mastered his breathing. Slow in, slow out, just like flying. The thick blankets were a warm comfort over his shoulders. Although they were only cloth, they felt like an invincible shield against the darkness and whatever it held. Anything could be out there, but as long as he was beneath these covers, he was safe. He rolled over, settling onto his side. His hoof snagged on something beneath the covers. A burr on his hoof, perhaps, catching the threads. He tugged it loose with the quiet snap of a breaking hair, and settled back down to sleep. Enough light poured in from the streetlights outside to make out the contours of the room. Empty, still – not that he expected anything else, but it was a relief to see. Only the darkness of the hallway beyond the bedroom door remained absolute. He closed his eyes, and in time sleep returned. Natural SelectionFluttershy surveyed the mess on her front lawn with a frown. It had been a bird at one point, that much was certain. There were feathers everywhere. More feathers than most ponies might think could come from a single bird, but she’d seen this play before and knew how it ended. The feathers were colorless down, spread out over a wide swathe of grass. But here and there she spied sturdier pinion and covert feathers, all gray striped with blue. A bluejay, then and—oh, yes, there was its head. Birds, as a general rule, didn’t have very expressive faces, but it looked rather surprised. Wonderful. She hadn’t even had breakfast yet, and she was already cleaning up after something else’s. A weasel or fox, probably. They could be vicious, and whatever had taken this poor little bird had torn it apart. “No one saw anything?” she asked. Beside her, Angel Bunny shook his floppy little head. The critters who shared Fluttershy’s home were giving them a wide margin to work. They weren’t frightened – they were, after all, wild animals, and death was simply a part of life for them. Mister Bluejay’s untimely demise was unusual for her front lawn but not unusual in the forest. But few animals would remain near a fresh kill unless they were interested in eating or stealing it, and she fed them well enough already. She looked up from the lawn. Directly ahead lay the acres of dark wood that bordered the Everfree Forest. Somewhere in there was a predator with a belly full of bird. It wasn’t the animal’s fault. Fox or weasel or bobcat, it was only acting according to its nature. Later in the day, she would go searching for it. A few words should dissuade it from returning. She started sweeping the feathers into a pile. The animals who shared her home wouldn’t mind the mess, but other ponies might. They sometimes lacked her understanding of nature and its ends. * * * The woods near Fluttershy’s cottage were dark, even in the mid-afternoon. Fall had stripped the canopy overhead of half its leaves, but those that remained, in all their many colors, still conspired to block the sun. It was closer to night than day on the soft, moss-covered floor. She had the bluejay’s remains – feathers, head and a few bits of viscera – and dumped them out of her wrap onto the ground. She wiped the canvas on the springy moss and tucked it into her saddlebags. “Hello?” she called. “If you’re out there, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I just want to talk.” Only silence returned. She waited for hours, in case any hungry animals wanted to come home with her. Aside from a curious chipmunk and a stoic snake, she had no visitors. As the sun neared the horizon, she sighed, lifted the chipmunk into the branches out of the rat snake’s reach, and bid them both farewell. Some mysteries, perhaps, weren’t meant to be solved. * * * Fluttershy spent the next morning running errands in Ponyville. She was up early, before the sun was more than a pink suggestion in the east, and by the time she returned, laden with groceries, it was well on the way to mid-morning. Soon it would be time for lunch, and she already had designs on a fresh arugula-and-tomato salad. She paused at her front door. The hard surface was covered in scratches. Thin curls of wood littered her doorstep. She considered the marks carefully, then looked around. Nothing appeared to be lurking in the bushes or the grasses. Slowly, she opened the door, walked inside, and shut it firmly behind her. “Does anyone know what scratched the door?” she asked of the various critters in her living room. A few of them paused in their play to look in her direction, but nothing more. It would’ve been surprising, frankly, if any had. She loved all her critter friends, but Celestia bless them, they weren’t the brightest stars in the night sky. Even Angel Bunny, her oldest confidante, had trouble understanding ponies and their complex emotions. Things were simpler for rabbits, she supposed. She needed a nocturnal friend for this. A animal who could watch the cottage during the night. She flapped her wings and floated up into the rafters, where a dark form huddled in the shadows. “Hello, Mister Owl,” she whispered, settling down beside him. His eyes slowly opened as he woke, and at her beckoning he leaned forward to hear her instructions. * * * Mister Owl was missing the next morning. She spent hours flying through the woods, stopping at each hollow tree where an owl might make a home. A few were occupied, but not with the owl she wanted. By the time she returned to the cottage lunch had passed, and her woodland friends were cranky with hunger. She apologized to them as she passed out bird seed for