Sarith's rejection was disappointing but expected. Still, at least he wouldn't actively hinder me. That was a start, and I could sway him over to my side in the future. Scholars had known for a long time that ponies were herd creatures. We needed each other to survive, so as long as I could provide a clear path forward, the survival instinct would win out in the end.

I sighed as I limped away from the gloomy thestral. There were other prisoners here that I knew would help me, like Jimjar, Eldeth, Topsy, and Shuushar. Then there was Ront, Turvy, Buppido, and… the quaggoth. Turvy would likely join his sister, and I was confident I could convince Ront. Buppido and the quaggoth were wildcards.

Jimjar and Topsy were small and agile, so I'd need to rely on them for information gathering. Though, with how knowledgable Jimjar was, I wouldn't have been surprised if he knew every inch of this prison and hadn't bothered to mention anything yet, but I'd deal with that eventually. Eldeth was strong and would be handy in a fight if it came down to it, but I couldn't expect her to fight off all the guards on her own.

"Eldeth, bring me to Ront, please," I decided.

"Are you sure? You're not looking so good… Maybe it's best if you lie down for a bit. I could bring him to you, but it isn't a good idea. He's a gryphon, after all."

"No," I shook my head and fought back a wave of nausea. "The fact that he's a gryphon is why I need to go to him. His pride won't let him come to me before I've earned his respect. Gryphons are tough, so he'll be a big help if we need to fight our way out of here."

I did feel the need to lie down, though. The pain in my fetlock sent angry throbs through my leg despite my best efforts to avoid jostling it. However, some things needed doing, and I didn't know when I would get the chance.

Ront lounged like a bobcat atop a large rock. His silhouette shifted as we approached, tail lashing and bound wings ruffling. The gryphon's beak turned away, and I saw his eye glint like flint on steel in the gloom. He rumbled with a deep growl from his chest.

"Vhat you vant, pony?" He huffed in accented Equestrian.

"Hello, Ront," I replied in Griffish. "I just wanted to talk."

"You speak Griffish?" He leaned back, surprised. "Interesting. I've never met pony who bothered to learn."

"I grew up in Canterlot," I explained, "and met few gryphons that either immigrated or were traveling for official business."

"Ah, that's right. Princess. Wings and horn, like Celestia. Smaller though. News travels slow in Gryphon Empire. Did Sun Princess have daughter?"

"Haha, no. Princess Celestia is my mentor, and I studied under her for many years before my ascension."

Ront sat up and stretched out his front legs. He twisted his head from side to side as he inspected me closely. Most ponies would quake under the gaze of a predator, sizing them up like a piece of meat, but I had been around enough gryphons to recognize their body language. This one was simply curious.

"You're tougher than you look. I can smell pain on you. And blood. Most ponies would break like twigs when fighting quaggoth, but you still live. Bruised, but not broken."

"Honestly, it hurts lot. My fetlock is probably broken, or at least it's bad sprain. We bandaged it up best we could, but without painkillers, I'm barely staying on my hooves right now."

"Hard to work with three hooves," Ront nodded. "You hide pain well, though. Well enough from batponies? I don't know."

"How did you get here, Ront?" I slid down next to him. "I don't know how far away we are from Equestria, but I imagine we're much further from your home."

"I fell down stupid hole, that's what," he growled. "I am soldier. My team and I were patrolling trade route when we were attacked by bandits. I was separated and fell into pit. Walls were too narrow to fly out, so I wandered in dark for two days before batponies found me. Cowards put me to sleep with blowdarts, and I woke up in cage."

Eldeth watched us out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't see her face, but her posture made her seem agitated or nervous. Ront continued telling me his story, and though my knowledge of Griffish was rusty, something about his tone piqued my interest. There was a hint of shame there, and I felt like he was leaving something out, but I chose to set that aside for now.

"Say Ront, are you pretty strong?"

"Da," he nodded.

"If you really needed, could you break these manacles? How many guards could you fight?"

He tilted his head and hummed in thought. "If I had time, yes. I did it once, but guards whipped me and didn't give me food for three days. Then they gave me new ones. I could fight one or two bat ponies, or maybe one quaggoth, without weapon, but there are many."

"How about with help?"

"What are you planning, pony?" He leaned closer.

"I don't know precisely what the denevér plan to do with us, but it can't be good. I will get out of here and return to the surface, but I need your help. You're strong, and we might need to fight our way out. I'm working on a plan, but I'm just one pony. Are you in?"

