“Listen to me, Twilight, when the time comes, you gotta run and don’t look back. This is over.”
“I don’t understand. I can help! Luna, please, there’s still time!”
It was hard speaking over the roaring flames around them, their warm light a beacon in the cold shadow of the mountain. Smoke built in the air, stinging her eyes, yet this was not cause for the tears matting Twilight’s soot-smeared cheeks.
“Twilight, you fool,” Luna stomped her hoof in chucked-up mud, “how are you supposed to help us without your magic? I have to stay behind with my sister; I can’t leave her in her condition.”
“But that doesn’t explain why I have to go!” Twilight shouted in frustration, leading to a coughing fit as she breathed in a lung of smoke.
“Twilight, do you know what the guard does to terrorists?” Luna’s narrowed eyes bored into Twilight’s own. “They have an entire facility beneath the palace. There are artefacts in there that not even Starswirl the Bearded knows about; relics that will force even the strongest of minds to crack, spill all they know,” she said. “We have ordered them to treat us as if we were the Nightmare again, and that goes for all alicorns, including you.”
Realisation dawned on the purple thief and her brows relaxed. “So even though they won’t find me guilty of terrorism, they will find out that I stole this watch from that museum.” Twilight’s scowl returned briefly. She looked down at the platinum watch held in her hooves before she tucked it back in her saddlebags around her barrel.
“Indeed. Fare thee well, Twilight Sparkle.”
Abruptly, Luna trotted away to deal with Celestia partially trapped under a train cart. Twilight looked beyond the retreating form of the Lunar Princess. Her mentor wept, cradling a scorched dessert plate in her hooves beside a collapsed cake, melted from the heat of the flames.
Twilight stood like a stump as she fought with her legs to move, uncertain if to disobey Luna and help her mentor or run away.
Barked orders pierced the distant darkness and caused Twilight’s ears to twitch about in pursuit of the source. The action was pointless as a dozen torches approached from her left; the beams of light barely punctured the smoke.
Luna shouted at Celestia to move while she lifted the carriage from Celestia’s back. Twilight watched the scene unfold with her bottom lip firmly trapped between her teeth.
For the first time that evening, Celestia saw clarity as the voices grew louder. She had made life difficult enough for young Twilight in the past years, and it was time to give something back. Her wide eyes snapped to her student, and then she gave Twilight her next mission.
Twilight couldn’t hear clearly over the roars of the flames and the screeches of buckling metal, but from the subtle movements of Celestia’s lips, she heard a single word manifest from her thoughts.
Run.
As he galloped towards the crash site, Night Light’s hooves pounded the grass and weeds growing on the soil beneath them. A small detachment of the Night Guard and its healers flanked him. An abysmal forty-minute response time was unacceptable — even though they awoke earlier than usual and had to scale down a mountain.
It was of no import to Night Light, at least not at the time, as he had an entire operation to command and no idea how many were involved in the crash. Nearer to the scene, Night felt the heat of the flames caress his fur.
Searching for survivors, Night Light discerned that the wreck was eerily tidy — aside from the burning debris scattered as far as his eyes could see. There were no suitcases with clothes spewing out, no singed reading material, and no bodies either. It was as if the train had been a prop for a movie, and he half expected somepony to yell ‘Cut!’ from the darkness.
A shout tore him away from his thoughts, “Operative Light, over here, Sir!” Night Light ran through a gap between carriages to find one of his Officers checking over the Head of State and Empress of The Legion. The white coat of the alicorn stained with ash and dust, her hooves muddy from digging into the ground.
Princess Luna stood off to the side, fending off medics when they tried to examine her. The Operative made his way over to where Celestia perched on a miserable rock. The Officer who called him noticed his approach and fled to update the medics about Celestia’s condition.
Night looked up to a slumped Celestia with a blend of professional seriousness and childlike disbelief. “What happened, Your Majesty?” Night asked.
“The train derailed. It was just Luna and me. We weren’t paying attention… and then it all went fuzzy. Is Luna okay?”
Night looked over to Princess Luna. Scrapes and singed fur dotted her body; Luna was in worse physical condition than her sibling but appeared more ‘with it’ mentally. “Luna’s fine, Ma’am, just some scratches, minor burns, and bruises across her lower back. I’m afraid you’ll have to record your account of events when we return.”
Celestia gave a relieved sigh and went back to staring at the floor. Night Light figured he’d get nothing more from the Solar Princess and turned to get Luna’s account. However, as Night turned, he sighted a purple feather half poking out the mud. There was somepony else, one he knew very well.
“Except it wasn’t just you and Luna, was it?” he deduced over his shoulder, his grit teeth barely moved out the way of the question.
Celestia straightened up, her mouth opened, about to deny his accusation, but closed it once her eyes settled on the lavender feather suspended in Night’s magic. She looked back down as her mouth swung open multiple times, working to find the words.
How do you find the words to tell a father that their daughter was involved in a life-threatening accident, and it was your entire fault?
“She’s okay. I told her to run so she won’t be involved with my crimes,” she admitted.
He was just about to verbally tear into his princess when he felt a cool hoof on his shoulder. Night flinched to his side, about to redirect his wrath to the pony that dared interrupt him but met the teal eyes of his superior.
Luna brushed past him to give her sister a quick nuzzle before she spoke up. “We accept complete responsibility for our crimes and are prepared for punishment.”
Celestia gaped at her for a moment, until she too, accepted her fate.
“By saying this, you know I’ll have no choice but to arrest and interrogate you?” Night Light asked with a raised eyebrow.
Both Princesses nodded in regret, held out their forehooves, and awaited their captor to cuff them.
The museum buzzed with activity, but not the kind of activity Shoddy Silver expected or wanted for opening day. Ponies rushed about the halls outside the curator’s office, carting off boxes and furniture.
Shoddy Silver buried his ash-coloured face in his hooves as he dwelled on the day’s events. “How did it come to this, eh? My success relied solely on that damned watch, and now it’s been stolen.” He poured his third glass of budget scotch. “I was supposed to make thousands. Instead, I haven’t even made enough money back to pay you two,” he moaned.
The other two in the room glanced at each other with symmetrically raised brows. They both wore the silver armour of the Hire Guard.
Cleaver stepped forward. “You aren’t going to pay us?” the concrete unit of an earth pony asked neutrally. He couldn’t believe what he just heard, despite expecting so much from a stallion like Mr Silver.
Shoddy slammed his hooves down and provoked the half-empty glass to rattle on the mahogany desk. “I can’t pay you!” Out of breath, he slumped back down and scowled at the deep cracks that branched outwards from his hooves.
“Sorry, Shoddy, but our contract doesn’t allow you to get out of this that easily.” The cyan unicorn mare stepped forward and stood in front of Cleaver. She undid the strap on one of her saddlebags with the lime glow of her telekinesis and pulled out a rolled-up document. “It clearly states in plain ponish:
“‘I, Shoddy Silver, Curator of Stuff Celestia Can Never Get Her Shiny Metal Hoof Shoes On, promise to pay Cleaver and Cinder of the Hire Guard. By signing this contract, I promise to pay the agreed amount of eight hundred and fifty bits for their services.’
