And still, Twinkle Bloom stood there, face wet with anguish as her herd mates remained silent. And… behold! The pedestal was engorged in solar radiance! The artifact, the headdress supreme: The Mythril Circlet! Sanctaria! Forged by the Twin Sisters, whose skilled craftsmareship was unequal. And freely given by the Twin Brothers upon high! Blessed by the Four Lovers from beyond the sea, and consecrated by the Singing Father. Oh, Twinkle Bloom… Sanctaria! Its power lay in the sun that strikes it! For as valued as the crystals diamond, emerald, ruby and sapphire are, such treasure can be devoured by the scaled ones from beyond Volcano Gloom. But not magnificant mythril! No mere metal! Its rainbow glimmer surpassing gold, silver and their union, electrum! Even copper, she trembles in the shadow of mighty mythril!

So passed the Circlet Sanctaria from Sparkler to Twinkle. She would have been glad to know its fate was not to the bottom of the great lunar sea.

“There's… something wrong with it,” Twinkle said, taking the gift.

“You speak of the jagged etching that crosses its’ horizon?” the hooded figure said, stepping forward from the darkness. “It is its brand, it’s mark. Earned at the Battle of Fellin where Sparkler met dark Porcina on the plains of Hayran”

“I do not catch your meaning,” Twinkle replied. “Only us ponies can have cutie marks.”

“This is not true. While the brand on your rumps are a blessing from the great star of the day sky, and a blessing only true ponies may be privileged to have, know that your marks are the scars of destiny,” the figure whispered for only Twinkle to hear. “And anything can earn a scar. For each etching on your hide is a record of its own, proof that you did not rot in a castle, nor recoil from the sirens of danger.”

-The Six Circlets: The Valleys of Dreams (Book 2 of 6), Chapter 16: The Mirror on the Southwest by Caramel Stamp. Published 56 years before the return of Nightmare Moon.

The muffled sound of quiet sobbing reverberated through the chamber. Artwork of pony skulls watched the lilac mare as she sat there, her ears completely folded to the sides of her head. The hum of the yellow light overhead trickled over Twilight as the scent of stagnant water seeped in. It was only after her tears had run out when the sound of several hooves approached towards the lone unicorn. Two earth ponies and a red crystal pony walked into the chamber from the side which Twilight had entered. But the mare, still wet with tears, didn’t budge an inch.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Element of Magic herself,” the red crystal pony, with a spyglass branded on her side circled the unicorn. The two earth ponies flanked to either side of Twilight, with one digging into the other’s saddlebag. “And crying? Gird your teats, that’s no way for a mare to act. Especially for THE Element of Magic,” the red crystal pony stopped behind Twilight and snorted. “And taking an interest in Xavier, have we? You know,” the red crystal pony looked around the chamber before looking back at Twilight. “Ever since we caught sight of you and your friend chasing him at the university, we were deeply worried that, the whole banishing thing? Some kind of strange ruse. But our sources in the kingdom have confirmed indeed that you are banished. And for having a heart?” The red mare looked away, her eyes squinched with pretend pain, “The Queen has really gone off the deep end hasn’t she?”

“Princess,” Twilight said, having gained a modicum of her composure back. Her ears were now at attention, and she bit her lower lip, while drenched fur flanked either side of her snout.

“Queen Celestia,” the red crystal pony snapped her head at Twilight. “Queen Celestia should know better than to let a powerful pawn such as yourself room free. Though technically, it would be knight now, wouldn’t it?”

Twilight said nothing as she looked back at the concrete floor, the scribbling of a mad pony now almost dim.

“I don’t know how you did it, but getting him to sing? Under the ruse of heartsong? I guess if there was going to be a unicorn that could have pulled it off, it would be you.” The red pony rolled her head twice before looking at Twilight from a strange angle, “If only he had an inkling of what that meant. All he knows is some,” she paused for a moment, then said, “freak unicorn made him say things against his will. You know ironically, his knowledge of bardic techniques is quite extensive.”

“What?”

“Imagine waking up after a thousand years, only to have a helmet strapped onto your head to send you back into a horrible trance. Now imagine somepony, excuse me, someone slides it off. And that someone is a tall, lanky figure, with soft fingers and no tail. You would freak out, right? But imagine all of that, while someone sings to you, reassuring you it’s all going to be alright… and it was.” Sight turned away from Twilight, “They gave us back what you and your Queen wouldn’t or couldn’t.”