the birds and cantaloupe for the tortoises and sugar-dusted carrots for Angel Bunny. None knew where Mister Owl had gone. Later, after the sun had gone down and her animals surrendered to their natural rhythms, she sat by the fire and brooded. Angel Bunny dozed beside her, his legs twitching in response to some rabbity dream. She wondered, for a moment, whether he was chasing or being chased. Some animal, it seemed likely, had taken up residence in the woods outside her home. Some animal viewed her woodland friends as convenient snacks. She was not offended by this – cats had just as much a right to life as birds, much though birds might object. Cats were simply following their nature. But still, she couldn’t have a wild predator trying to claw its way into her home. Her home was a refuge. Outside, in the forest, the law of nature might rule, but in this cottage she was god. Something would have to be done. She carefully picked up Angel Bunny, deposited him in his nest, and turned into her bed for the night. * * * The sound of scratching at her bedroom door roused Fluttershy from the depths of sleep. She heard it in a groggy, half-awake state. It was not an unusual sound – after all, she lived with dozens of clawed animals, any number of which might want into her room. Usually she just ignored it until whatever restless animal was at work grew tired or bored or disheartened by her lack of response, and went elsewhere for the night. So that was what she did. And in time, the scratching ceased. She smiled and quickly fell back into slumber. * * * The critters were nervous the next morning. Fluttershy didn’t blame them. Something had left scratches on almost every wall and door in the cottage. Only the interior of her own room and the cellar, which was latched shut, showed no signs of vandalism. Everywhere else, little bits of plaster and curls of wood had fallen to the floor. She conducted a quick census. A few birds were missing, but that might or might not be important – birds came and went as they pleased, and never stayed for long. Mister Owl was still absent from his roost in the rafters. “Well, Angel Bunny,” she said. “If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.” He said nothing, but then, he never did. Together they set about cleaning the floors. * * * “Wait,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It’s inside your cottage?” “I think so,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t know how it would scratch the walls if it wasn’t.” Twilight paused at that, her mouth halfway open in the act of responding. She closed it, gave Fluttershy a look, as though she couldn’t quite tell if that answer was an insult or not, then apparently deciding that of course it wasn’t, this was Fluttershy, she nodded. “That’s kind of concerning, isn’t it? Don’t you, uh, worry about what might happen at night?” “I live with a bear,” Fluttershy said. “You live with a dragon and a reformed sorceress who tried to destroy the world and the very concept of time itself in a mad scheme to get revenge. I have an omnipotent friend who is the literal personification of chaos. No, I’m not afraid of some animal scratching up the walls in my cottage.” “Oh, um.” Twilight frowned. “Aren’t you, uh, still afraid of ponies sometimes?” Fluttershy set down her tea. “Ponies can be wicked, Twilight. Animals are just obeying their nature. If you understand them, they can never frighten you.” * * * Fluttershy was ready that night when the scratches woke her. She floated out of bed, her large wings beating gently, silently. Over toward the door she drifted. The sounds grew louder with each passing moment. She tried to consider how large an animal it must be to shake her door like that. Fairly big, she decided. Not as big as a bear, but maybe the size of a pony. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and pulled open the door. Nothing. Only darkness. She peered around the cottage’s main room, the floor, and then the ceiling above her because some animals liked to hide on ceilings. Still nothing. Dozens of little critters filled the air with the sounds of their slumber. It was like rain on a windowpane to her, soothing and relaxing. After only a few more minutes of futile searching around the cabin for whatever stray animal was causing all this trouble, she surrendered and returned to her bed. * * * Fluttershy dreamed that night of pursuing something. She dreamed that night of being pursued. She dreamed of hunting, killing and eating. She dreamed of her friends and her enemies, laughing with them, flying with them, swimming with them, even sleeping with them. Normal dreams, in other words. Embarrassing to talk about, but not embarrassing to experience. She smiled more that day, her friends said. She laughed more freely. Something about her seemed more alive. * * * Fluttershy was already awake when she heard the scratches the next night. She’d been waiting for them. Silent as a hawk, she drifted through the air of her bedroom, slowly opened the door, and landed in the hallway outside. The scratching was coming from the main room of the cottage. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight pouring in the windows, then headed toward the stairs. The sounds grew louder. At the top of the stairs she paused. An odd, unplaceable grunting sound mixed with the scratches. She took the stairs slowly, one hoof at a time, carefully avoiding the spots she knew would squeak. She had a lot of practice at this, moving around silently at night to avoid waking her critter friends. In seconds she reached the base of the stairs, and saw the source of the sounds. It was a pony. A pegasus. Hunched over something, tearing at it with forelegs. She must’ve gasped, for it jerked and looked up at the sound. Blood smeared its muzzle. But most of all she saw its eyes, a bright cyan that glowed in the darkness. Bright cyan eyes like hers, filled with lust and hunger and insanity, and the not-Fluttershy pony opened its mouth to expose teeth like diamonds, and somepony began to scream, and— Fluttershy woke in her bed. She stifled a scream, every muscle locked in place. The dream that seared her mind was already fading, leaving behind only those bright eyes, and in moments that memory was gone as well, and she could not remember why she was so frightened. Something caught in her throat. She coughed and spat up a bit of down. The loose, fluffy feather drifted down to her sheets. She stared at it. Somewhere in the cottage, she imagined she could heard something scratching. Best go see what it was.
The Shadow AlphabetThe note was on the pillow beside Twilight Sparkle’s head when she woke. She sat up and stretched before picking it up. A message from Spike, no doubt, or one of her friends. She vaguely recalled that Rarity was heading to Canterlot this week, and she must’ve left this note for Twilight before departing on the train. She yawned and considered slumping beneath the covers for another ten minutes, but finally curiosity won out and she unfolded it with her magic. Her reward was a single line of gibberish. Alien characters, centered in a row and evenly spaced. She blinked and rotated the paper, but that solved nothing – from every angle the marks on the note remained incomprehensible. They were like no language she had ever seen. She peered at the page, turned it over, inspected it for any other mark, even sniffed and tasted it, but it was only paper and the strange symbols were the only writing on it. She chuffed in quiet annoyance and carried it downstairs. * * * “So it was just, like, next to you when you woke up?” Spike said. He had his adorable frilled apron on, and held a sizzling pan over the stove as he made them pancakes. “Mhm.” Twilight took a tiny sip of her coffee and closed her eyes to savor it. She liked to pretend her brain in the morning was a dry sponge, and coffee the life-giving fluid that swelled it with thought. “That’s creepy,” he said. “What’s it say?” “I’m not sure. It’s some odd language, or a code, perhaps.” The note was laid out on the table. Her investigative spells had revealed no author, no history, no touch other than her own. It was as if her dreams had given birth to it. The twenty-two glyphs written in a single line tugged at her mind, teasing at her memory like fragments of a song half-heard in the marketplace. She stared at them again. “So what’s it mean?” Twilight blinked. There were pancakes steaming on her plate. She hadn’t even noticed Spike finish cooking breakfast. “Nothing, probably. It’s just a prank.” All the same, she kept the note. It was too intriguing to discard with the morning’s trash. * * * That evening, Twilight sat with a book, but she did not read it. It wasn’t the book’s fault – it was never a book’s fault – but she couldn’t seem to muster the interest to plow through more than a few sentences. Never had the history of the Griffin Republic seemed so dull. After reading the same page for the fourth time, and remembering not a word, she sighed and pushed it away. The note weighed too heavily on her mind. She floated it closer. Its twenty-two characters seized her eyes, and she read them, over and over. Something about them seemed familiar, though she’d spent hours earlier in the day comparing them with every known language in the world. They matched nothing. Investigations of her pillow hadn’t turned up anything new, either. Her windows weren’t locked, per se, but the design of her crystal castle meant they were impossible to open from the outside – certainly she would’ve woken if somepony had tried to force them. That left the possibility that the note came from within the castle, but neither Spike nor Starlight Glimmer seemed like the types to play such an unusual prank. She squinted at the note again. It remained unmoving on her desk. Smug. That wouldn’t last long. She would break it eventually. She pushed aside the forgotten tome of Griffin history, and in its place she opened a slim volume from her school days, a treatise on advanced symbology. In time, the sky outside her window grew gray and light. Her candles, unneeded, burnt themselves down. Still she read. * * * They were letters, she decided. Part of a cypher. Each of the twenty-two symbols corresponded with a letter in the Equish language. She had no idea what they sounded like so in her mind she mapped the sound of each familiar, native letter to one of the strange glyphs. A simple, straight-forward substitution. As an experiment, she picked up her quill and wrote the word Quill with the new letters. It seemed surprisingly natural. Almost legible. She wrote it again. The motion of the quill was easier this time. She barely had to reference the note to remember how to form each of the alien characters. When she reached the final letter, the second L, she added a little flourish, as though she’d been writing such letters her entire life. Staring at it, she could read the word quill as easily in this new language as her native tongue. Interesting. She opened her mouth, silently sounding out