“Yada, yada, yada.
“‘If Shoddy Silver breaks this promise, both Cinder and Cleaver have the rights granted under The Payment of Debts Act 1982 to seize any assets belonging to Shoddy Silver, deemed non-essential, to settle the debts.’
“So basically, you’re bucked,” she finished with a smirk.
Shoddy Silver’s eyes scanned through the legally binding contract for any loopholes. There was none. He slumped even further now, only a few degrees from the foetal position. “Fine, take what you want… I don’t care anymore,” he grumbled as he got up. “I’m getting the train back to Manehattan. If you need to find me, don’t.”
He trotted out the door, came back, and left again with his bottle of scotch.
“That was an asset,” Cleaver pointed out to his friend with a scowl and stepped hoof after him. Cinder’s hoof against his rump froze him from his chase.
“Pretty sure in his current situation, that bottle is classed as an essential asset,” Cinder quipped. She sauntered over to her former boss’s desk, heaved herself onto the decrepit workstation, and squashed her rump against it as she paddled her legs off the edge.
“Right, what do we do now?”
“Whatever we want; this is all ours to do with as we please. Sell it, keep it, destroy it — it’s all up to you and me.” She stopped kicking and rolled her neck to survey the office. “So, what do you want to do with it?”
“I dunno, let me think,” Cleaver admitted with a shrug.
After a few hours of contemplating different ideas, Cleaver finally broached a new business opportunity to his potential business partner.
Cinder was surprised her friend was so bold; his suggestion was so naughty. “So you’re asking me, a mare, to help turn this place into a brothel?” she asked in mock offence. She made an arch out of her forelegs on the desk of authority she sat behind.
Cleaver flourished a playful bow. “Yes, will you aid me in this quest?”
“Maybe.” She weighed his lewd request in her mind briefly. “What do you want to call it?” she probed as she sat straighter in her faux leather chair.
“How about Cadance’s Cove?”
“Princess Cadance already owns a brothel by that name; in fact, I believe it’s part of her nationwide chain of brothels.”
“Celestia’s Cun—”
“We would need Her Majesty’s approval for using her name.” Cinder marked her colleague staring blankly at her, which prompted her to explain. “After Celestia’s Teat opened, she passed a new law that requires all new businesses that intend to use her name to be approved by her.”
“Why do you have to make this so difficult?” He fell back into a swivel chair with a huff. “Fine, you come up with a better idea, Cindy.”
She barely gave the question two seconds before she came up with a name. It was almost as if she’d been thinking of potential brothel names for a while.
“Let’s call it… Luna’s Libido!”
Twilight’s lungs ached as she ran. She hadn’t stopped since she began, and it was taking its toll. The grass gradually turned to snow as she got further and further away from Canterlot’s heavily regulated climate, and the evening Sun’s light sparkled across the landscape before her.
The snow had come up to her knees, so Twilight rationalised it would be easier to fly. Reaching the peak of a mound, she sprang into the air and spread out her wings — for all of three seconds. An arc of pain snaked through her left wing as it forced itself closed. Twilight plummeted horn first into a snowbank; thankfully, the landing spared her bum from the freezing snow at the expense of one of the worst brain freezes she had endured or ever will.
The snow muffled her curses as she struggled to extract herself from her glacial prison. With a final pull, her head popped out, and she took a deep, chilling breath. In a panic, she checked that she hadn’t lost anything from her saddlebags. Fortunately, she hadn’t.
Twilight winced again as the aftershocks of pain spiked along her wing. Gently lifting it with a wince, she examined a central bone overlapping another and a nearly black bruise in the middle of her wing.
If she had her magic, she would’ve been able to fix the wing with no problem, but since knocking her head in the crash, she hadn’t even been able to make a spark. She had tried everything she could to get it to work; concentrating seemed to give her a headache, Luna touching tips with her horn didn’t do anything apart from produce a bit of static discharge, and rubbing it just made her horny.
Twilight momentarily thought to pack some snow under her wing to aid with healing but remembered that it barely helps. She didn’t want frostbite in addition to a mangled wing. Once she shook off the remnants of snow, she proceeded on her journey to civilisation.
The Sun had just sunk below the horizon when Twilight reached a jagged ravine that ripped through the frozen landscape. There was no way around or across as she scoured the rim from upon the heath. Only a silhouette of a tree stood out against the white-turned-grey.
The leaves of the tree had long since fallen in the wake of autumn. Fractures riddled the bark, and the roots barbed through the snow. Stood at the hill’s base, Twilight examined the tree in more detail and discovered that it had a deep crack across the lower trunk.
Trickling water pulled at Twilight’s ear and led her to the ravine. She stamped the ground with a cautious hoof to see if the cliff crumbled beneath her. Twilight steadily made her way over to the edge, and when she got there, she went prone and peered over; what she saw astonished her.
Small streams spouted out the ravine walls, down into a pool of fresh water at the bottom. To Twilight, it was no wonder the tree had died; the water flowed off into the ravine instead of seeping into the earth. It must’ve been recent; otherwise, the tree wouldn’t’ve grown to begin with.
Something powerful created this ravine. The thought was difficult to swallow as it made Twilight’s stomach twist.
The sight of freshwater suddenly took her away from her thoughts and alerted her of how thirsty she was. She could easily collect some if she could fly or use magic, but it would be too dangerous if she tried to reach the bottom or even one of the spouts due to her injuries. She had to hang on a little longer.
She needed a plan to cross the ravine. After a few minutes of eyeballing the tree’s height and the ravine’s width, Twilight concluded the plot. She planned to applebuck the tree over the gap and cross it but needed to look at it from higher ground to affirm her predictions.
When she stood atop the hill again, the moon greeted her at the hill’s peak, which bathed her face in moonglow of likeness to her recently acquired watch. The moonlight shone over the snow and illuminated the valley in a subtle off-white. In the distance, the silhouette of a vast forest loomed beyond the valley.
Surveying from above made the gap seem narrower than it was, but it showed the tree was taller than its width. The chances of success rose from five per cent to sixty-nine per cent. The tree might not be stable enough, or it could snap as she crossed it, but at least it wasn’t a definite failure. Definite failure being Twilight trapped at the depths of a ravine until her body mended itself.
Confident in her plan, Twilight eagerly half-stepped half-slid down the hill at speed. Tragically, a stocky boulder reared its bald head through the snow and butted with Twilight’s hooves at high velocity. The collision was enough to flip her over and barrel down the slope towards the awaiting crevice. Twilight tried and failed to find purchase on the snow beneath in a desperate bid to stall her descent into the abyss.
Her back hurled into the tree with a crunchy thud.
She carried ongoing.
The tree uprooted from the impact and provided Twilight with the extra surface to carry on her trajectory, albeit at a much slower pace. She landed spreadeagle in the snowbank. Her face relished the opportunity to reacquaint with its frosty frenemy.