“They murdered thousands of crystal ponies!” Twilight gritted her teeth. “They butchered you! They,” Twilight’s eyes widened. “They dropped their enhanced cannon fire on you! They weren’t trying to save you!”

“You try not begging for death when you discover that for the better part of 5 years, you were complicit in the death of hundreds, if not, thousands of others,” the red mare howled. “Go ahead, give it a shot. Maybe you might be one of the lucky ones who can’t remember a thing. But there are those of us who remember. Everything,” the red crystal pony approached Twilight, her chest ruffled, then spat in her face. “Go ahead. Ask me how many I killed.”

Twilight remained silent.

“I’ll tell you. I stopped counting the mares in the first three months while I watched, unable to stop myself. Then there was the raid on Port Saddle Strike,” the crystal pony turned away from Twilight, her ears folding for a moment and laughed. “Once we killed or subjugated the mares, we, we,” the red pony pursed her lips. “We tore the port apart. Seventeen Stallions. Only thing between us and fifty foals,” the pony’s laughing grew louder. “They, they were right, honorable stallions Element of Magic! Strong, and they defended their foals fiercely, just like a house stallion should! And we killed all but two of them. Wasn’t that hard. It was roughly seven to one, I guess. But then,” she threw her head back, her mane jiggling and laughed as her tail waved about. “We killed the foals, Element of Magic! Too young to subjugate. Too long to wait until they were old enough to be used as cannon fodder. But that’s not the best part! I, I, I… I got to watch as the two stallions that had joined us kill their own foals!” the mare then stopped giggling and got in Twilight’s face, her tail frozen.

“Do you want to know what the sound of a stallion crushing his foal’s skull sounds like? I can tell you,” the crystal mare caught Twilight by the eyes, not flinching even as she grew closer. “It’s not a single ‘pop’. First, the foal screams for her daddy to stop as the stallion presses his hoof on the poor thing’s skull. And then she screams. And she screams,” the pony stopped. Her face wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked through Twilight, past the wall that held the painted skulls and said, “And then the first crack. The screaming stops. And then another crack. And another and another and another until…” the mare finally took a step back from Twilight, who was yanking her head back from the crystal pony without realizing it.

“I promise you, Element of Magic. Better death than another moment under the Dark King’s thrall,” the red mare snorted. She rotated her head with her neck, and regained her composure, “And unlike you, they understood that it was better to die than to be an unwilling slave.”

“But, but they,” Twilight repeated. “Butchered you…”

The red mare turned, and stared into Twilight’s gaze, “A Unicorn who is sick goes to a doctor. The doctor tells them, ‘take this medicine’ and sells her some. But it doesn’t get better. In fact, now her horn looks bad, very, very bad. She returns, and the doctor tells them, ‘If I can’t save your horn, then I can’t save you. Just keep taking the medicine, maybe you get better’. But she didn’t get better. She got worse. So she goes to another doctor. And she says, ‘I can save you, but you will lose your horn.’ The unicorn takes it. And the unicorn lives. A surgeon will amputate to save the body,” the red mare hissed. “But they don’t call that mare a butcher. They call her a doctor.”

Twilight fell silent and looked slightly up from her prone position, now keeping a watchful eye on the red Crystal pony in front of her. The crystal pony once again paced in front of the Element of Magic before continuing.

“You know, maybe if Queen Celestia had decided not to chain her entire kingdom to unicorn magic, she might have –”

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight shouted as she finally took a step forward, her ears pointed straight at her host. She froze when she saw in the peripherals of her vision one of the earth ponies rush towards her. And in their mouth, there was a dark ring in the middle of both her incisors. She turned to face the earth pony, her horn glowing with magical might, when the other earth pony bucked her in the hip. Twilight tumbled to the ground and the other mare was on top of her. She threw her front hooves at her, but the earth mare just powered on through, slipping between her front legs. Twilight struggled as the earth mare spat the ring. It turned over and over, past her snout, and she could only watch as the ring snagged the tip of her horn, spinning over and over again until finally, gravity took over and the ring fell to the base between horn and skull. Twilight kicked herself free from the mare, only to stumble again, kicking in the air twice, before she picked herself up, and looked up to her horn.

Cold. She gasped as she could feel the ring chugging her ambient magic in. Like an abyss without end, it took everything. She flinched as she started pouring all her magic and intent on the tip of what defined her. But she could feel it. The ring was taking her magic and attempting to cast a spell of its own. Her ears drooped as she stopped, cutting it off before it could do anything.