each letter of the word. Quill, quill, quill. “Quill,” she whispered. But her tongue formed the word not with the shapes of Equish letters, but rather this new script. The sounds twisted in her mouth, dripping from her lips like drool. They sounded the same and wrong and weird and perfect to her. She said them again, louder: “Quill.” As she spoke, the quill lying on the paper seemed to shift. It bent, drinking in the light around it, casting a new shadow on the page, larger and darker and sharper than before. Her mind bent with it, seeing it anew. Quill changed, and her understanding of quill changed, and she changed as well. She smiled. * * * Soon Twilight could speak easily with the new alphabet. She no longer even had to look at the note. The strange characters had ceased to be strange – they simply were. She laughed. She spent the day naming everything in her room with the new alphabet. As she called them out, each item became greater, darker, more perfect in the telling. Her pillow wrapped around itself, cloaking itself in livid shades that bled out to infect the bedsheets. The curtains embraced their new names and began to billow in an unseen wind. It took an hour to name every book on her shelves. They shuddered as she opened their covers. The pages fluttered and sighed as they changed. What a joy it would soon be to read them. On and on she went. Shadows welled up from the cracks in the floor, smothering everything, until only one item remained untouched. She froze, seized by a sudden realization. A flash of fear washed over her like cold water. But fear was for foals. She was a princess, now. She could only ever be greater. She inhaled and viewed the old world for the last time. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said. * * * Later, the being that had been Twilight Sparkle, but now was something so much greater, left her room to its darkness. The candles and their wicks and their flames had all simply vanished when she spoke their names – the new alphabet needed no light. She floated down the stairs, her hooves never touching the crystal steps. She gazed around the castle with wonder. So many things, all waiting for her to speak them. Waiting for her to share this joy. A beautiful chorus heralded her as she reached the castle foyer. A choir assembled to exalt in the glory she had found. It was Spike, screaming. She smiled at him in passing as she went out the door. She had to find her friends. They needed perfect names as well.
MarginaliaThe crystal chime of the castle’s nightbell roused Twilight Sparkle from the pages of slumber. She marked her pillow with a phoenix quill bookmark, stood, and trotted through the castle’s long halls to the foyer. “Good morning!” she said, opening the castle’s cover. “How can I—Oh, it’s you.” “Uh, hey.” The Nightmare ground her hoof into the dirt and looked anywhere but Twilight’s face. She seemed out of place, standing in the sun. Diminished by it, little more than an inky afterimage on Twilight’s retina, shifting and dancing and refusing focus. “Look, this is gonna sound kinda weird, but would it be okay if maybe I stayed with you for a few days? Luna kicked me out.” “Good.” Twilight tried to slam the door in the Nightmare’s face, but it had melted and fused with the floor again. She scowled and made a mental note to buy more crystal carpet cleaner. “About time. She finally got sick of your cheating?” The Nightmare winced. She scratched at the side of her neck and mumbled something. She was naked, Twilight noticed, bereft of her usual regalia. Presumably all left behind in her flight from Luna’s wrath. “I ought to say no,” Twilight said. “But my castle’s broken, so I guess you can stay. You know where the guest room is?” “Actually, I was hoping I could share your—” “The guest room,” Twilight repeated. “Or back to Luna. Your call.” The Nightmare shivered at that. “The guest room is fine. Can I eat your brain real quick?” “Sure, sure.” Twilight braced herself. This part always stung like a— Twilight woke with a start. The blanket had tangled around her legs, binding them, and her sweat soaked the sheets beneath her. Not even a hint of the dawn encroached upon the nightscape outside her window. She groaned quietly as the dream settled into her memory. Its edges were sharper than a dream’s should be, as real as darkness smothering her room. She let out a shaky breath. “Dammit, not again.” * * * “So, it’s like, haunting the castle?” Rainbow Dash asked. She peered around at the shadows. “Not the castle. Me.” Twilight took a sip from her chamomile. “Again.” “Wait, this ain’t the first time?” Applejack asked. “No, Luna loses track of it once a year or so. Usually it runs off to one of the other princesses, then we have to hold it for her until she can take it back. Last year Cadence had it for a week.” “Well, that sounds lovely,” Rarity said. “What do we do about it?” “Nothing,” Twilight said. “It’s harmless. As long as you don’t give into its temptations.” * * * The Nightmare was waiting in Twilight’s bed when she retired for the evening. Twilight frowned. “I said the guest room.” The Nightmare ignored her. She stretched atop the sheets, expressing the graceful contours of her chest and belly and legs, somehow contriving to reveal everything and nothing at the same time. It seemed impossible for such long limbs to even fit on her bed, but there she was. Twilight tore her eyes from the sight and hopped up beside her. This was her bed, dammit. She wasn’t going to let some two-bit imaginary hussy