With a start, Twilight sat up and gasped for breath as she gawked at the tree. It hardly bridged the gap, and there was a vaguely Twilight shaped hole in the middle of the trunk. It bowed at this point, almost snapped in two.
Twilight frantically checked her bags when she caught up with what just happened. “Stealth suit… check. Watch… are you under the suit? Yes, you are. Plans and blueprints for Operation Sneaky Sneak… check. Don’t need these anymore.” She threw the documents into the gorge. “Last but certainly not least, brain damage... check.”
After walking for what she suspected was about an hour, she came upon a desiccated copse. Navigating her way through the spires of dead trees led her deeper into the labyrinth. The air soon became fresher, which cleansed Twilight’s stuffy nostrils and sharpened her blunted mind.
Her eyes scanned the night in search of the cause of the freshness. That was when she saw moonbeams scattered ahead of her. Once she was closer, Twilight deduced that a forest canopy blocked the light, evidenced by some rays that seeped through the gaps between needles.
The woods were dangerous at night. Yet, since it was the dead of winter, most of the large predators should be hibernating. With this knowledge, Twilight ventured into the unknown. Her heartbeat fastened now she faced potential danger. Each hooffall met the damp crunch of fallen leaves and pine needles, punctuated by the distant hoots of owls as they nocturnally hunted.
For the second time that evening, Twilight heard running water just behind some bushes in front of her. Brushing aside lush foliage uncovered a stream that softly reflected gentle rays of moonlight along its ripples.
Her thirst made itself known once more, but this time granted the chance to quench it. She leant down, buried her muzzle into the water, and took rapacious sips.
Something was amiss. Why was the water thick?
The most distressing difference was the taste. Iron plated her taste buds, a slight trace of coppery spice flowed throughout.
Twilight spat the mouthful onto the ground, where it attempted to clot together. That was when she smelt it — a foul, earthy reek replaced the freshness of the forest. Eyes widened, pupils pricked, ears flicked: Twilight’s heart thundered as she looked around.
Death guided her nose in its direction and led her upstream. That’s when she saw it.
Bathed in moonlight, like a trophy, was the carcass of a feral bear. Underbelly ripped open, ribs exposed, its digestive system spilt out into the stream. Long gashes striped its fur, and puncture wounds dug into muscle.
Twilight promptly retched into some bushes.
Nausea permeated her mind as her stomach clenched and twisted. Her prey instincts took over, and she ran away, not set in a direction. Trees sped past her as she galloped and only halted once she took control of herself. She smeared the acidic bile from her lips onto her hoof while she paid off her oxygen debt.
The woods were silent. Neither a hoot from a friendly owl nor a screech of a fox disturbed the eerie stillness. Even the crickets had stopped creaking.
Screams broke the silence.
Fancying herself a hero, Twilight lanced in their direction and resisted to think the worst. Whoever was out there needed her help, and it was her royal duty to defend her citizens. The further she ran, the louder the snaps and crashes of trees torn asunder.
She came within a hundred yards of those in peril before a tiny pink thing knocked her off her hooves. After she staggered up, she glanced over at the prone form of what flew into her. She recalled the white and purple tail adjacent to the tiara emblazoned on the filly’s rump.
“TWILIGHT!” three pitchy voices squealed in unison as they leapt over her to pick up their friend.
A roar shredded through the darkness of the silent woods. Then the creature skulked through the treeline of the moonlit glade that Twilight and the fillies occupied. Two yellow eyes stared them down. The beast’s maw stretched in a snarl, baring two rows of jagged teeth and four sharp canines — the entire muzzle caked in blood.
Its sharp paws carried it silently towards them, step by terrifying step. In a show of intimidation, it stretched a pair of waxy wings from its back and pointed a barbed tail at its prey.
Twilight stood between the manticore and the four fillies. Without her wings or magic, Twilight was defenceless — but not helpless.
She swivelled to the fillies behind her. “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, pick up Diamond Tiara and run. I can take care of this,” she ordered. But before she directed them what to do, they had run off with Diamond Tiara balanced on Apple Bloom’s back. They sure have grown, taking the initiative like that.
Or maybe Twilight had just made a terrible mistake by turning her back on a predator.
Hot, acrid breath beat on the back of her neck. She turned her head and peered from the corner of her eye at the colossal predator. Twilight’s body seized up as terror overtook the mare, and her primordial instincts re-established themselves as sovereign over the realm of logical thought.
She met the rabid and ravenous eyes of the manticore, murder on its mind. In a proposed attempt on her life, it arched its paw in anticipation to strike. However, the beast shifted the paw mid-swing as it backpawed her into a tree across the clearing.
Rage flooded Twilight’s bones as she flopped to the ground. “I am bucking tired of being slammed into trees tonight!”
She finished doing the pathetic princess thing.
Her shout taken as a challenge, the manticore rushed the feisty mare. Twilight dug in her hooves while she tensed her legs. Just as the brute launched itself at her with its mighty jaw hung open, she dove under the attack and coiled up her hind legs. Channelling her alicorn might, Twilight’s hooves broke the sound barrier as they shot into the manticore’s underbelly, which launched it into the treeline not far behind her.
She felt something crack, but it would not be enough to stop it. The chimeric monstrosity shook its head in a daze before it flapped its giant wings and took to the sky. Twilight sprinted for the treeline where the canopy would protect her — she didn’t want to be caught in the open.
Shelter under a great oak tree allowed her to catch her breath and devise an attack. She couldn’t do much in her predicament, but she still had her above-average horn that could take an eye out. Panicked flaps of birds, evacuated from their roosts, interrupted her plan. She scrambled to clear the tree in time.
Not a second too soon, the manticore rent the branches above and landed where Twilight previously leant. It sniffed the air to track the little purple mare, and its nose traced the ground to some bushes. Those bushes exploded as Twilight haymakered the snout of the creature with her forehooves. She managed to get two good swings in until the manticore opened its maw, an attempt to parry her hooves with its jaws of death.
Twilight dropped her attack and tried her best to dodge its counterattacks. One attack forced her to jump into the air, but this was no more than a cunning trick from the manticore. It whipped its right wing to swat Twilight up into the air, high into the branches above. Only she did not come back down.
The branches slapped and ripped at her hide and saddlebags as she flung upwards through the under-canopy. Soon, she was on her way back down to the manticore’s waiting gullet, but a thick oak limb saved her. The harsh landing cracked a rib or two, evidenced by bone snapping against her lung.
She couldn’t even scream in pain, for the impact knocked the wind out of her. Twilight took a minute to lay there while she caught her breath.
All the while, the manticore below her searched around in bewilderment. Just as it was about to lose interest, Twilight pounced on its back and wrapped all her hooves around the manticore’s neck, pinching its oesophagus. Her hooves drew blood as she tried to choke it. However, her attack opened her up to the venomous tail behind her.