“Credit to you Twilight, most unicorns instinctively try to cast a spell. At which point they discover not only will the obsidian restraint prevent magic from being cast, it punishes as well.” The red crystal pony grunted as Twilight finally stumbled up straight, “We’ll take you back, and we’ll find out what you really want with him.” The mare stood in front of the unicorn, her chest proudly puffed, “Then the Director will decide what happens next.”

Twilight said nothing. She once again started staring at the floor. The last vintages of light almost disappeared from the symbol that was symmetric to her own. Small embers of magic crinkled about, almost giving way to the darkness of the ink beneath them, only to surge up somewhere else, never leaving the star completely alone.

“I don’t know what he means to you, but I can assure you of this. Whatever he means to you pales in comparison to what he, no, what they,” the red crystal pony emphasized the last word. “Mean to us,” turning, the red mare walked past Twilight while she addressed her two compatriots. “I’ll go back, make sure the way is clear, then you follow after five minutes. We don’t need to be parading her for all the city to see.”

Both earth mares gave the red Crystal pony a nod as she left the way she came.

Xavier’s back slid on the side of the underground tunnel as he collapsed to the ground. He closed his eyes as he breathed in and out. In, and out. Giving out a mighty exhale, he slumped over as the dim bulb illuminated his arms in an amber light. Lifting his eyes up, he looked at his limbs bathed in a surreal glow.

Five fingers, each encased in leather, stood in stark contrast to the surrounding yellow. He slightly clawed his hand, and then pinched the bridge of his blood and grime encrusted nose.

“Fuck,” he uttered as he closed his eyes. Pushing against the floor, he slid back up against the wall and looked down the path he had just come from. Grimacing, he started pounding the stone wall behind him. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK ME.”

Turning, he jaunted at full speed back the way he came. The corridor became narrower and narrower until he slowed down and walked. A few twists and turns later, he was about to walk right back into the room he had left the creature he had feared the most that night when the sound of voices talking to each other could be heard. Taking gentle steps, he slid right at the edge of the room and slid the back of his head against the wall, cupping his hand behind his ear.

“You know, we don’t have to bring her back to Sight,” one mare said. “We could just bring her to Canterlot and claim that she reentered the kingdom despite the banishment edict. Might be more bits in it. Or we could hand her over to Manehatten police, they’re still looking for one of the two mares that chased a human across the University Campus, and she fits the description of one of them.”

“Don’t be a moron, if she somehow figures out how to break through that obsidian ring, we’re both rutted,” the other mare grunted, snaking around the Element of Magic. “Besides, how do we get her all the way to Canterlot without some bounty hunter trying to take our prize? And the cops won’t pay as well as Sight will. Let’s just hand her over and be done with it.”

Xavier bent over to peek at the voices that echoed in the room. He saw the mare that had been chasing him over the last few days with her rump on the ground and her mane covering her face. And two other, large earth ponies paced around the room. Their muscles were well toned and defined on their coats of brown and gray, respectively.

“Doesn’t something feel off to you?” one of them asked, her ears pinching slightly back.

Xavier reached for the binding on his left arm, and dragged the top binding, slowly undoing the covering. A look of disgust swept across his face, then he let out an exhale as he stopped and quickly covered the limb back up. Patting himself down, he found the stubby knife that Quill left him, and pulled it from the depths of the cloak. A glint caught his eye. Looking down, around to the ground, he found a piece of a rusted, broken chain. Despite the red crust, it had patches of glimmering iron still visible on it. Carefully picking it up, he slid the knife back into the depths of his coat. He wrapped the chain around his fingers. Then he glanced back at the room, at the three ponies in a room of painted pony skulls visible with a single light bulb.

“What do you mean?”

“This is the mare that defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord, and we just so happen to bind her?” The larger of the two turned to face the unicorn, her ears folded back, “Maybe it would be safer to knock her out before we start back.”

“And what if Sight gets pissed?”

“She didn’t give us any instructions not to harm her. And besides, if the Element of Magic here does have a plan, this should take the wind right out of her sails,” the grey one said as she approached Twilight. The prisoner didn’t move a muscle. The sound of hoofsteps flooded the room when a loud pop burst forth and the room plunged into darkness, ending with the sound of a chain hitting the ground.

“The Tartarus?” screamed one mare as the darkness encased the ponies and the sound of footsteps echoed through the room.

