“So, heartsong it is,” Walnut approached the register and swished his tail. Twilight’s gaze was far beyond any of the books that were around her as the stallion continued, “And you let him get away.” The bookstore was empty beyond the two ponies. Every row was straight, every book in their proper place. The signs were dusted, the windows clear, keeping its frost, warped components on the outside of the store.

“Putting salt on the wound?” grumbled Twilight as her ears drooped and she lay her head atop the counter.

“What do the traditions say about such incompetence? Do you get executed or do you just get exiled?” The stallion chuckled as he did an about-face.

“You and I both know they say nothing of the sort. Right now my oath only demands that I get the Eques to stop long enough to ask what his situation is,” Twilight mumbled and turned her head to the side of the counter.

“Ah yes! ‘Are you in a herd? If so, guess who’s Lead Mare now! If not, you’re in one now!’ That said, all in all, you should feel lucky Dusk,” Walnut looked up and giggled. “This is probably the first case of a human being ensnared by heartsong! This will surely go down in the history books as one of those strange, momentous occasions. Just surprised that their kind can even be affected by such a thing…”

Twilight glared at Walnut before she turned away, her mane gently sweeping the countertop as if dusting it, “Tartarus, what’s Peppermint going to say about this?”

“If it makes you feel better, she secretly told me she was grateful that you had run him out the store,” Walnut smiled. “She hasn’t the faintest idea that heartsong was involved.”

Twilight groaned as she lifted her head, only to return it to the surface of the counter, “Of course she would think that.”

“So, what’s the plan now?” Walnut asked as he started rearranging books on the display ahead of him, “I don’t suppose you have a spell capable of tracking him, do you?”

Twilight slowly lifted her head and pursed the side of her lips, “Divination magic isn’t possible, Walnut, or are you just being a jackass to annoy me?” Looking down at the counter, she continued, “Regardless, all I can do is go out, sing, and pray that I hear the response phrase before he just… leaves.”

“This is a little unprecedented, isn’t it?” Walnut responded, swishing his tail once. “Anyone else on Equus would understand, but of course…”

“Please don’t remind me,” Twilight groaned.

“It’s too bad that humans are wholly ignorant of magic. Especially magic of this kind, very few of them know of anything beyond simple parlor tricks. I bet the most they’ve seen is a unicorn using Telekinesis, rudimentary illusions, maybe the more lethal variety of spells if they fought in the war,” Walnut rambled to Twilight. “Tell me, if you do happen to get him to stay still for a moment, how do you plan on breaking it to him?”

“I’ll tell him the truth,” Twilight answered, her ears folding back. “We are now interconnected in ways that defy even the principles of magic. Or something along those lines.” Twilight laid her glum face atop the counter on its side.

“Still, how devastatingly unlucky.” Walnut turned to look at the pony behind the register, “Just imagine a unicorn bound at the hip by a creature that magic rarely touches. Truly, no fortune to be found here at all, only tragedy.”

“Walnut,” Twilight lifted herself up and set her violet eyes on the pestering pony in front of her. A red flare flashed in her pupils and her ears flattened against her neck as she began, “I understand that you find this situation to be humorous. I’m sure that behind closed doors, you can barely contain your laughter. Maybe you’re even writing a memoir about this situation. But I’m going to only say this once: a handsome stallion like you should watch his mouth. Because I’ve had a very, very terrible few days. And my nights have been even worse. So,” Twilight stepped from behind the counter and snaked alongside Walnut, her ears still flat. “If you have any inkling of self-preservation, I would deeply, deeply suggest that you stop.”

Walnut gave a graceful bow towards his coworker as she stopped. Leveling his head with his frame, he took a few steps away from her before talking, “Just merely making conversation. If it helps you feel any better, I don’t laugh behind closed doors. In fact, if I could, I would help you out. But given the size of the city, and humans’ general magic immunity, I think that your best strategy is to try to make him come to you.”

“And how should I do that?” Twilight mocked, keeping her head high. “Should I just put out a neon sign that says, ‘Your Knight is waiting here!’?”