chase her from it. “Hey,” the Nightmare whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.” “I bet. Go back to your room, or go to sleep. I don’t care which.” “Liar.” The Nightmare snuggled up behind her. In the darkness, at night, she was far larger than Twilight. Long legs curled around Twilight’s body, hugging her close against the Nightmare’s chest. Her coat was cool against Twilight’s back. “Trying to sleep here.” “Silly, you’re already asleep.” Oh. That explained why they were lying tangled together on a giant book floating in the sky above Ponyville. Twilight frowned. “Bit for your thoughts,” the Nightmare whispered. Her voice was filled with spiders. Twilight rolled over in the demon’s grasp. “What do you want?” “You. Luna is so boring these days. But you? We could rule the world, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight snorted. “Try offering me something I want, instead.” “Something Twilight Sparkle wants?” A wide grin exposed teeth like stars. “Knowledge, perhaps? Forbidden knowledge?” That had a dangerous sound to it. Twilight tried to push herself away, but the Nightmare’s grip was too strong. She stopped struggling when it became clear how futile it was. “There’s no such thing as forbidden knowledge. Anything can be used or misused. What matters is the pony.” “So naive. Your youth is delicious, Twilight. I could drink it all night.” The Nightmare pressed her muzzle up under Twilight’s chin and inhaled deeply. “You think everything is in your books, don’t you? Everything worth knowing, locked away on those pages. Safe and harmless.” “The written word is the greatest invention in pony history,” Twilight said. “You’re a monster. A parasite in my dreams. Don’t pretend there’s anything you can teach me.” “Pretend? No, no need for that.” the Nightmare whispered. She released Twilight and spread her legs, exposing every forbidden bit of her to Twilight’s hungry eyes. A seam appeared in her flesh, from groin to chin, and her body opened like a book. Lines of black text covered her organs and bones and all the spaces in between. The scent of hot iron filled the room. Twilight read all the night long. As always, the truth was in the margins.
Presence and AbsenceRumble lay awake in bed. It was a warm night for late autumn, and even the open windows offered no relief. His curtains hung limp and motionless from their rods, undisturbed by any breeze. Outside, the quiet call of cicadas puzzled by their extended lease on life filled the stale air. Sweat prickled in his coat. His whole body seemed to itch with it. He rolled from one side to the other, rubbing against the sheets in a desultory effort to find some relief. He stretched his wings, but even those faint, cooling eddies died after just moments. The wet cotton air pressed against every inch of his exposed coat. In frustration he rolled onto his back and kicked away the sheets, exposing his naked belly to the night. He was tired. Exhausted, even – a long afternoon playing with the Crusaders, then flight practice with his brother until the sun dipped below the horizon, had drained all his youthful energy. He had collapsed into bed after his bath, fully expecting to close his eyes and not move until morning. It was not to be. Tired though he was, sleep refused to come. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to empty his thoughts. Surely, if he could just relax, sleep would follow. But his thoughts refused to empty. He closed his eyes and saw back to that afternoon, running with the Crusaders, chasing them and being chased by them. He remembered being struck by how much they had changed over the years, and how those changes had made him aware of the changes in himself. They were teenagers now, almost young mares, and he found his memory drawn to a brief moment, when Apple Bloom glanced over her shoulder and caught his eye— Nope. Nope. He shook his head and rolled onto his stomach. Sleep most definitely didn’t lie down that line of thought. He focused all his attention on the thin linen sheets beneath him and how blissful their momentary cool felt before his body warmed them to the same stultifying temperature as everything else in the room. He stretched his forelegs beneath the pillow. It was still cool there, at least. If he reached his hooves a little further, it was like dipping them into the waters of the pond outside the Whitetail Woods – cool and endless and all of it unseen. He let out a long breath and closed his eyes. The weariness that had been lurking in the corners of his mind slowly stole over him, and he felt his body sink deeper into the sheets. His hoof brushed against something beneath the pillow. Soft and fibrous and springy. A curled bit of the pillowcase. It sparked a brief moment of interest in his fading mind, but the encroaching tide of exhaustion was too much to resist. He fell asleep, and thought nothing more of it. * * * Rumble woke in the morning feeling like a million bits. No shred of the night’s exhaustion remained. He stretched all his limbs and was about to hop out of bed when he noticed something dangling from his forehoof. It was a hair, dark. He brought it closer to his face. It was damaged, he noticed, and dirty. It smelled of earth. He looked at his pillow. Nothing about it seemed out of place. He reached for it, hesitated for just a moment, then flipped it over. There was nothing beneath – just the plain linen sheets he’d had for years. Weird. He shook his hoof to dislodge the stray hair and flew down the stairs to get