“Who’s there?” screamed the other mare as she shook her head. The clanging of hoof and footsteps sang a strange cacophony. After a loud yelp and more footsteps, silence quickly fell over the room.

Xavier emerged from the abyss of darkness, cupping the unicorn on his side as he continued to maneuver back through the narrow walkways that he had used to escape the first time. He grunted, and stopped only for a second to get a better fix on the unicorn, her hooves dangling inches off the ground. The sound of dripping water echoed through the halls as the creature he held finally voiced a single word, “Why?”

But the human said nothing as he finally pushed himself through more open tunnels. Once again, the golden amber glow sprinkled upon Xavier and the unicorn he carried with him down the service tunnel. Silence was behind them as finally the human asked, “Can you fight?”

“What?”

“Can you fight?”

Twilight let out a grunt as Xavier stopped and, with his free hand, grabbed a rope and pulled, releasing debris ‌he had pinned on the ceiling to block the path of anyone who pursued him past that point. Running further still, the two finally emerged into a large area where maintenance work would be staged. Dropping the unicorn on her hooves, the human turned around and once again asked, “Can you fight?”

Twilight got a clear look at his right green eye. The left side of his face was crusted with dried blood, and the center of his forehead was a dark purple from the thrashing he committed earlier. The human took a step back and looked down the tunnel when Twilight shook her head, “N~no, not with this ring around the horn.”

“All right, just pop it off and let’s go,” Xavier said, turning behind him and looking down the way they had just come.

“This is an obsidian ring, I can’t just ‘pop’ it off’,” Twilight said, taking a step back, furrowing her brow and taking in the disheveled human. She couldn’t tell if the top of his head was a glowing yellow or a blazing red in the tunnel’s light.

“Yes, you can,” Xavier said, taking a position next to the entrance. Peaking, he retracted his head, then turned to the Unicorn.

“No, I can’t,” Twilight reiterated, both her violet eyes meeting his single green one.

“Holy shit, you’re THE Element of Magic, a thing like that should be trivial for you,” Xavier said, doing a double take down the path they had taken, trying to gauge where their pursuers were.

“This is an obsidian ring, I can’t-”

“I know what an obsidian ring is. The gradient of the draining effect can be overcome if you literally throw enough magic at it, exceeding its carrying capacity and literally popping it off your horn. And you should have more than enough magic to overcharge and break it. Now come on, double time,” Xavier said, clapping the palm of his left gloved hand to the back of his right gloved hand three times.

Twilight shook her head, then closed her eyes as she charged her magic. But she could feel the cold ring take everything she put into it. She tried again, only for the obsidian ring to lap up all the magic she could muster in her horn. Looking up at the human, he had lifted the cloak and was scrubbing the left side of his face. Then she saw his second green eye, as verdant as the other. Then looked down and shook her head, “I can’t, it’s just too-”

Xavier rolled his eyes and quickly turned to Twilight. Taking six steps towards her, she took a step back and realized that he was at least double her height. Taking another step to close the distance, Xavier reached for the cursed ornament with his hand. The unicorn, fear welling up, watched as three of his soft claws arched in the vertices of an isosceles triangle as they approached the base of her horn. Suddenly, black lightning shot up from the ring and made contact with the human’s covered soft claws. Xavier recoiled, taking a step back before grabbing his pained hand with his other and rubbing it. Then once again, he reached out, only for black lightning to repel him like it did before.

“Hmmm… upgrades,” Xavier tilted his head up and closed his eyes and breathed in and out. In. And out. Then he started to sing. At first, he sang quickly and poorly, as if to remember a letter in the alphabet by starting at A and working towards it. Then he slowed down once he found the place he was looking for, a smooth tenor pouring out his lips. Snapping his head down, Twilight’s violet eyes were caught again by his green ones. Her ears snapped to attention as she could feel the back of her mind scream at her not to move an inch. The fur on her spine rose to attention, only for her to relax. Fluttershy and Spike flashed in her mind for a moment before she started to listen to the human’s words.

He sang on about words of wisdom before Twilight snapped out of her trance and hissed, “What in Tartarus are you doing?”

“Hitting the instant win button. Now quiet,” Xavier sibilated back and returned to singing.