The barb stabbed down and pierced Twilight’s left foreleg, just shy of her back. The lack of oxygen broke its concentration, which caused the stinger to miss its intended target. The tail thrashed backwards and took Twilight with it. Her back slammed into the ground with a solid thump. She coughed up a glob of blood next to a pile of rocks — Twilight was easy pickings for the rabid monster.
The manticore dwarfed the princess as it loomed over her limp form. Just as the manticore was about to sink its teeth into her throat, Twilight smashed its face with a rock she clutched in her uninjured wing. The blow allowed her to attack as it reared its head, stunned by pain. She sat up in a burst of speed for her head to meet its chest.
Her horn skewered the winged beast.
With a pained howl, the manticore clutched at its oozing chest and backed away in retreat. It staggered off into the forest to heal in its den or perish on the way.
Bloodied and broken, blood channelled down both sides of her foreleg as she sat there. A smile graced her lips; the Cutie Mark Crusaders were safe, and she had prevailed. Her consciousness faded, and her body went limp as she passed out.
A thin veil of moss sparsely coated the stone walls of the cell. The soaked up moisture seeped down to pool in a shallow puddle in the corner of the dismal little cell. Ages old, scorch marks blistered the walls. The rusty bars of the cell were growing algae and appeared well past their best years. However, the timeworn prison still had some tricks up its sleeve.
“Ow, Tia, it bit me!” a midnight lapis alicorn whined from the confines of her cell and clutched her hoof in pain.
Sat on a soggy wooden bench chained to the wall, her sister ground her teeth in near sororicidal frustration. “How many times must I tell you? The cell bars are enchanted to shock you if you try to manipulate them. So far, you’ve foalishly managed to electrocute every part of your body and give yourself a migraine. I wondered if you suffered brain damage from the crash, but now I know for definite.”
“Silence, I will not listen to you any longer—”
“Not like you were listening before,” Celestia said under her breath.
“—after all, it was your delinquent idea to steal the train that put us here. Or have you helped yourself to another serving of the forgetti spaghetti again, Sister?”
“Excuse me?” She gripped at her mane as she resisted the urge to rip it out and strangle her sister with it. “I certainly remember you admitting your share in the blame to Twilight’s father. Luna, I know I was a prat for dragging you along with my plan to pirate the train. But you didn’t try to stop me, and I also remember you being quite enthused once we were out on the open rail,” she stated.
Luna glanced away from her tingling hoof to Celestia’s eyes. Their guilt reflected off each other’s watery eyes in the dim light. “I was just happy that you were enjoying yourself.”
Celestia smiled at the sentiment.
“And… I suppose I did start to enjoy it a tiny bit,” Luna admitted with a sheepish smile.
With gentle swiftness, Celestia wrapped her wings around her beloved sister. Luna hugged back as one of their numerous quarrels resolved itself. However, a metallic clang on the bars interrupted the heart-warming moment.
The two princesses cringed at the sound as it reverberated around their cell and down the hallway.
Behind bars, a navy blue bat pony peered at them with milky eyes, donned in shadowed armour. Without a word, the mare brought a set of keys up to the cell door and unlocked it. The gate slid to the side with a rusty screech, causing the bat pony’s ears to tuck against her skull.
The guard blocked the right passageway outside. Celestia and Luna looked at one another with concern. As one, the pair tentatively stepped out into the frigid hallway where a slight draft glanced across their feathers.
While the guardsmare slammed the cell behind them, Celestia noticed the pony part her lips to make an almost inaudible high-pitched squeak — her alicorn hearing barely picked it up. The strange mare repeated this odd behaviour with each of their actions.
It creeped the divine shit out of her.
Sconces sparsely lit the walls, which quietly crackled and flicked flame at the three passers-by. Before long, the creepy pony escorted the sisters-in-crime to a door at the hallway’s end. ‘Interrogation’ branded the featureless cast iron door.
The guardspony brushed past the detainees, unlocked the door, and stepped aside to let her princesses through.
Inside, they noticed a sturdy wooden table and chairs in the room’s centre. On the table sat a boxy machine with various buttons and dials on it. A plate-sized reel of magnetic tape mantled its top.
The walls and ceiling were of the same ancient stone as their cell, but the floor was of flawless frosted marble. Oddly, the cliché one-way mirror was missing, replaced by four cameras nestled in the room’s corners — although, from the lack of a blinking light, they were off for the moment. A flat, gripless, steel door blended with the wall opposite the princesses.
With a startling slam, the guardsmare bolted the door behind the two. The Princesses knew the standard protocols for interrogation and law enforcement, so they took their seats at the table to commence the process.
Night Light stepped out of the flat door with pen and clipboard held aloft in his magic. He greeted them with a neutral gaze that conveyed professionalism and severity. Except as the door sealed behind him, Celestia saw the rage behind those amber eyes and felt it in each step.
Celestia and Luna once again shared a weary look between themselves.
Once seated, Night spoke first. “We have thirty seconds before recording starts; I just want you to know that I am monumentally disappointed in you, and I should berate you for how you’ve acted,” he stated before he leant back in his chair. “That said… I know you didn’t mean to involve my daughter in this, and I appreciate you preventing her from being involved further.”
Celestia and Luna both acknowledged their interrogator with a nod. As soon as the thirty seconds was over, Night Light flicked a switch on the machine.
Celestia, now closer to the machine, identified it as a lie detector. Luna, conversely, stared down at the blinking, whirring machine with great suspicion and mild dread. She surmised it was the rumoured relic; she’d never seen such an alien object.
They both noticed the cameras in the room had activated and pointed at the two.
“Right, since you two are princesses and my bosses, this interrogation is going to work differently than normal. This device,” he motioned a hoof towards the lie detector, “will perform multiple spells on your minds to make you more truthful. If you somehow tell a lie, this machine will tell me, and I will ask again. Should you continue to lie after verbal interrogation, I will subject you to far more physical probing.”
The princesses’ faces paled, hardly believable given that Luna’s coat was so dark, and Celestia was a shade away from being a white-coat supremacist.
This interrogation was working differently, for sure. It had started to turn into one of those monochrome foreign comics, like the ones Luna stashed under her bed.
“However, so long as you answer truthfully, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Now let’s start with a simple question. What are your names?” Night Light started the beginning of a long series of questions and clicked his pen.
Celestia and Luna exchanged a nod of permission before they told him.
The machine’s screen flashed ‘TRUE’ in green text as response to his final question. He flicked the switch on the side with a click, and the tapes wound down.
The princesses sank in their seats as relief washed over their bodies.
“Don’t relax just yet; I still need to give you your punishment,” Night informed.
“But we told the truth, not once did we lie!” Luna exclaimed. Her raised tones weren’t quite loud enough to be shouting, but they felt like it in the boxy room.
She was right. Not a single lie flashed on the screen, although they did push it on some answers. Night Light had deliberately evaded asking questions about who else was involved, so his daughter’s involvement would remain between them.
“I know, but you still hijacked public transport, leaving ponies stranded in Canterlot, and then crashed it.” He explained how a parent does when chiding children — the two may as well have been.
“Sorry, I thought you meant the probing.” She blushed. “You know how ticklish alicorns are,” Luna admitted.