ready for the new day. * * * The weather cooled throughout the day. His brother, Thunderlane, said a cold front was moving in. By the time Rumble turned out the lights and settled into bed, the gentle tap of rain against his window produced a soothing, soporific soundtrack for the night. Hours later he woke with a full bladder demanding relief. He groaned and tried to see if it was getting light outside yet, and if it was worth simply waiting in bed and ignoring the growing pressure in his groin and the shadow of pain that lay beneath it. No dice – full dark, still, and probably hours until the dawn. He stumbled out from beneath the sheets, wandered into the bathroom to do his business, and then flopped back down into the bed, ready to surrender instantly to sleep. He was in that half-awake state on the edge of sleep when the sound of bedsprings interrupted the darkness. In an instant he was wide-awake, frozen, staring at the wall and the window. The mattress behind him seemed to sag, as though a new weight rested upon it. It’s Thunderlane, Rumble thought. His breath froze in his chest, every muscle locked rigid with fear. It’s Thunderlane. He heard me get up to use the bathroom and came in to see how I’m doing. But Thunderlane said nothing, and Rumble remained frozen, not daring to roll over. His heart hammered in his chest. A sickening, thoughtless panic began to build, crawling up his throat, desperate to escape as a scream. No. No. He willed the panic back into his body. None of this was real. He had imagined it – dreamed it. All he had to do was roll over and see that the bed was empty. He marshalled his courage, counting down to the moment he would turn and reveal the figment for what it was. But every time he reached zero in his mind, he hesitated. His courage always failed. And in time the light grew outside his window, and dawn beat back the night, until finally he heard hoofsteps in the hallway and his bedroom door open and Thunderlane’s voice, “C’mon sleepyhead, you’re missing breakfast!” Hoofsteps slowly faded down the hall and stairs to the ground floor. Rumble slowly turned, ready to scream and to bolt, but nothing waited for him on the bed. It was empty, and always had been. Just a dream. But he could barely stop shaking as he made his way downstairs. * * * Rumble nearly forgot about the nightmare. All day, at school and at play, the bright autumn sun burned away those nighttime memories, evaporating them like the morning dew on the grass. Aside from a faint weariness that dogged his steps, the consequences of not enough sleep, it was as if nothing had happened last night. By the time evening approached, though, a hint of the fear returned. As the sun set he imagined he could hear footsteps where there were none, smell the damp earth and rotting hair in his family’s impeccably clean home. With each passing hour his dread grew. He thought, for a moment, about asking his brother for help. Thunderlane wouldn’t mind – he might rib him for it later, but his brother would gladly share the bed with Rumble if asked. He’d done it before, as a foal, when the dark was too frightening to bear alone. It was just a nightmare. He shook himself. He was a big colt, now. Fear of the dark was for foals. Night terrors were for foals. He bid his brother goodnight, and made his way to his bedroom. He closed the door and considered the lock. It hadn’t always been there – one day, over the summer, Thunderlane had installed it without being asked. He was reaching the age where he needed some privacy, Thunderlane said. At the time, Rumble didn’t understand what he meant – now, recalling the look Apple Bloom gave him, and the memory of her lithe form running through the autumn grass, he thought he had an idea or two. Locks couldn’t keep out nightmares, though. Rumble closed the door and left it unlatched. He turned out the light and stood unmoving in the darkness. Nothing changed. All the objects in his room behaved exactly as they had with the lights on. It was nothing to them, of course – the only object in the room concerned with light or dark was his mind. Everything else, all the actual, real items, cared nothing for it. He stood, breathing in the darkness, until his heart slowed. In time, he made his way to the bed and crawled beneath the covers. They were extra thick tonight. * * * Rumble dreamed there was a noise in his room. He woke, and for a panicked moment couldn’t remember why he was in bed with the lights out. He mastered his breathing. Slow in, slow out, just like flying. The thick blankets were a warm comfort over his shoulders. Although they were only cloth, they felt like an invincible shield against the darkness and whatever it held. Anything could be out there, but as long as he was beneath these covers, he was safe. He rolled over, settling onto his side. His hoof snagged on something beneath the covers. A burr on his hoof, perhaps, catching the threads. He tugged it loose with the quiet snap of a breaking hair, and settled back down to sleep. Enough light poured in from the streetlights outside to make out the contours of the room. Empty, still – not that he expected anything else, but it was a relief to see. Only the darkness of the hallway beyond the bedroom door remained absolute. He closed his eyes, and in time sleep returned.
