A Time of Twilight

Twilight woke up and lifted her head, blinking groggily, she waited for her vision to clear up,
then took in her surroundings. She appeared to be in a pretty big cavern, with only one opening
farther forward and to her left. Two torches were set up on either side of it. The walls and floor
were smooth suggesting the cavern was not natural, but made by ponies or some other sentient
being.

She attempted to get up, but encountered resistance. A quick inspection of herself revealed
that her front hooves had been tied together, as well as her back hooves. Her hooves had then
been tied to her thighs, so she was stuck laying there, with her legs tucked up under her.
Trying to test the strength of her bonds, Twilight began the telekinesis spell, but abandoned
it immediately as a piercing pain lanced through her head. Looking up partly cross eyed to look
at her horn, she noticed some kind of metal wound all the way up her horn, tracing the grooves
in it.

Getting more and more annoyed by the minute, she refused to get discouraged, bending her
head down she started biting the ropes. It was tough stuff, but after a while of working at it
she thought it was starting to fray a bit.

"Please stop? if necessary I will gag you, but will avoid anymore discomfort to you, if you
cooperate."

Twilight looked up at the sound of the gruff voice, coming from the direction of the entrance,
her eyes fell onto the sight of the black unicorn from before, "where am I? why have you
taken me?" Twilight shouted at him.

He ignored her and began to turn around to leave again, apparently only having to wanted
to give his warning and then get back to whatever else he had been doing before. Twilight
gave a slight gasp as her eyes caught sight of his flank as he turned. It was blank, with no
cutie mark to be seen anywhere. She'd never heard of any pony reaching maturity before
getting their cutie mark. This caused a great bit of interest and curiosity to well up in her,
but she suppressed it, knowing there were more important issues at hand her.

"Wait! why did you take me? what do you want from me?"

He paused, then turned back to her, the slightest bit of anger showed in his eyes and could
be heard in his voice, "Want with you!? I don't want anything from you, your a mistake and
have caused unnecessary complications to me. No one was supposed to be there, no great
catastrophe was threatening Equestria, so the place should have been deserted. But no you
showed up for who knows what reason and got in the way."

"Then why did you take me? why not leave me there?" Twilight asked cautiously.

"I can't have anybody describing or even knowing I exist till after my tasks complete,
unfortunately that means your stuck with me till I'm finished. Behave and I promise nothing
will happen to you and you can go free when I'm done."

"If you keep me, you'll be found, the Princess won't rest till she finds me! you grabbed the
wrong pony if you wanted to go unnoticed, do you even know who I am?" Twilight said,
getting more confident each word she spoke.

"Twilight Sparkle, current librarian in Ponyville, protege to Princess Celestia and the current
element of magic. Your friends are Applejack, a orange earth pony mare, who currently runs
Apple Acres with her older brother Big Mac and is the current element of honesty.

Rarity, a white unicorn mare who runs her own boutique and is the element of generosity.

Flutershy, a yellow pegasus mare, works with animals and gets by with a few bits she makes
helping ponies with their animal problems, the majority of her income though comes from what
her parents send her, she is the current element of kindness.

Rainbow Dash, a cyan pegasus mare, works as the chief weather controller in Ponyville, she
is the current element of loyalty.

Pinkie Pie, a pink earth pony, works part time at Sugar Cube Corner and is the current element
of laughter.

Together you have all defeated the likes of Nightmare Moon, Discord and Chrysalis, am I missing
anything?" He finished in a bored tone.

Through his narration, Twilight's jaw had dropped more and more, she then got her surprise under
control as he asked his question,"Ok so you do know, so what? most of Equestria probably knows
all that too, but that doesn't change the fact that the Princess and my friends will be searching all
of Equestria for me."

"Let them search, they have nothing to go by, no clues. Trust me I know what I'm doing, now I
suggest you get some sleep, we'll be leaving soon and I won't have you slowing me down" He
said, as if as an afterthought, as he turned around again and headed for the exit.

"Wait! where are we going?" Twilight called after him, but he was ignoring her again. Grumbling
under her breath, Twilight watched him disappear from her view and briefly thought about trying
to chew the ropes again, but decided against it not wanting to find out what he meant by gag.
______________________________________________________________________________

Rainbow Dash was cruising along at cloud level, approaching quickly what she hoped would be
the final town on her search. After she had left her friends, she had let a bit of her anger cool down
and realized that some of what they said was right, she did need to have some sort of plan on
where to start her search, but for that she needed help. Usually with something like this the first
pony she'd turn to would be Twilight and her magic, but obviously she couldn't do that now.

Thinking hard as she sped towards her cloud house, she went through all the ponies she had ever
met, trying to think of one with the talent she needed. Her face sudden scrunched up in distaste, but
she knew now who she needed. Having a plan of action, she quickly got her brown saddlebags and filled
them with some supplies and bits, then after one more stop she was speeding her way through the
air over the road out of Ponyville in what she hoped was the right direction.

It had only taken her about 20 min. to do all her preparations after she left her friends, she'd smiled to
herself, wondering just how much of what she'd hurriedly blurted out to her manager, about leaving and
him needing to find somepony to cover for her, he'd actually been able to comprehend. She might get
fired, but she didn't care, her friend was in trouble and that was all that mattered.

The first few towns took a little bit of asking around before she found a local who could point her on
her way to her next stop, but as she progressed it became easier. Every now and then, when she was
forced to get a good nights sleep to regain lost strength, she would rent a room for the night. More often
though she'd only interrupt her journey with quick food breaks and catch catnaps on clouds. The difficulty
of her quest for her, was the distance, more than the the actual hunt. As she drew closer to the end of the
trail, locals were easy to find who could point her in the right direction, as her prey was quite unforgettable.

As she traveled between towns she thought about what might have happened to Twilight but this would
inevitably cause her to get herself all worked up. So to distract herself she would think about how she
would go about getting her target to help when she caught up. If even a fraction of what she supposedly
could do was true, Dash figured she'd be able to find Twilight. The problem being convincing her to do it,
but for the most part Dash didn't worry about it, she was confident that she pretty sure she could convince
her to help, one way or another.

Pushing herself to the limit and getting a little more frustrated every passing day, Dash finally felt some
hope. From what she'd heard from her last stop, there was a good chance that her target was here, in
Las Pegasus. As she saw the city on the horizon she increased her speed, eager to finish the hunt.
Landing a little ways into the city limits, she looked around in awe and a bit of intimidation at all the buildings
and ponies milling around. She'd never been somewhere so crowded before, but she put on a determined face
and began going around and inquiring ponies about the object of her search. It was much harder here, lot's of
ponies ignored her and even more hadn't seen anything, as that sort of thing didn't stand out that much here,
blending in, rather than standing out.

Dash was about to call it a night when the orange earth stallion, she had just asked, gave her directions
to where she might find the answers she needed. The cyan pegasus thanked him and took off. The
streets twisted and turned confusingly but from her bird's eye view, Dash easily found the place the
stallion had been referring to. Landing, Dash trotted into a wide ally and made her way to a parked
wagon. It had a kinda gypsiest feel to it and Dash was pretty sure her search was over. She banged
on the door, then stepped back and waited.

"What! you were all told, the next show is tomorrow morning, so says the great and pow-" A blue
unicorn shouted in a ticked voice as she slammed open the door and stopped in mid sentence at the
sight of Dash standing there, a determined look on her face.

"Long time no see, Trixie."