“Huh? Oh, yes, that was just a rational deception to make sure you gave it your all,” Night Light revealed with a grin.
Luna looked to her sister with her mouth agape in shock, but the elder one merely sported a sly smirk. Celestia had used many a rational deception or logical ruse on her students — that was the first time someone used one against her.
“The truth is… I already came up with your punishment on the wagon back to the city. It will be a great experience for you two. You’ll become more grounded and less inclined to abuse your position to do whatever idiotic thing you please,” he said. A lengthy pause followed to let them process. “Both of you will be working five-day weekly shifts at Doughnut Joe’s whilst still having to attend court, and we shall revoke most royal privileges.
“If you work poorly, you’ll be fired and reassigned as a bin collector with magical inhibitor rings on. You will work there until you have paid for the cost of constructing a new train. The palace will be closed to you unless it is for court. We will also withhold your regalia; it will be waiting for you once the job’s finished.”
It wasn’t the worst punishment they could’ve received, but Celestia dreaded the loss of access to the royal kitchen. There will be no more cake, no more delicious creamy desserts, and no more luxury. Turbulent times lay ahead for the two deities.
“But where are we supposed to live?” Celestia pleaded.
“That is for you to sort out; I cannot do everything for you. After all, this punishment is supposed to teach you independence and self-accountability. At least you will finally understand how your subjects live.” Night Light made a swift exit through the door without another word.
Luna had been silent since the news. The room spun as anxiety overwhelmed her. She toppled to the cool marble floor as her worst nightmare became real… customer service.
A subtle glow pranced in the darkness before her, soothing her escalated heartbeat. Slow pops and cracks graced Twilight’s ears while her senses crawled back. Soon thereafter, she regained limited motor functions and fluttered open her eyes.
Fire flicked a heavy nod to her, welcoming her with its warmth in the cold, unfamiliar surroundings. Visions of earlier that night flash flooded her mind, accompanied by a short-lived migraine swept along in the flow of memories.
Twilight bolted upright, which unsnagged the migraine from a prickly memory and let it travel downstream, away from her mind. She gritted her teeth as all her nerve endings sizzled at the sudden movement.
Something wrapped around it, she studied her left foreleg, and discovered a bloodstained bandage, coiled tight between her hoof and shoulder.
A movement behind the fire seized her attention. A pink filly, Diamond Tiara, hobbled her way into Twilight’s view but only made it halfway to the princess before she crumpled from the exertion. “Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to get through the forest, right — walked right into that manticore ambush, same as us? I was lucky I only twisted my fetlock when it threw me; when it went to swipe me with its paw, I thought I was a goner,” Diamond Tiara told.
“It’s a good job that I came along when I did then, eh?” Twilight mirthlessly chuckled, which led to a coughing fit as a broken rib prodded her lung.
“Are you okay?” Tiara asked in concern.
No.
“I’m fine… worn out, that’s all. That manticore really did a number on me.”
“Wait, couldn’t you have just banished it with your magic or something? Or better yet, teleport all of us home?”
Twilight tapped her horn with a hoof. “Hit my head earlier today and haven’t been able to make a spark since. Same story with my wing; I can’t even glide on it.” She unfurled her injured wing to show off purple blotches, far darker than the rest of her palette, ebbing from two joints.
Diamond blanched at the sight. “Ugh, that is so gross.”
“I’ve never had to fight with my hooves before, let alone against a manticore.”
“I doubt even Rainbow Dash could’ve done that.” A raspy voice came from behind Twilight. A yellow filly beside them raised her brows. “I mean, come on, that thing was huge!”
Twilight swivelled in place to get a better look at the ponies behind her. Applebloom and Scootaloo stood with numerous scrapes and scratches between them, presumably from running through branches and brambles.
“That’s cos RD ain’t got earth pony in ‘er. Twalight beat that monster with just that strength. She was fightin’ more like mah sis than an alicorn there,” Applebloom gloated. She slid across the floor to sit down next to Twilight.
Scootaloo brushed past the pair to settle next to Diamond Tiara. Despite the spoiled filly being reformed, Scootaloo still sat down with some trepidation and left room between the two.
She opened her mouth to dispute the statement. However, the absence of one of their party members took priority. “Hey, shouldn’t Sweetie Belle be back by now?”
Applebloom waved away her worries with a hoof. “She’s only been gone fifteen minutes. You know she ain’t as fit as us, so simmer down.”
“Yeah, but how long does it take to find sticks in a forest? I mean, come on, I can see two logs just from sitting here.” She searched the stars above for an answer. “Although, knowing her, she’s trying to find the prettiest logs for the fire.”
Rustling bushes drew the group’s immediate attention. Twilight tilted forward, tension built in her limbs despite the pain. Wounds of the previous ambush still fresh on their minds and bodies, the fillies huddled behind their protector.
A white filly tumbled through the brush, scattering logs across the forest floor as her levitation spell sputtered out. Sweetie Belle sprawled across the dirt in dusty bewilderment. Fresh scratches and thistles marred her hide from her expedition. She shook her head free of fog and looked up to the group, only to meet their ire. Annoyance plastered their faces as they looked down at her.
She gave a sheepish smile. “Um, I got a bit lost,” the snowy unicorn excused.
The others, too tired to converse with a lost cause, just shook their heads. They picked up the logs in silence and dumped them on the starving fire. Sweetie Belle made herself useful by retrieving a few bottles of water. The dehydrated princess could quench her thirst at last.
The solemn silence ushered in the opportunity for the ponies to reflect on the evening. As Twilight sipped at her second bottle, having chugged the previous one, she surveyed the fillies’ camp.
Pine trees encircled the meagre clearance they used as a campsite. Young shrubs grew in front of the older trees, and snow weighed heavy on the branches. A snow verge accumulated on the outskirts of the site, created by the fallen snow off the leaves. The fire had melted the snow that had dusted the site before.
Tattered tents littered the site, and claw marks ripped deep gashes into the tarps. Glimpses of the belongings shrouded beneath reflected the air’s orange glow. The subtle dirt trail that led to the campsite had turned into a bridleway; trees had uprooted and snapped, and the torn-up ground created an uneven, lumpy path.
Twilight looked away with a sad sigh and contemplated the saddlebag at her hooves. She rifled through the bag and pulled out her watch to check the time. The clock’s face level with her own, her eyes widened in response to the position of the ebony hands. It was only half ten.
Twilight threw the watch around her neck, stood, and drew the group’s attention just as quickly. “Alright, girls, I have a plan. Go gather your things and pack your bags; we’re going home,” Twilight announced. She slugged on her saddlebags and began to tighten straps. The fillies scrambled to their tents — she was serious.
Fifteen minutes later, the fillies gathered in front of Twilight with massive backpacks between the three — Applebloom carried Tiara’s due to the filly’s injured leg.
“Here’s the plan, we trot back to Ponyville where we can get checked up at the hospital. Once that’s done, you can go home with your families. From my calculations, we should reach Ponyville by midnight so long as we keep a good pace,” Twilight proposed.
