Night of Dreams

Ch 2. The Deep Night

The last train ride out of Canterlot was Twilight's, The same train she had taken so many times before, the same conductor and comfy seats. Twilight felt warmed by the familiarity and felt safe here, even safer than the castle now that she was 'leaving the nest'.

Spike dozed on the seat next to her, even if it wasn't technically his bedtime, the darkness made him tired so she let him rest. While pondering the day and looking out the window at the beautiful but ominous stars, Twilight was startled by a rumbling sound.

She looked around, frightened, only to realize it had been her own stomach. With a bashful chuckle she got down from the seat and slowly made her was up the train to the food car, the rocking motion of the train was difficult to compensate for but she had plenty of practice.

<ΩΩΩ>

A plate of greens and an apple floated out of their respective cupboards and she carried them on a tray back to her cabin, munching happily on the small dinner.

An hour later Twilight woke as the cabin jostled side to side roughly. She hadn't even realized that sleep had overtaken her, but now the train seemed to be rocking violently, and she could hear things falling over throughout the train.

Spike awoke as well, rubbing his eyes. "I didn't do it..." He mumbled sleepily.

"Stay here, I'll go see whats going on." Twilight advised him, opening her cabin door and looking outside.

<ΩΩΩ>

Nopony was to be seen throughout the train. She walked carefully up the length of the train to the engine, where a frantic looking unicorn was trying to kick and pull levers and wheels with wide eyes, in a panic.

"Whats wrong?" twilight yelled over the clanging and wind.

"Whats wrong?!" The conductor shouted in disbelief. "Everything's wrong! I can't move the levers with my magic!" He replied.

"Which ones do you need moved?"

The conductor pointed out which ones and how to move them, and Twilight had to strain with her magic, even to move them a little, but she managed to slow the train.

"Why is our magic so weak?" Twilight asked nopony in particular.

"I don't know but I cant work this train without it. We are halfway there, we will run out of steam in about half a candlemark, what are we going to do?!"

Twilight calmed herself and looked to the light blue unicorn with a piece of traintrack as a cutie mark.

She remembered Celestia telling her that ponies needed an anchor in the storm. Celestia, as usual, was right.

"What is your name?" Twilight asked calmly, doing her best to imitate Celestia.

"It's Silver Steam." he said, looking around in fright at the machine he had run for so long.

"We are going to wait for the train to stop, then make camp, I'm sure you were getting ready to go to bed after this journey. we will rest then set out on hoof, and we will make it to ponyville Silver steam, I promise you that."

Twilight wrote a quick letter to the princess and had Spike send it.

<ΩΩΩ>

"Dear Princess Celestia.

Regarding our previous discussion, it appears the effect is spreading, and may be complete to all such ponies. The train will be stuck on this track within an hour, please do not let any more trains operated by magic leave their homes."

<ΩΩΩ>

She struggled to guide the quill properly, and then hoofed it over to Spike to finish.

"Applejack was right. this is really, really bad." she said sadly.

<ΩΩΩ>

After Spike had sent the letter, he got her some food, and got all the luggage off the upper shelves of the cabin. Things Twilight would have normally done, but she couldn't even lift one bag with her magic.

They went to the front of the train where silver had found a way to extend the life of the steam a little even though he couldn't shovel the coal properly or adjust the settings, he had detached a few of the back-most cars of the train, allowing them to coast further through the colder and colder air.

The train finally ground to a halt, on a section of track before a bridge. The lonesome little group found shelter under the bridge, curling up in blankets and lighting a small fire to keep warm. All of this helped along by spike, who had the claws to grab the blankets and the flame to light the fire. Twilight had never been so grateful for his presence in her life.

<ΩΩΩ>

When she awoke, spike was gone. It was still very dark of course, and the full moon only helped her a little in her search.

"Spike!" she called out into the darkness."Where are you?"

But there was no answer.

The sounds of the unnatural night seemed to mock her, there was no echo or sound but the wind which carried her calls back into her own throat.

Her special assistant. Of all of the things to happen now, this had to be the worst.

Twilight collapsed, staring out into the darkness, unable to bring forth light, unable to use any magic, she felt lost.

<ΩΩΩ>

Spike had woken to a crackle of the fire, and had looked over to Twilight's sleeping bundle of blankets.

He knew this was terrible on her, magic was her talent, her cutie mark, her element! he just hoped that things would go back to normal.

Or at least normal for twilight.

With a grin Spike remembered all the near misses and crazy happenings they had been through, and got up to add wood to the fire.

A sound outside of the circle of light made him spin around, baring his fangs angrily.

"Who's there?" he called out, truly hoping nopony, or dragon for that matter, would answer.

"Help!" a voice called out in the distance, making Spike jump but also urging him to action. He grabbed a burning stick as a makeshift torch, and ran into the ink black, thinking of nothing but helping somepony in trouble.

<ΩΩΩ>

Twilight and Silver trudged heavily through the brush and brambles together, doing their best to stick to the train track which led directly to Ponyville.

Every once in a while Twilight would call out into the darkness, her voice cracking. "Spike?! where are you?"

She had searched the campsite and the area around it for hours, or at least what felt like hours in the unchanging darkness. He was nowhere to be found, and a burned stick lay on the other side of the tracks next to a river.

The river flowed towards Ponyville but that was no consolation to Twilight, who knew Spike couldn't swim.

Tears came unbidden to her eyes, which she hid from the friendly but unapologetic conductor, who had repeatedly said that getting to town would be the best thing to focus on.

"I think I see lights in the distance." He said a while later, looking the most excited he had been since the train disaster (Twilight refused to call it a ride) had started.

"I think I see your brain in the distance." Twilight muttered bitterly, still concerned only for Spike and how she could find him.

"What was that?" he asked cheerily.

"Nothing! so you see lights? how far away?"

"not sure. looks pretty far, little twink...."

"Spike?!" Twilight shouted again over the wind, turning to the side as she thought she heard a noise.

They stood in silence for a few moments, staring in opposite directions.

Silver Steam started walking again, loaded down with saddlebags, just like she was, but with a hop in his step she could not muster.

Twilight resumed her trek behind him shortly after, leaving a trail of wet droplets in the cold earth.