Xavier once again lifted his hand, his fingers in the same triangle position as before. Then, warning about the oncoming storm, he sang the chorus, and the human thrust his hand forward. The lightning once more reached out, but this time his hand didn’t recoil. He kept pushing through until an aura of black shielded the ring from his fingers, but his eyes were dead focused on his aim as he continued to sing.

With a burst of ultraviolet light, the human’s hand was finally repelled by Twilight’s new ornament. However, his face was now frenzied, and he bared his teeth, revealing two small canines as his hair seemed a blaze. He thrust his hand forward again at the unicorn as he sang the reprise with conviction.

This time, his gloved fingertips had made contact with the dark shield, several arcs of black lightning struck his fingers, only for him to ignore them and push past the smoky magical shield. Then, just as he touched the ring itself, a gigantic black lightning bolt struck him, tossing him off his legs and onto the stone floor.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” his left hand was gently cupping his right one as the sound of galloping started reverberating through the hall they had just come from.

“Want to give it another go?” Twilight raised an eye to the prone human.

“Oh, put a sock in it,” Xavier bit back. Picking himself up, he staggered, the bottom of his jaw revealing the tops of his teeth for a moment before waving the unicorn on. “Come on, I’ve got another obstacle planned just in case you broke free.”

“Of that thing? It was foals’ play to break free,” Twilight ran to Xavier’s side as they made their way out of the chamber.

“Well, excuse me, princess!" Xavier barked back, mocking the mare with the last word out. "I didn’t expect you to liberate my inscriptions and bind me with them,” Xavier spat as they passed lightbulb after lightbulb.

“Oh, I see. You just expected me to roll over?” Twilight snapped back.

“Please, if I had known it was you, I would’ve been on the first train out of here.”

“And what’s wrong with me?”

“Fucking with the strongest unicorn of the current age? I’m not suicidal.”

“What do you mean, the strongest unicorn?”

“Don’t hide behind false humility, it doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not the strongest unicorn.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you-, you know what, never mind.”

The two finally entered a new room, where Xavier stopped and ran to the side of the entrance. Placing himself between the wall and a giant open crate, he braced his back against the wall, and he popped his legs between him and the metal crates that were to the side of the wall and pushed. Grunting, a cavalcade of screaming wood crashed down around the entrance, leaving a violent, jagged mess.

“That was your plan? Stop me from following by using junk?” Twilight raised an eye.

“Again, if I had known it was you, we wouldn’t even be here. Now come on,” Xavier was panting, his face rundown with what seemed to be days of exhaustion. He ran to the other end of the room and the mare followed him.

Another tunnel and another series of left and right turns led the duo to a room with several exits, each archway leading down a hall of darkness.

“That one,” Xavier pointed at the leftmost nearest the center. The two ran towards it, where there was another small string hanging overhead. The human grabbed it and yanked hard enough to rip it.

Twilight continued to follow the human, the grit of sand grinding beneath her hooves as she ran down the hall. Her ears perked up and folded back at the sound of crashing junk behind her, she turned her head and said, “What in the-”

“Something to muffle our sounds. Make it harder for them to pick the right one just by listening.” Xavier said between his breaths.

“How many of these do you have?” Twilight asked, the sound of crashing debris still reverberating down the hall.

“That was the last one. Now come on,” Xavier answered as he whisked to the left.

However, as they went further and further into the maze, the louder and louder the sound of hooves echoing behind them became. Xavier looked back and uttered, “Shit.”

“Any more bright ideas?” Twilight heaved, her chest expanding and contracting with each pump of her lungs.

Xavier slowly turned and was panting. He gazed hard at the pessimistic mare in her violet eyes and responded, “I’ve got a few, yeah.”

Soon they came to a room with several dark nooks. Xavier stopped, and snapped up Twilight by the sternum yet again. The unicorn let out a grunt as he pulled her into a narrow, dark dead-end. They plunged into the darkness of space itself as Xavier clamped her snout shut with his hands and whispered in her ear, “Shut up, don’t say a word, and just listen to me ‌carefully. Take in everything I am about to sing.”

Xavier’s eyes rolled up as he breathed in and out. Twilight made a token attempt at trying to open her mouth, but the human’s soft claws kept applying gentle pressure to her jaw. Finally, with the last major exhale, Xavier pulled Twilight’s ear close to his mouth. Instinctually, she folded it back, only for him to hiss at her in a low voice, “Ears open!”