“Yeah, well, nice plan and all but, how are we supposed to find our way back in the dark?” Diamond Tiara asked as if the plan was the stupidest thing she’d heard. The other three fillies nodded in agreement.
“With this,” Twilight declared. She gestured to the watch around her neck with her good wing. “This watch can lead the way to anything I desire.”
The glass face of the watch lit up in a neon blue. Though only briefly, for it dissipated to the edges where the compass markings faintly glowed — a bright blue triangle pulsed along the platinum compass bezel, small yet easily distinguishable.
The four fillies shared a look of uncertainty among them. Options were scarce in their predicament, but waiting for another creature to attack was the worst.
They beamed as a sudden wave of enthusiasm overcame them. “Cutie Mark Crusaders: Navigators! Yeah!” they all cheered gleefully and bumped hooves together.
Twilight couldn’t keep the smile from her face; it was nice that they all shifted to a happier tune. They trotted into the dense forest with rekindled spirits, which marked the start of their journey home.
After they escaped the forest, the band of adventurers came upon verdant fields. It took them roughly fifty minutes to clear the woods, this threw off Twilight’s calculations, but she presumed there would be delays.
The snow got significantly thinner the further they got from the forest, which made up for time lost caused by their injuries and Applebloom’s heavier load. The limping leaders of the herd, Twilight and Tiara, set the pace for the others.
Once they found a dirt path to follow, the fillies started to sing as their hope of making it back home redoubled. Twilight could no longer fight the infection of the catchy tunes and joined the quartet of carolers. The merry activity numbed their pains and warded off the brisk night air — unbeknownst to them, their pace increased and progressed quicker to Ponyville.
Atop the crest of one of the many rolling hills of the Ponyville district, they saw distant lights beyond the wheat field in which they found themselves. The fillies collectively gasped while Twilight sighed in contentment and checked her watch. She did a double-take as they were only ten minutes over her initial calculations. The triangle blinked faster now they were nearer the town.
They danced the rest of the way as if they were weightless. It was probably the most cheerful mile Twilight had walked, despite the treacherous events of the evening.
Few Ponyvillians awoke to the sound of fillies singing hauntingly from the darkness, which rendered them paralysed in bed and prevented a peaceful night’s sleep for many, many months to come.
In the town, the group halted their singing to avoid waking up the entire populace — although Sweetie Belle carried on under her breath, once again earning annoyed looks from her peers.
Fortunately, nopony saw them in their wretched condition, and they clandestinely reached Ponyville Hospital.
All but bursting through the main doors, the furious five entered the reception area. They were welcomed by the harsh shushes of a very tired Nurse Redheart, only briefly though because the nurse flinched at the condition of the familiar visitors.
“Ugh, why couldn’t you come by earlier? I was just about to go home,” Redheart complained with tired playfulness. “Fine, come with me so we can get you all checked out.”
“Sorry about the inconvenience, but we’ve walked ten miles sustaining these injuries in merciless iced winds, so I’m pretty sure our inconveniences outweigh yours,” Twilight snarked.
Only the presence of children prevented the nurse from saying something regrettable. Redheart opened the doors to an unoccupied medical ward and gestured to wait there, then left to find somepony else to deal with them.
Exhaustion unexpectedly took the quintet once they dumped their bags next to the hospital bed they sat on. The calm silence of the empty ward lulled the Crusaders to sleep. The four cuddled up to whichever part of Twilight that wasn’t injured — that was to say there were scant few.
Unfortunately, after a couple of minutes, Doctor Horse interrupted their brief respite. He barged through the door with five clipboards held in his magic. “Okay, ponies, we’ve got thirty minutes to patch you up until my coffee wears off, so let’s make this quick,” Horse announced. His face twitched all over, and his eyes darted between the patients.
Most of the fillies bolted awake with energy that rivalled the doctor. He zipped to the younglings to interview Diamond Tiara first. He mumbled something about a twisted hoof and a concussion, all while he shone a torch in her eyes and scribbled on the clipboard.
Once finished with the diagnosis, the doctor braced her twisted hoof and shoved some painkillers into her gob, cutting off the filly’s alarmed squeak.
Next up was Applebloom. There wasn’t anything majorly wrong with her apart from a few scratches. Although on closer inspection, the good doctor noticed her unfocused eyes and limp limbs. He diagnosed her with extreme fatigue and recommended she get plenty of rest for a few days.
Sweetie Belle had the most energy out of the entire group. Her eyes, focused and alert, traced the torch shining in them, which surprised the doctor. However, her coat was unkempt and scratched, and upon examination of her ears, he noticed a few chilblains across the surface. He applied salve to the red patches to soothe the area and ordered her not to scratch them.
The last of the fillies examined was Scootaloo, who appeared perfectly fine, despite a few lost feathers and some hidden thistles amidst her tail. After he removed the prickly plants, the doctor merely treated her with a head pat for taking care of herself.
Twilight waited as Doctor Horse stood before her, his mouth agape and eyebrow arched. However, his alarmed concern softened after he realised she must’ve protected the children from something strong enough to beat up an alicorn — if her injuries were anything to go off.
He looked to the fillies. “Alright, you four follow me back to the reception. There, we can reunite you with your guardians,” Doctor Horse instructed. He trotted away and abandoned Twilight and her clipboard on the bed.
Once the doctor was out of the room, the fillies tackled their true guardian that night in a group hug. “Thank you for saving us, Twilight! Hope you get well soon!” they all beamed.
She returned the hug regardless of how much it hurt. “Think nothing of it. Now, get out of here; I’m sure your loved ones will be keen to have you home safe,” Twilight whispered.
The Crusaders broke the hug and hopped off the bed. The bags felt heavier after their trip, but they still managed to haul on the titanic packs before they waved goodbye.
In the reception area, Doctor Horse instructed a shaggy brown pegasus to retrieve the fillies’ guardians. He gave a brief salute before he flew out the entrance.
The CMC collapsed on a fluffy sofa, making the most of their time to continue their nap. Meanwhile, Horse rushed back to the princess, sat alone in need of medical attention.
Horse’s head popped out from behind the door, startling Twilight with a yelp. “We have much to discuss,” the head stated. He then moved wholly into the room and shut the door. He pulled over a bedside chair to sit opposite the mare. “Tell me everything.”
The conversation was long, and Horse’s face ached after contorting in so many expressions. From shock to pity, to disgust, to astonishment, to relief — he went through the motions. He expected something far more dangerous than a manticore attack, but her condition made sense from what she told him.
After he learnt of the events that evening, his coffee had long worn off, but her condition was alarming enough to keep him awake. The princess urgently needed an MRI and an X-ray.
Too exhausted to put up much of a fuss, Twilight was content to lie there while he scanned and prodded her with instruments. When the tests finished, he took her back to her hospital bed and started treating her injuries.
“Princess Twilight, you’ve dislocated your radius and fractured your ulna in your left wing. You have two broken ribs, and you can’t use your magic because of an epidural hematoma at the front of your skull.” Bandages held in his telekinetic grasp weaved over her wings. “The muscle is torn in your left foreleg from a puncture wound clear through the limb, and you are severely dehydrated,” the doctor listed off gravely.
Twilight chuckled. “Feels about right.”
Horse stopped wrapping.
“I’d be taking this a bit more seriously if I were you; this would have likely killed a regular pony. Without your accelerated healing, you would probably be freezing to death in some distant, moon-stunned, snow-smothered field as you drifted in and out of consciousness.
“You’re even luckier that manticore’s stinger went completely through your leg. Otherwise, the venom would have entered your blood, paralysing muscles as it travelled towards your heart. Once that venom reaches the heart, you enter cardiac arrest, and you have about ten minutes to be administered the anti-venom and get your heart beating again. Without it, you would almost certainly die after twenty minutes, alicorn or no,” he explained in morbid detail. His rant rendered him almost breathless.
The reality of the dangers she ignored hit her like a freight train of anxiety. “Why would I do that? I know I knew about the venom, but I didn’t even consider it at the time.” Twilight’s eyes bulged.
The doctor folded Twilight’s wing to her side and secured it in place with more bandages around her barrel. He then gave her his hypothesis. “I think your lapse in judgement and logical thinking this evening was because of three things.
“Your head injury made it more difficult to recall information, and you were largely acting on instinct. Dehydration also muddies your mind, hindering your ability to focus and act rationally. Lastly, the adrenaline boost you got from the encounter gave you tunnel vision, where the only thing you were concerned about was keeping the fillies safe.”
“Yes, that makes sense. Or, at least, I think it does,” Twilight said uncertainly. “How long do you think I have to stay here, Doctor?”
He peeped over the clipboard in his face. “Well, there’s nothing the hospital can do that your body isn’t already doing. Your dehydration isn’t severe enough to warrant IV treatment, so drink regular sips of water, and you should be okay. However, I would like to keep you here tonight to monitor your condition,” he cheerfully said.
“Thank you, Doctor. I think I’d better get some rest, so I’ll see you later.” Twilight yawned before she leant back in bed and closed her eyes.
Doctor Horse crept through the reception doors to the heart-warming scene of loved ones reunited. Ponies cluttered the reception. Despite this, the occupants resisted the urge to talk over one another.
Applejack and Big Mac coddled their little sister, who gently swayed on her hooves, barely responding. She swayed a little too far and toppled, only to land in the embrace of her quick-thinking brother. Their conversation ended as Big Mac draped the dozing filly over his back.
Sweetie Belle sat between the hooves of Rarity as the fashionista combed at her sister’s shabby mane and tail. Horse chuckled while the energetic filly regaled the tale of their adventures that night.
The other guardians, Filthy Rich, Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty, and Applejack and Big Mac, peeled away from their hushed conversations to listen. To say they found the events distressing would be an understatement.
When she caught up with the present, Applejack and Rarity started in Twilight’s direction. Horse blocked access to the door.
Applejack subtly bit her lip with worry. “We need tah see our friend,” she requested.
“To thank her... for everything,” Rarity interjected.
“I’m sorry, but the princess is sleeping, so you’ll have to thank her in the morning,” Horse said with practised sympathy.
“Is she alright?” Rarity gently demanded.
“Yeah, yeah, she’s fine. She did good,” the doctor said with a smile. It would have lasted longer had he not been exhausted.
Any further lines of inquiry were aborted as Nurse Redheart ushered ponies out the reception; it was well past visitation hours after all. As the murmuring ponies left with rucks on their backs, the hospital was silent once more.
An hour later, that silence was ripped limb from limb. Two distinct bursts of magic brought a pair of downtrodden princesses.
Twilight let out a shrill scream as a flash of light and the clatter of molecules tumbling over each other filled the empty ward. The molecules were swapped with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. The pair lacked their usual regalia and had their tails tucked between their legs.
“Oh, my dear Twilight, I didn’t mean to startle—” Celestia stopped, noticing Twilight’s bandaged wing and other wounds. At the sight of the petite mare under cotton covers, Celestia realized she was in a hospital. It took a few long seconds for her mind to recover from the shock. “Mother of me, what happened?”
“You look like you’ve gone hoof to hoof with a manticore,” Luna appraised, eyes wide.
“Heh, funny you say that; I actually did,” Twilight confirmed with a bashful smile.
“How many points do I receive?” Luna cheered triumphantly. She danced on the spot, her limbs gangled about as if they were independent of her body. When in the company of friends, the dream walker tended to be a tad awkward at times.
Celestia shot Luna a pointed look and approached Twilight’s bedside. “Oh, Twilight, this is all my fault. I don’t even know why we stopped at that blasted station to pick you up; we just saw you and wanted you to join in on our fun. I wish we never got you involved. Please accept mine and Luna’s deepest apologies.” She confessed her sins in Twilight’s ear and gently hugged the broken mare.
“No,” Twilight rejected.
Celestia flinched back. “Oh, I suppose I deserve that. May I ask why, though?”
Adopting a soft but stern look, Twilight stroked her mentor’s chin. “You have nothing to apologise for. If the train hadn’t crashed with me on it, the Cutie Mark Crusaders would have—” Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat, and her eyes dampened. “They wouldn’t be alive. It’s because of your mistake that those fillies get to grow up.”
“Truly?” Celestia hoped.
“Yes.”
“Twilight, you have no idea how much that means to me. I’ve spent hours beating myself up about all this, and knowing we inadvertently saved lives will allow me to forgive myself.”
“What was it that tried to take the lives of my favourite fillies?” Luna asked darkly, shadow encompassing her eyes.
Twilight looked concerned at the dark alicorn. “A manticore, it attacked them whilst they were camping in Whitetail Woods,” she said.
“I’ll be back,” the dark princess stated. She slipped on a pair of pitch-black sunglasses from thin air and disappeared in a sphere of blue energy.
The two were left perplexed, although the elder one soon realised what her vengeful sister had gone to do.
“Should I be worried?”
“Absolutely — if you ever see my sister wearing sunglasses at night, run. You see, she likes to deal with threats personally.”
“Well, that’s terrifying.” She reclined in her bed and gazed at the ceiling. “Do we just wait until she comes back, or are you leaving too?” Twilight asked.
“I’ll wait,” Celestia said — although she quickly found herself bored, and the silence turned awkward. Noticing a book on the nightstand, Celestia sparked a new conversation. “What have you been reading?”
Confused, Twilight quirked a brow and followed Celestia’s gaze to the book next to her. “Oh, it’s about the history behind the development of the modern teleportation spell. I’ve read it before, but it always reminds me to safety check experimental spells before you cast them on yourself or another pony.
“It talks about how before we invented teleportation, the closest thing to it was portals. They were the foundation of the first teleportation spells. Early mages designed spells that created a portal around the caster for less than a picosecond, which opened up at the desired location. However, the mages didn’t realise that a body suddenly filling an already full location, full of atoms in the air, would cause those free particles to shoot out the way.”