“Now, now…” Walnut said, giving a side nod. “Sarcasm will get you nowhere, you’re just hurt. Think carefully, a human wanders into an ostensibly pony only shop, do you think he’s a local?”

Twilight raised her left lip as she said, “In that case, he must be a tourist.”

“Good. Good, now if he’s a tourist, and the train station is nearby…”

“Maybe he got here recently. Maybe he just stepped off,” Twilight continued.

“Right, if he just stepped off, then he has to be staying at a hotel that will at least try to accommodate humans, right?” Walnut asked.

“Uh huh,” Twilight answered, looking away and nodding her head. Then, like a flash, she thought to herself, He was also at the University, if I could get a map and circle the hotels between here and the University, it might give me a leg up.

“Also, there’s the fact that he’s got an interest in books. Or at least a passing interest in them,” Walnut suggested.

“That might mean that after his unpleasant experience here, he’s sticking to the human friendly stores,” Twilight raised an eyebrow, And not to mention I did catch him at the library.

“You could start with ‘The Brothers Fox’, but of course they’re on the other end of town.”

“Perhaps ‘Ebony and Daughter’s’ a few blocks from here?” Twilight aired.

“Hmmm doubtful,” Walnut said, encircling Twilight. “Ever since that incident with the Dragon burning a good chunk of their stock, they’ve had a ponies only sign hung out.”

“Do you think that would stop him?” Twilight raised an eye at Walnut.

“While he was belligerent towards Peppermint, you and I both know she’s not the best at de-escalation. Perhaps he just got caught up in the moment? Otherwise, he might normally just follow directions.”

Twilight thought back and thought to herself, Whoever he is, he’s not above using distraction to worm his way out of a tight spot. And whatever he had done to cause a dust storm stopped us long enough to make a clean getaway. Maybe I should stop assuming that he’s just a normal human. That might work against me…

“The more and more I think about it, the more and more I’m sure that there’s something different, or unusual, about this human,” Twilight mumbled. “Walnut, have you ever heard of someone panicking and calling forth a dust storm?”

“You’re implying he cast magic, he’s a human. He’s about as magical as an earth pony or griffin. Actually, a little less so given–”

“No, I mean that he could have used forbidden magic.” Twilight glanced at her right towards Walnut.

“What do you mean, forbidden magic? You and I both know there’s only one kind of magic out there, and it’s the kind of magic that we use.” Walnut gave out a stuttering chuckle as he turned around.

“Maybe that’s what they taught you in primary school, and they’re very right. Our kind of magic is the only safe kind. Thanks to Celestia’s warnings, we’ve avoided a lot of trouble. But I’ve seen… other kinds of magic.” Twilight mumbled off.

Walnut turned to Twilight and cocked his head, both his eyes and ears facing her, “Surely you jest.”

Twilight shook her head, “When I was um... Well, before I came here, I’ve seen one other kind of magic, and I don’t mean the friendship kind. Potion making- “

“Is forbidden,” Walnut fixed his gaze upon Twilight as he gave a nod.

“Correct, but I’ve seen it in action.” Twilight trailed off, and thought to herself, Maybe there are other kinds? I never really gave much thought, but what if the reason he resonated was that this is the side effect of a forbidden enchantment?

“And did you report it like you were supposed to?” Walnut took a step forward.

“I uh, yes.” Twilight remembered the letter she had sent to Celestia, “But it helped cure several sick ponies.”

“Dusk, I don’t know what you’re saying,” Walnut smiled, stretching his lips across his snout, and shook his head. “There is no healing magic.”

Twilight looked down to her left side, “Look, we’ve made a hard tangent on the subject of where Xavier might be.”

“Xavier?”

“X… Xavier,” Twilight blinked for a few moments. The chase, the wind, Scootaloo’s coronation, him writhing as the dream collapsed around them. “His name… is… Xavier.” Twilight reared up for a moment and slammed her front two hooves down, “I can work with this! If he is a traveler, if I can visit hotels that might accommodate him, peek at their registry… now I just need to figure out how to gain access to each hotel’s-”

“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.”

Twilight raised an eye at Walnut, “What do you mean? The Inn Guild’s privacy bylaws are quite stri-”

Walnut slowly nodded as he looked past Twilight, “I think ‘Xavier’ is right behind you.”