Suddenly, one of the two mares that had hunted for Twilight emerged from the tunnel they had just come from, and examined around the room. Her eyes narrowed as she took stock of her surroundings. Each time she took a step, she would peer into the various dark corners of the space. Across from them, she entered a shadow only to sound a snort and exit moments later, back into the light.

Xavier then sang to Twilight, of a star and one which bore hope, then entered into the chorus. Her ear relaxed and directed itself to her Eques. He was as quiet as a mouse scampering around, and what sound did bleed out, Twilight’s ear caught before it could make its way out. She drank in the song when she looked down. She noticed something slightly different about the dark that had cloaked them. Twilight could almost swear that it had become deeper, blacker than black, almost like they were in a warm pit of tar, that enveloped them and embraced them. Then he sang the reprise, and she could swear she was floating in a void with no form, only consciousness.

The earth mare looked dead on at where the two were, her eyes squinted as Xavier continued to whisper the reprise. She approached the two, each step of her hoof like falling rocks. One step, then two as she plunged herself into the same darkness that surrounded the human and unicorn, but Xavier did not stop singing. Twilight’s eyes shook as she tried to find where the mare vanished off to, but could not catch tail or hide from her.

She’s going to hear him, she’s going to hear him, she’s going to hear him!

Seconds passed into minutes as Xavier sang in a loop over and over again. Twilight winced as she gave up trying to discover where the mare had gone and focused entirely on the song being sung to her. Blinking, she finally reopened her eyes to watch as the mare that had entered the gentle darkness she and Xavier were wrapped in breach back into the light. She snorted as she examined a few more corners she had neglected to examine.

The earth mare lifted her head up and continued on her way out of another tunnel that exited the room. Soon the sound of her running diminished and Xavier released his grip over Twilight’s snout, gently lowering the mare back onto the ground. Both of them emerged from the shadow that had shielded them from their pursuer, when the human quietly grunted, “This way.”

Xavier led them back down the tunnel that they had come from, right back to the room where several tunnels converged. He stumbled, Twilight glimpsing his eyes begging for rest. Debris cluttered the ground as Xavier maneuvered with his two long legs around the litter. Quickly, he knelt down and checked each one of the tunnels, stopping at the far right one. “The other one went down here,” he said, then he pointed to the leftmost tunnel. “That will be our safest way out of the catacombs.”

“How?”

“Sand on the floor,” he pointed down, where there was a thin layer of sand that had obvious hoof prints.

“What in the Elysian fields were you planning?”

The human ignored her and started walking down the leftmost tunnel. Only 30 paces in, they entered ‌a new room with a stone staircase in the corner, dimly lit by a deep, golden amber bulb. Xavier suddenly turned right and picked up a chain that looped back onto itself on the floor, waiting for Twilight to enter the room. He began slowly pulling at it, each wheeze from his lungs betraying his exhaustion. The chain rolled down a metal sheet door, and slowly it fell in place, blocking the tunnel off and isolating the pair from the earth ponies that had chased them. Twilight stared at the metal door and chain for a moment before Xavier turned to her and simply uttered, “Come.”

The two ventured up the staircase, finding a giant slab of metal on the stone ceiling that prevented further travel. Xavier tilted his head to an acute angle, crouched beneath it and the staircases, then stood up. Slowly the metal slab was pried open and Twilight could see the open night sky between Xavier and the slab. The lights of the city nearly blocked all the stars, but the fullmoon still shone, along with a few of the brightest stars. He waved her on, and she squeezed herself between the human and the access door, popping out and landing on soft grass. Twilight found herself on campus near the Theology building, only a half kilometer where Xavier had given both her and Applejack the slip.

“So that’s how you -”

“Quiet, campus police roam around,” Xavier pushed himself out and then lowered the lid. Slowly, he scanned the surroundings before letting out a weary sigh. He stumbled away from Twilight and headed away from the library and towards the outer boundary of campus.

“Where are you going?” Twilight said, facing her Eques with her ears directed at him. He looked back, and she picked him apart with her eyes. The top of his rumpled red hair gently wafted in the wind, while the sides were drenched in sweat. Most of the dried blood from his thrashing was gone, excluding a few branches that reached from the purple and black bruising of his forehead. His left eye was halfway closed, reflecting her gaze with his green iris. He tried to stand up straight for a moment, only to crinkle back over.

“I’m going,” he said, turning away. “To get a drink.”

Author's Note

Blind Guardian- Mirror Mirror
Blind Guardian - Time Stands Still (At the Iron Hill) (Lyrics English & Deutsch)