“I remember what happened next. The hydrogen atoms in the air collided under so much pressure and travelled so fast that two nuclei joined together and created a single heavy nucleus, resulting in the first artificial fusion reaction in Equestria. The mage, Matterhorn, became nothing more than his basic elements.
“The blast was contained only by the countless enchantments I placed on the walls of the spell chamber. I was overseeing the experiment as it happened, had it happened anywhere else, countless lives would’ve perished, and it could’ve completely obliterated part of Equestria,” Celestia recalled the haunting memory.
“After that, all research into teleportation was outlawed, punishable by death. Only three hundred years later did Starswirl the Bearded, under your supervision, revisit it. He came up with the idea of swapping atoms between two places; so nothing gets pushed away. Although, in order to keep the teleported object whole, the atoms that made it up had to be ‘zipped up’, shrunk, and transported between other particles to the target location — resulting in the delay between an object disappearing and reappearing based on distance travelled.”
“Fascinating,” a deep feminine voice spoke from the foot of the bed. Luna coldly stood blood-spattered, devoid of sunglasses, with that dark look in her eyes.
Luna proved someone could be so stealthy that sudden appearances were no surprise. Instead, she made ponies question if she was there all along without notice.
“Luna, I hate to ask this but, how long have you been standing there?” Celestia asked.
An immature smile slipped through her veil of darkness and shattered it. “Since you remembered what happened.”
Twilight and Celestia both turned to each other, baffled why they hadn’t noticed an extra alicorn in the room. Silence allowed them to stew the tedious how’s and why’s until they collectively decided to leave those details to their betters.
“Well, now you’re both here,” Twilight smiled, “you can tell me what happened after I left.” The request was polite but left no room for refusal. As they began their story, Twilight slid deeper into her sheets.
“And then, your father decided that instead of being publicly humiliated, we would only have to work at Doughnut Joe’s to buy a new train, ha-ha,” Celestia concluded with a laugh.
“That doesn’t sound too awful. Did the E.I.A. find out about me?”
“They made us do a lie detector, we had to be a bit vague in our answers, but as far as the counter-terrorism and intelligence services know, you had nothing to do with the crash,” Celestia confirmed.
Luna squirmed in place. “Those truth spells woven into that relic were so precise and powerful. They made me feel so violated,” Luna said with a double edge of awe and fear.
Celestia face hoofed. “For the last time, Lulu, it is not a relic, and it’s a simple spell — quite unbreakable mind you — working together with a computer to determine if you are telling the truth. It doesn’t even compel you to speak the truth; it just persuades you to think that,” she explained.
Laid on her good side in the hospital bed, Twilight attempted to wrap her brain around what she just heard. “Hang on a minute, so when Luna warned me about an ancient relic that could reveal your deepest secrets, she was, in fact, describing a lie detector machine?”
“Apologies, Twilight, I may have exaggerated by your standards, but please keep in mind that I’ve never heard of or used such a machine.” Luna chipped away the floor with a hoof. “I just knew that they had something to force you to tell the truth. There are still so many inventions I’ve yet to learn about,” she admitted with pleading eyes.
Twilight’s ears shot back, and her wings barged against the bandages. “But you’re the vice head of the Equestrian Intelligence Agency and coordinator of covert operations. How can you not know what a lie detector machine is? What in Equestria have you been using instead?” Twilight almost shouted in disbelief.
“Well, it’s quite primitive.”
Twilight sat up. “Mhmm.”
“But it is truly one of a kind.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s your friend Applejack, the Bearer of Honesty!” Luna revealed with enough enthusiasm to bankrupt Trixie.
Twilight fell back into the bed, hooves plastering her face. She dropped them to her sides and blew out a huff of air. “That’s it. I’m done,” she announced. She chucked the bedsheets halfway down the bed, threw herself out of bed, and secured her saddlebags on her back.
“Twilight, what are you doing?” Celestia asked with concern while Twilight staggered across the room.
“I’m going home,” she mumbled. The doors to the hospital ward slid shut behind the Princess of Friendship.
Left alone in the room without a goodbye, the two princesses lingered by the empty bed and planned what to do next.
“If it’s no trouble, could you keep watch over The Crusader’s dreams for a while? I only ask because they have been through a lot this evening, and I don’t want nightmares to add to their trauma,” Celestia requested.
Her sister took the weekends off, leaving dream management to a tantabus that filled in for her. Celestia issued the request despite knowing this.
Luna wasn’t as displeased with the request as Celestia thought she’d be. “I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem; I’m going to bed either way.” She yawned wide, which grew louder the longer it lasted. Luna needed sleep, and she needed it soon.
Celestia shared her sister’s mighty need and conjured a spell to take them home — while they still had one for the night. They both disappeared in a flash of golden light akin to the Sun.
They would then say goodnight for the evening and return to their chambers where Luna would shower the manticore blood off herself before bed — hopefully.
Night was the only time Ponyville knew peace. Even though the quaint, thatch-roofed town might have seemed the most harmonic settlement in Equestria, there was always some variant of chaos. Some folks chalked it up to bordering the Everfree Forest, while others blamed Pinkie Pie.
Twilight relished the peace as she hobbled along the lamp-lit path through town, easily mistaken as a drunk. At the edge of town, she smiled at the crystal castle not far away. A solitary light danced against the window of Spike’s room.
The front door swung open against her hoof. She snatched the key from a hook beside a coat stand, and closed the door as softly as she could. Latches slid closed with each rotation of the lock.
Once the key returned to its hook, Twilight trotted through her planning room doors to deposit her saddlebags. On a desk sat an old platinum pocket watch, one of her most treasured items from her childhood.
She flipped the case and smiled at the picture inside like she always did. Younger Twilight sat with braces on full display as Shining hugged her, and Spike sucked his tail in front of her while their parents nuzzled each other behind them.
Twilight lifted her magical watch from her neck and replaced it with the far more valuable one. It was true that Twilight wanted to keep the enchanted watch for herself so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hooves, but it could never be a replacement.
A bath would’ve been greatly appreciated and wholly necessary, but finding the embrace of a warm bed took priority.
As she passed Spike’s door on the way to her own, she noticed the flickering glow of candlelight under the door.
Twilight eased the door open a crack, her faithful assistant dozed on a cushion by the windowsill. She was already in his room, there was already a bed, and she had already made up her mind.
Spike stirred once Twilight pulled him into bed. “That you Twi? I was up all night waiting. What took you so long?” Spike grumbled as sleep tried to claw him back into the dark.
“Shhhh, I’ll tell you in the morning, just go back to sleep,” Twilight whispered in his ear.
She pulled the covers over them and blew out the candle. The two cuddled up together, just like old times, and sank into a peaceful slumber.
Author's Note
Phew, that went on longer than I had originally planned. So much for a short sequel.
For the physicists among you, feel free to shout at me for my explanation of a teleport spell.
As for the rest of you, I urge you to leave any feedback and improvements in the comments below; my progression as a writer relies on it. 