Twilight blinked at Walnut before slowly craning her neck and turning to see a bipedal black shape from outside the one way frosted windows. It was him. Just as soon as she mentally confirmed, he grabbed the sides of his hood, pulled it over his head, and sauntered away. Twilight snapped towards Walnut with a look of terror.

“I… I can’t leave, I told peppermint- “

“You took the oath.” Walnut answered.

“I took the oath,” Twilight shook her head.

She turned to Walnut and before she could talk, he said, “Go. I got the store covered.”

Giving a firm nod towards her coworker, she quickly slipped off her saddle apron, revealing her painted flank, a comet, before rushing out the door.

Outside, the road was bustling with activity. Looking both ways, Twilight’s ears fluttered about as she scanned the street. Her eyes locked onto the cloaked figure as he was watching her for a split second before he turned into a dark passageway. Quickly glancing up, she saw the full moon bearing down on her. Taking one last breath, her rear legs slammed against the cobblestone, and she took off.

Passing by a red crystal pony, two humans laughing with an earth pony, and a Diamond Dog in a business suit, she turned the corner to see the trailing edge of his cloak disappear around another turn. Once again, she took a left, only for the end of the cloak to once again disappear behind another turn. Slowly, she and the figure descended deeper into Manehattan. Soon, the figure turned down into a giant tunnel, the smell of stagnant water slamming against her snout with the echoes of dripping resonating from every single point in the cavern. Without hesitating, she got her hooves wet and continued to follow. Twilight's ears perked as she could hear the whistling of a tune ahead of her. Finally, after so many lefts and rights, she caught up to the figure, only for him to extend his gloved hand and grab a rope that was hanging down ahead of him right before another entryway.

The gloved hand passively yanked hard, and debris fell from the ceiling. Twilight rammed her forelegs into the concrete and leapt back before the numerous number of pipes could hit her. She began to cast a spell before she caught herself, remembering that she might scare him off with a show of magic. Shaking her head, she carefully maneuvered around the room strewn with metal cylinders. It took her a few moments, but soon she was back on the path.

The human had deepened his lead on the mare. Spitting to her right, Twilight continued down the only way he could’ve gone before emerging into a giant mare made structure, a large cubelike room where vast amounts of water poured from up above and made a river between this site and the next. The stone rubble structure was dark and brown-gray and brightly lit up on the other side. And in between was the human, gracefully leaping from stone lily pad to stone lily pad used to filter out large debris.

Twilight followed suit. Leaping once, then twice, she watched as the human touched each hard pad with a single leg before using his momentum to move onto the next pad, landing on a different leg, but continuing the cadence. Shaking her head, she leapt to the third pad, only for her rear hooves to fail her on the leap. Her front two legs clacked against the stone, as the rear half of her body splashed and dipped into the water. With a grunt, she pulled herself up and quickly shook, glancing at her rump: the paint was all gone, revealing her true brand for the world to see.

“Rut,” she spat out before leapfrogging more carefully, this time following the human’s pattern, ensuring that she had the jump each and every time before making it. When she arrived on the other side, she once again saw the trailing cloak fluttering behind the corner before disappearing as the sound of the human's whistling dampened.

Something is wrong. He had all the time in the world to make more distance between us when I fell. Also, why in Tartarus is he whistling? Could this be… Twilight shook her head, forcing her ears to point forward as she continued deeper and deeper into the complex.

She turned left into the pale gold light and saw a narrow passageway, and what seemed to her a dead end. An ancient bulb kept the way lit overhead while its hum reverberated against the walls. The human was frantically moving around like a fearful cat looking for a vantage point to jump to and get away from a dog, while Twilight grew ever closer.

With adrenaline still rushing through her, she galloped toward the human. The walkway became narrower and narrower until finally she emerged and was in the same room as the human. Golden light shone above as the cloaked figure not only stopped moving, but he stopped whistling and he faced Twilight. And he just stood there, cloak covering his face, just like the dream, but no wind. Only the oppressive hum of the bulb above him.