"I have no desire to die here, little pony princess," Ront replied, nodding, "at least not while imprisoned by bat ponies far away from mountains and open sky. You seem to have good heart and strong spirit. Put axe in my claws, and I will follow you until we see sun again."

I released some tension in my shoulders and smiled.

"Thank you, Ront. I won't let you down."

I struggled to my hooves once again and sought out the derro. Pain lanced through my leg as my manacle pinched me, and spots filled my already darkened vision. Bile rose in my throat, and I leaned against a rock to steady myself. I felt Ront's eyes drilling into the back of my head, so I gritted through the agony and fought the wave of nausea before steading myself. Eldeth offered an arm to lean on, but I shook my head.

My pace was slow, one hoof in front of the other, but I followed a low muttering to find the small diamond dog scrawling in the dirt. I hadn't seen him this close yesterday, but Buppido was thin – almost emaciated. His ears twitched at my approach as he went silent and turned to look over his shoulder.

"Ahh, Princess Sparkle," his voice whispered in my mind, and I stepped back. "I knew you would be visiting me."

While Sarith's mind felt sour and turbulent, Buppido's was cold and dark like a deep lake, but his words brushed over me like a warm breeze. He must have been close enough for Stool's rapport spores to affect him, but I never noticed him. It was too dark in here. How many eyes watched me at any given time? Did somepony lurk behind me, dogging my steps, even now?

"Come hither," he said. "Sit. Parley with me, surfacer. I have looked forward to your arrival."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I sat down a dozen hooves away from him. "You knew I was coming here, as in to talk to you?"

"It was only a matter of time. You are the Twilight, the union of night and day, a bridge between sun and moon. I have seen it written in the stones and heard it whispered in the drip drip drip of the water. The denevér are mad, yes, mad in their wickedness and devotion to a goddess that watches them writhe and squeal like rats. It was only a matter of time until the avatar of their folly wandered into their pits. Pits of spiders. Pits of vipers. Pits of gnawing and gnashing and…"

Buppido halted his tirade with a hacking cough. There was a peculiar glint in his eye that vanished like a doused fire. He blinked and met my gaze, and a shiver went down my spine.

"Forgive me, my lady. This imprisonment has not done my temperament any favors. Allow me to start over. My name is Buppido, and I have been hoping for the arrival of one such as you for a long time."

I nodded in return, wary, but I chose to be cordial. "Nice to meet you, Buppido, and I'm Twilight… but I suppose you knew that already. Can you tell me a bit about yourself? I've met diamond dogs before, but I've never seen a derro."

He stood to his full height, which might have been close to my chin if I stood up, and folded himself in a courtly bow. I could picture an imaginary top hat tucked under his elbow or a dapper cane in one paw, and I wondered what kind of life he had before he found his way to this cage.

"We derro are a sorry folk. My ancestors delved too deep into the bowels of the Underdark, lured by riches and dreams of glory, but we found only pain and torment."

"What happened?"

"We did not know at the time, but something lured us. Our love for gold and gems blinded us until it was too late to see the trap. As the tale goes, the first dogs to become the mogorva broke through the rock to find a hive of changelings. They captured and enslaved us, and they twisted our minds as they fed on us for generations.

"It was many years before we broke free. Most became the mogorva, dogs stripped of all creativity and passion after decades of changeling feeding, but some of us… simply broke. Most derro, my kind, are thoroughly mad and twisted by what the changelings did to us. We subsist on the pity of our kin as we wallow in our filth and scream at the phantoms in our minds."

I adjusted my manacle, pushing it off my bandaged fetlock, and pondered what it would have been like to have been enthralled by changelings my entire life. It wasn't something I could comprehend. Cadance told me a few times that Shiny still woke up from the nightmares, even years later, and he had only been under Chrysalis's sway for a couple of weeks. To live my entire life under her thrall and know my grandfoals would do the same… My mind couldn't grasp something that horrific.

"I'm… so sorry that happened to your people. That's awful," I replied, my ears drooping. "I have family that were victims of changelings for a time, but I can't imagine your whole society being subjugated by them for Celestia knows how long."

"We've had our revenge," Buppido spat to the side. "We freed ourselves many generations before my time, but we still hunt the changelings down when we come across them. Most fled deeper into the Underdark, further than even the denevér will tread."