Natural SelectionFluttershy surveyed the mess on her front lawn with a frown. It had been a bird at one point, that much was certain. There were feathers everywhere. More feathers than most ponies might think could come from a single bird, but she’d seen this play before and knew how it ended. The feathers were colorless down, spread out over a wide swathe of grass. But here and there she spied sturdier pinion and covert feathers, all gray striped with blue. A bluejay, then and—oh, yes, there was its head. Birds, as a general rule, didn’t have very expressive faces, but it looked rather surprised. Wonderful. She hadn’t even had breakfast yet, and she was already cleaning up after something else’s. A weasel or fox, probably. They could be vicious, and whatever had taken this poor little bird had torn it apart. “No one saw anything?” she asked. Beside her, Angel Bunny shook his floppy little head. The critters who shared Fluttershy’s home were giving them a wide margin to work. They weren’t frightened – they were, after all, wild animals, and death was simply a part of life for them. Mister Bluejay’s untimely demise was unusual for her front lawn but not unusual in the forest. But few animals would remain near a fresh kill unless they were interested in eating or stealing it, and she fed them well enough already. She looked up from the lawn. Directly ahead lay the acres of dark wood that bordered the Everfree Forest. Somewhere in there was a predator with a belly full of bird. It wasn’t the animal’s fault. Fox or weasel or bobcat, it was only acting according to its nature. Later in the day, she would go searching for it. A few words should dissuade it from returning. She started sweeping the feathers into a pile. The animals who shared her home wouldn’t mind the mess, but other ponies might. They sometimes lacked her understanding of nature and its ends. * * * The woods near Fluttershy’s cottage were dark, even in the mid-afternoon. Fall had stripped the canopy overhead of half its leaves, but those that remained, in all their many colors, still conspired to block the sun. It was closer to night than day on the soft, moss-covered floor. She had the bluejay’s remains – feathers, head and a few bits of viscera – and dumped them out of her wrap onto the ground. She wiped the canvas on the springy moss and tucked it into her saddlebags. “Hello?” she called. “If you’re out there, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I just want to talk.” Only silence returned. She waited for hours, in case any hungry animals wanted to come home with her. Aside from a curious chipmunk and a stoic snake, she had no visitors. As the sun neared the horizon, she sighed, lifted the chipmunk into the branches out of the rat snake’s reach, and bid them both farewell. Some mysteries, perhaps, weren’t meant to be solved. * * * Fluttershy spent the next morning running errands in Ponyville. She was up early, before the sun was more than a pink suggestion in the east, and by the time she returned, laden with groceries, it was well on the way to mid-morning. Soon it would be time for lunch, and she already had designs on a fresh arugula-and-tomato salad. She paused at her front door. The hard surface was covered in scratches. Thin curls of wood littered her doorstep. She considered the marks carefully, then looked around. Nothing appeared to be lurking in the bushes or the grasses. Slowly, she opened the door, walked inside, and shut it firmly behind her. “Does anyone know what scratched the door?” she asked of the various critters in her living room. A few of them paused in their play to look in her direction, but nothing more. It would’ve been surprising, frankly, if any had. She loved all her critter friends, but Celestia bless them, they weren’t the brightest stars in the night sky. Even Angel Bunny, her oldest confidante, had trouble understanding ponies and their complex emotions. Things were simpler for rabbits, she supposed. She needed a nocturnal friend for this. A animal who could watch the cottage during the night. She flapped her wings and floated up into the rafters, where a dark form huddled in the shadows. “Hello, Mister Owl,” she whispered, settling down beside him. His eyes slowly opened as he woke, and at her beckoning he leaned forward to hear her instructions. * * * Mister Owl was missing the next morning. She spent hours flying through the woods, stopping at each hollow tree where an owl might make a home. A few were occupied, but not with the owl she wanted. By the time she returned to the cottage lunch had passed, and her woodland friends were cranky with hunger. She apologized to them as she passed out bird seed for the birds and cantaloupe for the tortoises and sugar-dusted carrots for Angel Bunny. None knew where Mister Owl had gone. Later, after the sun had gone down and her animals surrendered to their natural rhythms, she sat by the fire and brooded. Angel Bunny dozed beside her, his legs twitching in response to some rabbity dream. She wondered, for a moment, whether he was chasing or being chased. Some animal, it seemed likely, had taken up residence in the woods outside her home. Some animal viewed her woodland friends as convenient snacks. She was not offended by this – cats had just as much a right to life as birds, much though birds might object. Cats were simply following their nature. But still, she couldn’t have a wild predator trying to claw its way into her home. Her home was a refuge. Outside, in the forest, the law of nature might rule, but in this cottage she was god. Something would have to be done. She carefully picked up Angel Bunny, deposited him in his nest, and turned into her bed for the night. * * * The sound of scratching at her bedroom door roused Fluttershy from the depths of sleep. She heard it in a groggy, half-awake state. It was not an unusual sound – after all, she lived with dozens of clawed animals, any number of which might want into her room. Usually she just ignored it until whatever restless animal was at work grew tired or bored or disheartened by her lack of response, and went elsewhere for the night. So that was what she did. And in time, the scratching ceased. She smiled and quickly fell back into slumber. * * * The critters were nervous the next morning. Fluttershy didn’t blame them. Something had left scratches on almost every wall and door in the cottage. Only the interior of her own room and the cellar, which was latched shut, showed no signs of vandalism. Everywhere else, little bits of plaster and curls of wood had fallen to the floor. She conducted a quick census. A few birds were missing, but that might or might not be important – birds came and went as they pleased, and never stayed for long. Mister Owl was still absent from his roost in the rafters. “Well, Angel Bunny,” she said. “If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.” He said nothing, but then, he never did. Together they set about cleaning the floors. * * * “Wait,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It’s inside your cottage?” “I think so,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t know how it would scratch the walls if it wasn’t.” Twilight paused at that, her mouth halfway open in the act of responding. She closed it, gave Fluttershy a look, as though she couldn’t quite tell if that answer was an insult or not, then apparently deciding that of course it wasn’t, this was Fluttershy, she nodded. “That’s kind of concerning, isn’t it? Don’t you, uh, worry about what might happen at night?” “I live with a bear,” Fluttershy said. “You live with a dragon and a reformed sorceress who tried to destroy the world and the very concept of time itself in a mad scheme to get revenge. I have an omnipotent friend who is the literal personification of chaos. No, I’m not afraid of some animal scratching up the walls in my cottage.” “Oh, um.” Twilight frowned. “Aren’t you, uh, still afraid of ponies sometimes?” Fluttershy set down her tea. “Ponies can be wicked, Twilight. Animals are just obeying their nature. If you understand them, they can never frighten you.” * * * Fluttershy was ready that night when the scratches woke her. She floated out of bed, her large wings beating gently, silently. Over toward the door she drifted. The sounds grew louder with each passing moment. She tried to consider how large an animal it must be to shake her door like that. Fairly big, she decided. Not as big as a bear, but maybe the size of a pony. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and pulled open the door. Nothing. Only darkness. She peered around the cottage’s main room, the floor, and then the ceiling above her because some animals liked to hide on ceilings. Still nothing. Dozens of little critters filled the air with the sounds of their slumber. It was like rain on a windowpane to her, soothing and relaxing. After only a few more minutes of futile searching around the cabin for whatever stray animal was causing all this trouble, she surrendered and returned to her bed. * * * Fluttershy dreamed that night of pursuing something. She dreamed that night of being pursued. She dreamed of hunting, killing and eating. She dreamed of her friends and her enemies, laughing with them, flying with them, swimming with them, even sleeping with them. Normal dreams, in other words. Embarrassing to talk about, but not embarrassing to experience. She smiled more that day, her friends said. She laughed more freely. Something about her seemed more alive. * * * Fluttershy was already awake when she heard the scratches the next night. She’d been waiting for them. Silent as a hawk, she drifted through the air of her bedroom, slowly opened the door, and landed in the hallway outside. The scratching was coming from the main room of the cottage. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight pouring in the windows, then headed toward the stairs. The sounds grew louder. At the top of the stairs she paused. An odd, unplaceable grunting sound mixed with the scratches. She took the stairs slowly, one hoof at a time, carefully avoiding the spots she knew would squeak. She had a lot of practice at this, moving around silently at night to avoid waking her critter friends. In seconds she reached the base of the stairs, and saw the source of the sounds. It was a pony. A pegasus. Hunched over something, tearing at it with forelegs. She must’ve gasped, for it jerked and looked up at the sound. Blood smeared its muzzle. But most of all she saw its eyes, a bright cyan that glowed in the darkness. Bright cyan eyes like hers, filled with lust and hunger and insanity, and the not-Fluttershy pony opened its mouth to expose teeth like diamonds, and somepony began to scream, and— Fluttershy woke in her bed. She stifled a scream, every muscle locked in place. The dream that seared her mind was already fading, leaving behind only those bright eyes, and in moments that memory was gone as well, and she could not remember why she was so frightened. Something caught in her throat. She coughed and spat up a bit of down. The loose, fluffy feather drifted down to her sheets. She stared at it. Somewhere in the cottage, she imagined she could heard something scratching. Best go see what it was.