Heaving and tired, she took a step forward before she could feel something wrong in her horn. She could feel her horn doing something, as if she was casting a spell without her explicit intent or force of will. Looking down, Twilight saw that right beneath her were three circles that intersected, spreading out across the room, and at the center, her mark. It glowed as the gentle light spread outward, its lines of writing scripts emitted a pale purple luminescence before she saw a string of light pop up before her. Backing up, she felt something putting pressure on her rump. Turning about, she saw another string of light wrapped taut around her flank. She jumped to the side, only to discover more lines of pressure pushing against her ribs. She snapped her head in that direction, revealing more strings. More lines of light pressed against her as they carried her upwards. Feeling more magic unwillingly being called from her horn, she let out a fearful cry, “AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH” as soon the entire forest of lights sprung up around the mare and lifted her up. She hung ever slightly to her side as each point of light bound her, with several threads wrapped around her horn.

Twilight blinked as she slowly rotated throughout the room, and saw the skulls of hundreds of ponies painted on the walls looking at her. The human that had once been frantically trying to escape now stood firm before her. He removed his hood, and then clapped his gloved hands together in front of his face. He looked like he was in an awful state. Nothing like the clean cut human she saw in the dream. He reached over for a plate and drank from it, then threw it on the ground as the light bulb above him buzzed.

“I present to you your eternal resting place: The Ossuary. Made from the skulls of a billion… dead unicorn babies. That is unless- “

However, Twilight had stopped listening to him and was deep inside herself. He knows magic! He knows magic!, She thought to herself as the mare smiled with glee. He knows magic!

The human froze as he looked up at the slowly rotating pony, the strings that held her aloft slightly bending back and forth. Staring at the mulberry coated creature, his eyes widened as her brand slowly came into view: The Wandering Star of Arion surrounded by other stars.

Twilight’s horn glowed as the human took a step back. “X4!” the human gasped as he pivoted on his feet and turned to run. The sound of violin strings breaking echoed through the chamber as a blinding flash of ultraviolet light blew the human away. The strings that had once been Twilight’s fetters had now become three distinct groups of circular lights that the mare’s magic handled with ease. Landing elegantly upon the hard floor, Twilight snorted twice and giggled. Turning her head ever so slightly upwards, she smiled as the circular bindings that were under her subjugation flew away from her and towards the human that had eluded her for so long. The human had only begun to stand up again when the volley of three rings ensnared him, tossing him back down to the ground, the back of his head making contact first as he let out a scream.

“Xavier, you have no idea how relieved I am,” Twilight said, letting out a third demure snort to the bound human as he wiggled and squirmed, then froze to look at the mare that stood above him. “I mean, now the whole dust storm thing makes a bit more sense. I’m guessing that is some kind of forbidden magic? How much magic do you know? You really shouldn’t be doing... whatever that was, very, very dangerous.”

She saw Xavier’s pupils dilate, a yellow flash crossing his eyes, and then he started to violently thrash about. Two of the loops locked the upper arm and his hands to his sides while the final loop bound his ankles.

“H~Hey, calm down,” Twilight gave an awkward smile, but lifted her front right hoof and her ears folded back as the human kept whipping about. Soon, blood covered the human’s face as he started slamming his head against the concrete.

“P~Please,” pleaded the unicorn, but the human kept at it. She watched as the one who resonated with her beat himself against the floor over and over again. Twilight gasped, as she could finally see that he was deliberately slamming his forehead against the grimy floor. With each hit, his head bounced off, and with a wheeze, he once again tossed his skull against the stone. In his flailing about, his leg hit a rusted chain that was on the floor, knocking it into the air and past Twilight,

“Stop!” she cried, a yellow flash crossing her eyes. And in response his thrashing became more violent, she could now hear the soft, wet echo of meat on concrete before her rump dropped to the floor. Giving a pained expression, she lit her horn up. The three rings slowly dusted away, freeing the human from the fetters that once held her aloft.

The man picked himself up and stumbled three times before he could catch his balance. With one gloved hand against the wall, and blood covering the left side of his face, he turned to look at Twilight, who was just staring at the ground, tears dripping.

“J~Just go.”

And then he turned and fled.

Author's Note

Sonata Arctica - Fullmoon - Clip