"Back to something you said earlier, though… You said you were waiting for somepony like me. Can you elaborate on that?"

"Yes, yes… It's all according to plan, you see. I have been under the denevér's yoke for over a fortnight now, but they have played into my paws. I knew at some point they would capture someone they could not hold. Their arrogance would be their undoing, and the wrath of the gods would come upon them. Now here you are, just as I predicted. You are the avatar of their folly, a 'false goddess' that makes them foam at the mouth in fury. An alicorn of twilight, the union of day and night, is something they cannot tolerate… or resist. They plan to offer you up to the Nightmare, but they did not account for me. No. Now that you are here, I can return to my work."

I leaned away from him and glanced nervously at Eldeth. She tilted her head at me, and I bit my lip in apprehension. Eldeth hadn't heard any of this conversation, I realized, and telepathy via the rapport spores was entirely selective.

Buppido was unhinged, but besides a streak of egomania, he didn't seem outright dangerous. Still, it was best that I watched what I said around him…

"Then…" I gulped, "Perhaps we can assist each other. I need information about the prison, and I would like your help when we try to escape."

"Of course, of course. Believe me, Princess, you cannot escape without my aid. I hear things. I see things. Nobody minds Buppido, the humble derro that he is. They say I am mad and treat me like any of my other pitiful kin. Seen but not heard, and given the tasks unworthy for even the lowliest of the denevér slaves."

"And what have you heard?" I leaned forward, eyes wide.

"A weak link. Shoor, the task master, is new to his post. He took it from Jorlan, who you will know from the hideous scars on his face and wing. Once he was favored by Ilvara as her lieutenant and lover, but once the wretched stallion was disfigured… she lost interest."

I had yet to see Jorlan, but if what Buppido said was true, I could appeal to him for help. It sounded like there were some precarious power dynamics among the denevér. If there was a chance to exploit them, I'd take it, but it wasn't likely. Communication, or the lack thereof, was still the primary issue. I couldn't understand them, and if I walked up to a guard and tried to strike up a conversation, I'd probably get hit again. Given time, I could quickly learn their language, but not now…

"Thank you, Buppido. I'll keep that in mind. In the meantime, keep an ear out and see if you can get a hold of anything that might help us."

"Of course, my lady," he sneered.

I eased myself to three hooves and hobbled to my corner of the cell. Eldeth helped me sit, bid me goodnight, and lumbered a couple of dozen hooves away to her spot on the cavern floor. With my back to the wall, I cradled my injured hoof and seethed silently. I let a few tears wet my cheeks now that I was alone. My fetlock under the bandages felt hot to the touch due to the inflammation, and I struggled to control my breathing.

I learned many things after my ascension. Becoming an alicorn didn't just give me a crown but also three new sources of magic from which I could draw. My pool of unicorn mana was centered at the base of my horn and the frontal cortex of my brain. Pegasus magic flowed in rhythm with my breaths, starting from my lungs and stretching to the tips of my feathers before being sucked back in again. Earth mana, sure as stone, pulsed from my heart and through my entire body.

The fourth mana was nebulous, and not even the Royal Sisters fully understood it. Alicorn magic had no known physical source in the equine body. It wasn't even a mixture of the other three tribes' magic, as many thought, but something more. The power of an alicorn stretched beyond the body and into the metaphysical. It wasn't something I could tap into very often, and it was only in my battle with Tirek that I could sense it due to being overfilled with the Princesses' magic. That source of power slumbered deep inside me, unresponsive and stubborn like a napping manticore.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. The dripping of cave water and the dull roar of the waterfall faded away, and I felt my mana channels pulse with each breath and heartbeat. My perception narrowed, and I focused on synchronizing the mana streams in my body.

Breathe in, thu-thump. Breathe out, thu-thump.

Earth magic pulsed like a drum and felt like a cold balm on my fetlock. It wouldn't heal me completely, but it would at least dull the pain and allow my body to begin healing. This was a trick Applejack taught me after a long day of helping her during Cider Season one year. Earth ponies could dull physical pain and exhaustion with their magic, allowing them to work harder and longer. A stronger heart and body, and thus a deeper well, protected them from injuries. I was a long way from being able to knock a tree down without breaking my hoof, but I could at least do this.

I fell into a deep meditation, and I dreamed.

Author's Note

Twilight be like: