The Mean Princess

by Dreamy Days

Rating: mature
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Nightmare Moon, Romance, Drama, Original Character, Bat Pony, Cozy Glow, Sex
Length: 20679

Mean Twilight becomes the Princess of Equestria.

Years after Twilight Sparkle took the throne as the sole Princess of Equestria, a forgotten Mean Twilight revives herself in the Everfree.

Through a series of fortuitous events, Mean Twilight manages to take Twilight Sparkle's place as Princess. Can a clone created to be a disposable pawn learn how to live?

Mature sex tag notice:
This story's foremost focus is on narrative, not sexual content. That said, there are several instances where intimate body parts are described in nonsexual situations. There are also several scenes in the later chapters of outright sexual acts between the love interests.

Additional tags (spoilers!): Mean Twilight x Nightmare Moon and Mean Twilight x bat pony OC (herd), a better ending for Cozy Glow, vampires

Published 2023-12-12 16:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-01-12 23:41:07 UTC

Prologue

“Come on, Twilight. Admit it. You got us lost.”

Twilight Sparkle looked up from the glowing projection floating in front of her face to shoot a withering glare at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow simply crossed her forelegs as she continued to flap her wings in a lazy hover.

"What?" Rainbow cried. "Being in denial won’t help anypony. The sooner you accept that you got us lost, the sooner we can start working on getting back on track."

Twilight set her jaw before looking back toward the projection. Bathed in the soft magenta of her magic, an overhead view of the Everfree Forest was displayed as a hologram.

Although the display looked normal up until the Castle of the Two Sisters, a little ways beyond that things started getting strange. Certain areas in the hologram were missing entirely, as if they did not exist. Other areas had some terrain overlapping the same space as existing terrain, with little red and blue arrows pointing in different directions peppered around the strange anomalies.

Biting her lip, Twilight looked away from the hologram and slowly scanned the forest around her. As her focus passed over the area to her rear, her eyes were drawn to two Royal Guards nearby, both huddled over a paper map spread out over the ground as they whispered amongst themselves. She quickly averted her gaze and finished her examination of the forest before returning her focus to the projection.

"I think we’re here," Twilight said, pointing her hoof to a section of trees just below one of the areas of superimposed terrain. She paused, hesitant, before moving a little red holographic circle over the location she had indicated.

"What do you think?" she asked, looking up at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow shrugged. "I already told you I can’t make heads or tails of that map of yours, Twi. This is all you."

Twilight frowned before once again looking to her rear. "Sergeant Shield Wall?"

An earth pony stallion dressed in the traditional gleaming golden armor of Celestia’s Solar Guard looked up from his map. Seeing Twilight’s expectant gaze, he gave her a short nod before standing up to face her. His enchanted white coat was pristine and almost glowed with light, despite the rough trek through the woods that he had just undertaken.

"Apologies, Twilight," he said. "Our paper maps are outdated to the point of uselessness, so we haven’t been able to come up with our position or direction."

Nodding toward Rainbow, the sergeant continued. "And I’m afraid I have to agree with Lieutenant Rainbow Dash. Your holo-map is too convoluted, so we can’t help you with reading it."

"I see. Thank you for your efforts, Shield," Twilight said, although she kept the frown on her face. She turned back to face Rainbow.

"Are you sure we can’t just fly up and head back to the castle that way?"

"Sure," Rainbow said. "If you wanna fly around all this weird stuff with no frame of reference at all, we can do that. Of course, we’ll each need to carry one of the guards, and we might even be able to stick together as a group for a minute or two!"

Twilight sighed. "Alright. Well, if we are where I think we are, we just need to keep heading that way." Twilight pointed forward with a hoof. "And we should reach the Castle of the Two Sisters in about half an hour."

"You said that an hour ago," Rainbow muttered, but Twilight was already starting to move out on her own. The guards quickly packed away their map and scrambled to follow after her.

The dull orange tones of the setting sun filtered in through the canopy, illuminating the barren forest floor with a fading warm glow. Rainbow had joined the rest of the party in walking on her own four hooves, opting to give her wings a rest. Taking up position just behind Twilight, she kept her ears and eyes on a swivel, lazily scanning back and forth across the forest for any hint of danger.

However, Twilight’s constant muttering made it difficult to really listen for anything that would approach the group. Considering the length of time the two ponies had known each other, it was easy for Dash to recognize that Twilight had started going off on one of her infamous freak-out episodes a good forty-five minutes ago. She knew that telling Twilight to relax would probably just spark an argument. So she walked silently nearby, ready to support Twilight whenever she decided that she needed her.

Still, Rainbow’s wings and hooves were killing her, and it didn’t look like Twilight was about to stop walking anytime soon. Maybe it would do good to suggest a breather.

"Twi, don’t you think we should take a break?" Rainbow asked, interrupting Twilight’s muttering.

Twilight spun around, eyes wide and strands of her mane sticking up at odd angles. "Take a break? It’s already sunset! It’ll be dark soon!"

"Everypony’s tired, Twi." Rainbow pointed to the guards behind her with a wing, who were visibly sagging. "It’d be dumb to keep walking til we drop. We won’t be able to fight if we get attacked by some monster."

"But our chances of getting attacked will increase exponentially once Celestia finishes setting the sun. We need to get back to the castle now!" Twilight retorted.

Rainbow sighed and held a hoof up to her temple. "We’ve been walking around for hours. We haven’t found the castle in all that time, and we’re not gonna find it before nightfall. We need to rest."

Twilight held Rainbow’s gaze for a few moments, then shifted her head to stare at the ground.

Finally, she pursed her lips and folded her ears back. "Okay. Let’s rest for a while," she mumbled.

Rainbow nodded and started moving for the shade beneath a large redwood tree, with Twilight and the guards following after her. Reaching the tree, Rainbow fell to her haunches and leaned against it with a long sigh, finally alleviating the pressure from her legs. The rest of the group sat down similarly nearby.

Twilight laid down on her belly, supporting her muzzle with her forelegs. Her ears continued to droop as she lit her horn and brought back the holographic map, but she hardly even looked at it. Instead she stared blankly ahead, gazing straight through the projection.

Rainbow felt a twist in her gut at just how miserable Twilight looked. Groaning softly as she got back to her hooves, she repositioned herself right alongside Twilight before also laying down on her belly. She extended her wing across Twilight’s withers and pressed their barrels together.

Twilight seemed to notice Dash for the first time, and lifted her head to give her a quizzical look. Dash simply smiled back.

After a moment, Twilight let her head drop with a sigh before closing her eyes. "I don’t understand," she said quietly. "We haven’t seen a single flare, no matter how many I send up."

She punctuated that statement by bringing forth a blindingly bright magenta orb to the tip of her horn. After a moment, the orb shot up toward the sky like a cannonball. When it cleared the top of the forest’s canopy, it exploded into a brilliant purple starburst.

Rainbow could feel Twilight holding her breath under her wing as she desperately scanned the horizon in all directions. A few minutes later, and with nothing happening, Twilight’s energy seemed to drain out of her as she let out a long sigh and once again let her head droop onto her forelegs.

"There has to be a logical explanation, Twi," Rainbow soothed as she rubbed Twilight’s back with her wing. "Maybe they can’t see your flares, or maybe they can but they’re unable to send a reply for some reason. Either way, we’ll just have to navigate back to the castle on our own."

Twilight simply grunted, and the two of them remained in that position for several minutes while the sunlight filtering through the branches slowly decreased in brightness.

Finally, Rainbow spoke up again. "We should get to work on setting up camp."

Twilight frowned, but she didn’t protest. Rainbow retracted her wing and stood up before motioning to the guards. They worked together to unpack a pair of small drab green tents from their saddlebags while Twilight watched from where she lay. Inside of fifteen minutes, both tents were staked to the ground and ready for use.

"We’ll see you in the morning then, Twilight, Lieutenant," Shield Wall said as he and his partner moved toward one of the tents. "Don’t worry about staying up to keep watch. That’s what the two of us are here for."

Rainbow nodded. "Thanks guys. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

After the two guards had finished entering their tent, Rainbow turned around and approached Twilight. She motioned toward their own tent with a jerk of her head. "Coming?"

Twilight got to her hooves before giving each of them a little stretch. Rainbow almost wanted to make a quip about how nice it must’ve been to lay down, relax, and watch her and the guards work on the tents, but she decided against it.

Briefly lighting her horn, Twilight pushed the flaps aside with her magic as she walked into their shared little tent. Rainbow followed behind her, using her foreleg to push the flaps aside as she passed them.

The interior of the tent was tiny, with only enough space to fit their two sleeping bags and nothing else. Twilight had already laid down on her back on top of her own sleeping bag in the time it took Rainbow to enter. With her head on her pillow and her legs splayed, Twilight stared up at the tent ceiling unblinkingly.

Rainbow frowned before moving forward and slowly lowering herself onto her side, facing Twilight. "Equestria to Twilight?"

Twilight moved her eyes to stare at Rainbow.

"You’ve been out of it since we stopped to rest. Are you okay?"

Twilight blinked. "Sorry. I’m trying to determine why my mapping spell is so inaccurate. There must be something wrong with the methodologies I’m using to collect data about the local space-time. Or perhaps the data itself is correct, but the interpretation is erroneous? I just know I’m missing something, so I’m going through the spell matrix step by step and verifying that each step produces the expected outputs from its given inputs."

"That makes sense." Like hay it did. "So did you find the problem?"

Twilight shook her head. "Not yet. I’ve triple checked each operation, and all of them are doing exactly what they are supposed to. Yet the map is still inaccurate, so that can only mean that the entire design of the spell is based on incorrect premises."

Rainbow hummed. "Well, why don’t we sleep on it? Maybe an idea on how to fix it will come to you in a dream."

"I suppose," Twilight sighed.

"Here, lift up for a sec," Rainbow said as she used a forehoof to grab Twilight’s sleeping bag cover. Twilight lit her horn and levitated herself just a smidge upward, allowing Rainbow to pull the cover out from underneath her body. When Twilight settled back down, Rainbow drew the cover over Twilight and tucked her in.

"There. Everything good? Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

A fierce blush lit up Twilight’s face as she quickly shook her head.

"Alright, good." Rainbow got off her own sleeping bag before scooting it closer to Twilight’s side. Spreading her hooves and arching her back, Rainbow completed one last stretch before getting into her sleeping bag and tucking herself in.

Turning toward Twilight, Rainbow gave her a gentle nuzzle underneath her chin. "Goodnight, Twilight. Give that brain of yours a break and try to sleep, okay? We’ll get out of this tomorrow. We always do."

Twilight nodded and wordlessly returned the nuzzle, rubbing her nose against Rainbow’s cheek.

On the very edge of her awareness, Rainbow Dash could make out a dull thud. Her ears made a quick flick as she shifted in her position slightly, before she rested the side of her head back against Twilight’s and once again began to slip into the darkness of unconsciousness.

"Princess Twilight, Lieutenant Rainbow, come quickly!"

The loud call shattered Rainbow’s blissful rest, and she groggily snapped her eyes open. At the same time, she could hear a soft groan come from the mare beside her, no doubt sharing Rainbow’s unhappiness about the sudden awakening.

Blinking her unfocused eyes into the darkness, Rainbow finally noticed that their tent flap was being held open by the darkened silhouette of one of their Royal Guards. Just as Rainbow was about to ask what was going on, another dull thud echoed through the forest. The sound was not loud, but it was distinct, with a sharp crack that seemed to bounce all around. The lengthy delays between the echoes told Rainbow that the source was quite distant.

"Quickly," the guard urged as he frantically beckoned with a hoof. Rainbow recognized the voice as belonging to Sergeant Shield Wall.

Twilight’s mind was the first to catch up to the situation. She quickly freed her body from the sleeping bag and scrambled onto her hooves. The sudden movement beside Rainbow jolted her into her own action, and in a moment she was right on Twilight’s tail making her way out of the tent.

When the two of them had cleared the tent flaps, Sergeant Shield beckoned them a few steps further. After they moved away from the tents and any other nearby obstacles, Shield stopped, and then pointed with a hoof toward the sky above the treetops.

Rainbow and Twilight turned their gazes to where Shield was pointing. A second later, a bright yellow ball of light rose into the sky in the distance, and then exploded into a radiant starburst. The sharp crack and dull echoing thud of the distant detonation reached them a moment later.

"The flare from the Castle of the Two Sisters," Twilight gasped.

"It’s so far away," Rainbow added.

Twilight immediately brought up her holographic map and aligned their current position with the direction the flares were coming from. Her lips pulled down into a frown.

"And it’s in the wrong direction," she said. "I thought I was leading us out of the Everfree, but we’ve actually been walking deeper into the forest this whole time."

"It’s not your fault, Twilight," Rainbow said as she moved to stand closer to her friend. "We all know that the wild magic is making this place go haywire. But at least now we have a proper direction to follow. In the morning we can start making our way out of here."

"No."

Rainbow Dash leaned back. "No?"

"No," Twilight repeated. Another bright yellow flare exploded in the distance, and Twilight pointed her hoof at it. "We’re not going to give the forest another chance to get us lost again. We’re going to follow those flares immediately and get out of here right now."

"Wha—?" Rainbow was dumbstruck. In the few seconds it took her to recover, Twilight had already started determinedly marching off in the direction the flares were coming from. Rainbow hastily flapped her wings to catch up to her and then landed in front of her.

"Whoa, whoa," Rainbow exclaimed, waving her forelegs. "We can’t just march off right now. It’s the middle of the night!"

"So?" Twilight asked.

"So it’s dangerous! You said it yourself yesterday that our chances of getting attacked would increase during the night. It’s too dark to see anything, and who knows what kind of creatures stalk the Everfree in the darkness, especially now."

Twilight responded by lighting her horn and projecting a large cone of bright magenta light forward. It was akin to a spotlight that lit everything up in front of them, piercing through the gloom of the forest.

"That’s even worse," Rainbow shouted. "It’ll completely destroy our night vision."

Twilight looked Rainbow in the eyes and gave her a gentle smile. "Rainbow, relax. I’m an alicorn, remember? I’ll be able to handle anything in this forest. Don’t worry. I’ll protect us."

Rainbow struggled to form the words she needed to convince Twilight that this was a bad idea. She glanced back toward the tents, where she spotted Sergeant Shield helping his partner out of his tent. Evidently he had been fast asleep during this whole ordeal.

"Sergeant!" Rainbow called. "Help me out, will you?"

The guard eyed Rainbow, then Twilight, before turning back to Rainbow again. "I agree with you, Lieutenant. Unfortunately, once the Princess wills something, we’re not going to be able to convince her otherwise."

"See?" Twilight gave Rainbow a pat on her withers with her forehoof. "It’ll be fine. Now let’s go."

Twilight brushed past Rainbow, once again starting toward the direction of the flares. Rainbow bit her lip as she glanced back toward the tents. The two guards hastily made to follow Twilight, apparently finding no problem with simply abandoning the tents where they were.

"Wait!" Rainbow shouted toward Twilight. "What about the tents? We can’t just leave them here."

All of a sudden, both tents glowed magenta and were lifted up into the air, stakes and all. Then they began to float in the direction Twilight had gone. Rainbow groaned, knowing she had no choice now but to follow.

Flapping her wings and kicking herself into the air, Rainbow quickly caught up to the group. She settled in to a slow flight beside Twilight, keeping pace with her friend’s gait. From the way Twilight was looking ahead with determination, Rainbow knew that there was no talking sense into the mare at this point. So she decided that she might as well do what she could to keep the group safe, and began scanning the forest for any threats.

Of course, this was easier said than done. The bright spotlight that Twilight was creating made it impossible for Rainbow to see into the darkness of the forest in any direction that the light wasn’t pointing in. In an attempt to compensate, Rainbow switched her focus to her ears, hoping that she might be able to hear the footsteps of any approaching creatures before they got too close. However, even with her ears pointing straight up and wide open, it was difficult to distinguish anything apart from the hoofsteps of Twilight and the guards, the soft tinkling sound of Twilight’s magic, and the rhythmic rush of air caused by her own wingbeats.

Not to mention the fact that Twilight’s spotlight was announcing their position to everything like a beacon. They must have been visible for miles.

"Twilight," Rainbow started hesitantly. "Please turn your light off. We won’t be able to see in the darkness, and you’re letting every creature in this forest know where we are."

"But how are we meant to see where we’re going without a light?" Twilight replied.

Rainbow sighed and decided to drop the issue. She would focus on doing her job the best she could instead of having an unwinnable argument.

She was so focused on her own senses that she lost track of time as the group continued onward without any conversation. Perhaps ten or twenty minutes of walking later, the group entered a small clearing within the forest.

Halfway through the clearing, Rainbow was brought out of her concentration when her ears picked up a faint sound on the very edge of her hearing. She flew forward so Twilight would be able to see her and then signaled the group to stop with a hoof.

"Anypony else hear that?" Rainbow whispered.

As Rainbow landed on the ground to silence her wingbeats, Twilight and the guards came to a stop and perked their ears. The night was deathly silent, save for the soft chime of Twilight’s horn light.

A moment after listening carefully, Twilight nodded her head and then set the levitating tents down nearby. The guards, however, both shook their heads in a negative.

Rainbow did her best to listen past Twilight’s magical jingle in order to identify the unknown sound. It took a while to get a clear picture since the sound was so faint, but the best Rainbow could come up with was that it seemed to be a very muffled rumble originating from the ground.

Focusing her senses to her hooves, Rainbow could just barely feel the ground trembling ever so slightly. She turned to Twilight.

"Is it an earthquake?" she asked softly.

Twilight closed her eyes and remained motionless for a few moments.

Rainbow was about to repeat her question before Twilight’s eyes snapped open and focused on her.

"It’s getting closer," Twilight spoke breathlessly. "Earthquakes don’t move."

Rainbow had been so certain in her judgment that she stopped paying attention. Sure enough, the rumble was steadily becoming more audible, and the tremor was becoming more intense.

"I can hear it now," one of the guards offered up. "What do we do, Princess?"

"Stay together," Twilight replied. She unfurled her wings and took off to hover just above the ground in front of the guards.

Rainbow followed, taking up a defensive position in the air on the opposite side of the two guards from Twilight.

"What kind of creature is it, Twilight?" Rainbow asked while she tensely scanned the clearing for any hint of movement.

"I have no clue," Twilight said. "I just know it’s coming right for us."

As the moments passed in anxious silence, the rumble steadily grew in volume until it was loud enough to make the ponies fold their ears.

Before Twilight even knew what was happening, the earth directly beneath her burst upward violently as if shooting out of a geyser.

Twilight scrambled to get a shield up to protect herself from the flying dirt and rocks, but her horn was already occupied with the light spell. She first needed to switch focus from her current spell before casting her shield, and the fraction of a second delay this caused allowed some clumps of dirt and pebbles to slam hard into her legs and the bottom of her barrel. Twilight cried in pain as she was hit, but forced herself to continue concentrating on casting her magic.

After deflecting the rest of the projectiles with her shield, Twilight gasped when she saw what the soil had been obscuring from view beneath it. Following right behind the assault from the flying dirt was a huge wide-open maw that was already closing around her.

Once again hastily switching between completely different castings with a speed only a magical prodigy like her could pull off, Twilight replaced her shield spell with a teleport spell. She then slammed all of her considerable reserves of power into the spell matrix with no regard to waste to charge it up instantly.

Before the jaws could even finish closing around her, Twilight teleported outside the mouth. It snapped closed a moment later.

Twilight’s joy at her successful escape quickly turned into alarm as she tried to flap her wings but found that she could not gain altitude. Instead, she felt a sharp pull on her tail.

"Twilight!" Rainbow yelled, but she sounded like she was behind the creature’s back.

Looking to her rear, Twilight saw that her tail was caught between the creature’s jaws. She cursed at her miscalculation. In order to prioritize the teleport’s swiftness, she had made the jump as short as possible, but she foolishly failed to take into account her tail’s positioning.

Before she could take any action to free herself, the creature whipped its head to the side with absurd speed. Twilight was launched into the air, tumbling head over hooves and flailing her wings with no control over her flight.

In the midst of her panicked spin, Twilight’s mind could only offer an irrelevant curiosity as she wondered what on Equus a tatzlwurm was doing in the Everfree.

The next thing she knew, she was crashing through trees and rolling down a hill in a violent flurry that was too chaotic to do anything to prevent. All she could do was curl into a ball and protect her head with her forehooves.

Finally coming to a stop at the base of a steep incline, Twilight simply lay there and groaned in pain. If it weren’t for her sturdy alicorn body, she was certain that most of her bones would have been shattered after something like that.

Just to make sure, she tested the motion of her legs, wings, and neck. Although she was covered in scrapes and cuts and bruises and would surely be suffering for the next few days, nothing seemed broken.

But she could worry about her injuries later. Rainbow and her guards were in trouble, and she needed to go help them.

Grunting, Twilight rolled onto her belly and made to get onto her hooves. But when she looked up, she was suddenly faced with a pair of brightly glowing red eyes. She only had time to give a short shout of surprise before consciousness left her.

Chapter 1: In the Moonlight of the Everfree

I threw the nasty, slimy creature out of my hooves and toward a bush before I lowered my forelegs and wiped them against the dirt. I truly hoped I wouldn’t need to touch that thing again.

The repulsive animal squawked as it hit the ground before it quickly turned to face me. It shot me a glare with its brightly glowing red eyes as it hissed at me. I responded by using one of my forelegs to kick a spray of dirt into its face. That seemed to get the message across, as after that it squawked again before slithering off into the underbrush.

I watched it go. A few moments later, I was satisfied it wasn’t coming back. I turned my attention to the hunk of stone on the ground in front of me.

It was a pony with wings and a horn, petrified into an inanimate statue with an expression of surprise on her face. Before she was turned to stone, I could clearly see that her coat and mane colors were exactly the same as mine. No doubt this pony was the real Twilight Sparkle.

My body was tense. I could feel something inside of my chest beating rapidly, and I felt like I was ready to gallop away from here at any moment. As I lifted a forehoof off the ground, it trembled slightly outside of my control. I brought my forehoof to my chest and started to rub it in an attempt to get the beating thing to calm down.

I understood how lucky I was. That stupid idiot Chrysalis had told me that Twilight and her friends defeated Chrysalis’ army. I didn’t have time to ask for any details at the time, but I believed I understood correctly what an army was. If only six ponies were capable of defeating one, then each one of those ponies must have been extraordinarily powerful. If Twilight had seen me just now, she would have destroyed me immediately. I would’ve had no chance.

I was lucky to find that animal that could turn creatures to stone by looking at them. I was lucky to find out that its powers didn’t work on me. I was lucky I decided to bring it with me to defend myself from the other animals in this forest. I was lucky to spot that bright light through the trees and get into a good hiding spot before Twilight found me. I was lucky that Twilight fell down right in front of me. I was lucky that Twilight didn’t see me as I rushed to use the animal on her. I was lucky to be alive.

It was important to think clearly. What was necessary for me to consider? What should I do next? I felt like it was impossible to focus right now. Pushing a lot of air out of my nose and mouth seemed to help me feel a little bit more calm. I did that some more, until the beating thing in my chest gradually started to slow down. I brought my forehoof away from my chest and put it down on the ground, and I swallowed the liquid that had pooled up in my mouth.

A stray thought had me wondering why there was liquid forming in my mouth. What was it, and what was it for? Forget it, that wasn’t important right now. The important thing was Twilight.

I didn’t know how long the animal’s magic would last. Twilight could turn back into a pony at any time, and she would see me standing here. The thought spurred me into making a decision. I had no evidence, but it seemed logical to me that if I destroyed the statue, Twilight herself would also be destroyed when she reverted back into flesh. So that was what I had to do.

I stepped up to it and started to bash the stone with my forehooves. I quickly learned that this was not a good idea. After a couple of hits, my hooves began to feel a sharp tingle running through them. That tingle quickly turned into a throbbing pain that traveled up my forelegs as I kept going. I had to stop after that. It just hurt too much.

I lay down onto my belly to get my weight off my forehooves, and I brought them close to my chest. But that didn’t seem to help much, and they continued to hurt just the same as before. All I could do was grit my teeth and wait until the pain slowly dulled.

I couldn’t lay on the ground here forever. Every moment I waited was another moment I was in danger. I forced myself to put my hooves under me and pushed myself back into a standing position when the worst of the pain had faded. It still hurt to move my forehooves, but I had to deal with it.

Even worse, when I examined the statue, I saw that I had done nothing to it. It was completely undamaged. That pain was for nothing.

"Ah!" I exclaimed as I jerked back. Something on my head just moved! I brought my sore forehooves up to the top of my head to feel around and investigate. All I could find were my ears, seemingly flopped over and laying flat. My ears must have drooped involuntarily, and I had to assume that was the movement that startled me. Why would my ears do that?

Again, that wasn’t important. I could figure my body out later. I had to keep focused.

So what else could I do? I looked up to gaze at the tip of my horn. I wished I still had my telekinesis. Maybe dropping the statue from high enough in the air would be able to destroy it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use any of my magic. What came so naturally to me before now produced no results. I tried to use it in the exact same way I had previously, and nothing happened. I must have made some kind of mistake that crippled my body when I revived myself.

So what else? There was no point in contemplating things I couldn’t do. What could I do to stop Twilight from coming back? Think.

Every idea I came up with was discarded as either impossible with my current abilities, impractical, or would simply take too long. I didn’t want to risk being around Twilight when the animal’s magic wore off, and the longer I took to destroy her, the higher that risk became. My ideas slowly started to become more outlandish. I stopped myself when I realized I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything workable.

My most promising idea was to get my hooves on the supposedly all-powerful Elements of Harmony that Chrysalis had wanted. If they were truly as powerful as I had been led to believe, I was sure I could use them to destroy the statue. But the major issue there was the fact that I had no idea where these Elements were. I thought I saw them inside that evil Tree before it tried to kill me, but that was obviously a trap, so those were probably fake.

So that was it. I had no good ideas. I didn’t know if or when Twilight would become free of the stone, and I couldn’t do anything to prevent it. And when she did, no doubt she would be coming for me. I had only one option left.

Run.

I had to get as far away from her as possible as quickly as possible.

I felt the urge to just start galloping as fast as my hooves could take me in a random direction, but I forced that urge to be silent. Blind panic like that was something an idiot would do. I had to think about this carefully. Which way was safe to go? How would I even make myself safe from an extremely powerful pony who could defeat armies? Was she capable of tracking me no matter where I went? Should I leave this forest — I had to assume that it had an ending, because I honestly had no idea if it did or not — or stay inside of it?

And I couldn’t assume that Twilight was the only one who would be after me. A creature like Chrysalis certainly wouldn’t be the forgiving type if she learned that I managed to revive myself, and it was highly likely that she was still around. I managed to hold her off with some difficulty last time, but now that I had no magic I really didn’t want to run into her again.

All that said, I was sure of only one thing. Simply getting away from the statue of Twilight was a great first step, and I could perhaps get some answers to my questions after I gathered more data. If I recalled correctly, there was a small clearing up the hill Twilight had come crashing down. Maybe I could use the better view in order to visually pick out the best direction to start traveling in.

I turned on my hooves to face the slope before I unfurled my wings. However, just before I was about to begin flapping them, I stopped myself. I was about to try to fly on instinct, since that would’ve been the easiest way to get up the hill, but it seemed that I was so distracted with thinking of a way to escape from Twilight that I forgot I couldn’t fly anymore. Just like with my magic, I had learned earlier that even if I flapped my wings in the exact same way I did previously, I simply couldn’t get off the ground.

I felt my ears flop down against my head again for some reason as I folded my wings back to my sides. At the moment, I felt like I wanted to lay down and do nothing as I became overwhelmed with despair at my crippled state. I was glad to be alive and have a body again, that was true, but if I had known that I would come out of the revival process as nothing more than a hollow shell with no magic I would’ve waited longer to try and find an alternative.

I dismissed the thoughts with a quick shake of my head. This was no time to be getting dragged down into those kinds of emotions. No matter how crippled I was, I was here now with this body, and getting destroyed by Twilight would certainly be permanent this time. I had to focus on survival, which meant I would have to climb the hill the hard way.

I started making my way up the slope. It was quite steep, so it was difficult to find good places to set my hooves and keep my balance. The dirt kept sliding out from underneath me and down the hill as I tried to put my weight on it, causing me to slip more than once. Luckily I always managed to catch myself with my other legs, so I didn’t take a tumble back to the bottom. On top of that, this steep climb brought the aching pain in my forehooves back to the forefront of my senses. It was something I had to ignore for now, but I would probably need to take a rest later when I got further away from Twilight.

Finally, I made it to the top, and I stepped into what I remembered should have been a field of grass in the clearing. Instead of the field, however, the ground was completely torn up. A series of large holes, seemingly placed randomly around the clearing, turned what should have been flat ground into treacherous terrain. Stalks of uprooted grass and clumps of dirt were strewn around these holes, as if it was all violently sprayed about.

And off near the middle of the clearing, I noticed the forms of three ponies, each looking down into a hole.

The surprise caused the air to get stuck in my nose for a moment, and when I tried to suck more in, I instead felt like I was choking on the air. My body made me involuntarily cough. I tried to suppress it immediately, but it was too late.

The ponies all looked up. Before I could even consider running away, they had spotted me.

"Twilight!" they all shouted.

Oh no. These ponies must have been traveling together with Twilight. They must have known what I did to her.

One of the ponies had wings, and it began to flap its way over to me while the other two ponies started to run toward me. I considered if I should still try to run away from them, but I quickly saw that it would be pointless. The winged pony was fast.

As it grew closer, I was able to make out its colors and face. It turned out that this was the apathetic blue pony that Chrysalis had created alongside me. That was a surprise. What was her name? Rainbow whatever? I seriously hated her attitude, and I didn’t want to deal with her right now.

When she reached me, I snorted and rolled my eyes. "You again?"

Rainbow Whatever blinked as she hovered in front of me. Then she pointed one of her forehooves toward herself. "Huh? Me?"

I took in some air, ready to give her a piece of my mind. But just as I was about to lay into her, I noticed something. Her face. She didn’t look apathetic. She looked confused and worried. But most tellingly, she was gazing at me intently, like she was looking at something important.

Suddenly, my mistake hit me. There was absolutely no way that apathetic blue pony would have been able to revive herself as I had. It took me years to gather enough power to do so. Years of exerting myself daily, giving it my all to slowly increase my magic and my reach. I didn’t even know for sure if it was possible to do it, or if my method would even work. Most days I wondered what the point of trying was, if it would be better to just give up. It certainly would have been easier. Only my determination kept me going.

So again, there was absolutely no way the lazy featherbrain would be able to do what I did. Which meant that this could only be the real Rainbow Dash — that was her name.

The thing inside of my chest was beating rapidly again. So fast it felt like it wanted to burst out of me. Despite all of my determination, it wasn’t worth it after all. There was nothing I could do against a pony as powerful as Rainbow Dash, who could defeat armies almost single-hoofedly. I had no magic, no surprise attack, and no gross slimy animal to turn her to stone with. Plus, those other two ponies had caught up with her and were standing beside her, facing off against me. No doubt they would assist her if I tried to fight. I was defenceless, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was impossible to do the impossible.

I closed my eyes and waited.

"Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Oh, had Twilight broken free of the stone already? Well, at least she could have her revenge against me personally.

I felt the slight breeze caused by Rainbow Dash’s wings die down as I heard her land on her hooves.

"Twilight? Are you okay?"

I gathered the courage to open my eyes. At least I’d be able to see Twilight blast me. I craned my head to the left to look behind me. But there was no Twilight. I turned my head to the right. But there was no Twilight there either.

"Princess Twilight?" a voice that wasn’t Rainbow Dash’s said. I turned my head to look at the wingless white pony who spoke.

"Do you require medical attention?" he said.

What?

I looked down at my chest. My eyes widened in realization.

Did they seriously think I was Twilight?

I looked back up at the group in front of me. All of them were staring at me, waiting for me to respond. It was hard to believe this was really happening. I had just given up, but suddenly I actually had a chance to make it out of here alive due to these ponies’ pure stupidity.

I blinked a couple of times and then let a bunch of air flow out through my nose. That helped me abate my panic a little. I’d better respond to these three idiots quickly, before their brains started working. I gathered my courage as I sucked some air back in. It was important to project my voice confidently and articulately.

"No," I stated firmly. "I don’t need any help. I’m not injured."

Rainbow Dash’s eyes moved as she scanned my body. I hoped she was only looking for injuries and hadn’t noticed anything suspicious.

Abruptly, Rainbow lunged forward and rubbed her nose against my cheek. I recoiled as soon as I registered what was happening, moving back a couple of steps. I stared at Rainbow warily. What was that? Some kind of strange show of dominance?

Rainbow Dash was looking at me with a confused frown on her face. "Are you sure you’re not injured?" she asked.

"I’m not," I reiterated.

I was lucky that wasn’t a harmful attack just now. I was way too slow to react. I would have to keep my guard up and be ready to react quickly the next time one of these ponies made a sudden move.

"What happened to you during the fight?" Rainbow Dash asked. "We didn’t see where you went. We thought you got swallowed by the wurm thing."

Was Twilight’s group fighting some creature? I thought I felt the presence of a large animal nearby, and I did hear sounds of a struggle while I was in my hiding spot, but I was in no position to see what was happening. It would make sense if Rainbow and the other two were distracted by something, since they didn’t come and help Twilight when she fell. In response to Rainbow Dash’s question, though, I guessed there was no harm in saying what actually happened to Twilight here.

"I crashed down a steep hill. It took me a while to get back on my hooves and make my way back up here," I said.

Rainbow Dash tilted her head. "How did you go from getting eaten by that monster to falling down a hill?"

How? She was right, that made no sense.

If I still had my magic and was about to get eaten by a creature, I would have teleported away. But I had no idea if that was what actually happened. Still, Rainbow’s gaze was getting to me, so I just blurted it out.

"I teleported, and then I fell," I said.

Rainbow practically deflated as she sighed with relief. "Oh, good. I was really worried about you when I saw that thing take a chomp at you, you know."

Seeing Rainbow Dash relax like that triggered my own body into relaxing as well. All that tension I had been holding on to since spotting these ponies suddenly melted out of me, and I let my shoulders sag. The beating thing in my chest had also slowed way down by now, no longer making me feel like I had to get away from this situation at all costs.

Of course, just because I had relaxed didn’t mean it was time to be stupid. I still had to be careful, but it seemed like I wasn’t in any imminent danger of being killed. Rainbow Dash and the two shiny idiots truly thought I was Twilight Sparkle. As long as I didn’t give them a reason to believe otherwise, I would not be harmed.

Now that I could think more clearly without my mind being blinded by panic, I had to admit the case of mistaken identity made sense from their point of view. I looked exactly the same as Twilight, since Chrysalis created me to be a copy. I had emerged from the exact same place Twilight had disappeared to during the chaos of the group’s alleged fight. There were no overt indications that I wasn’t the same being as Twilight.

The question now was: what should I do next? Should I go along with this charade, or try to quietly slip away?

Before I could consider my options, I was interrupted by Rainbow Dash hopping up into a hover. As she looked at me, the corners of her mouth turned upward. She pointed at herself with one of her forehooves. "We’re fine too, by the way. We totally showed that thing who’s boss, and then it ran away like a total loser."

I nodded. "Uh huh. So what do we do now?"

I figured it was fine to go with the flow for now. I could figure the big picture out later, when I had more time to think. But I had no idea what Twilight and her group were doing here, so I’d let Rainbow Dash take the lead. That way they wouldn’t suspect me if I suggested we do something contrary to their goals.

Rainbow sighed. "You already know what I think, but I know you don’t agree. We should rest until morning before we continue on."

Interesting. Did Twilight and Rainbow Dash have an argument? Maybe the group’s bonds were weaker than Chrysalis led me to believe. If it was possible to exploit those cracks, I should factor that into my decision on whether I should stay or leave.

But more importantly, where were Rainbow and Twilight going? How could I ask without exposing myself?

Rainbow flapped her wings harder and flew higher into the air. Then she rotated around as she hovered in place, seemingly searching the ground in the clearing thoroughly.

When she was done, she came back down to hover at my eye level and let out a huff. "Never mind. I can’t find the tents. They must’ve got lost during the fight somewhere, and it’s too dark to have any hope of searching around and finding them. We have no choice but to head for the castle now."

Castle? I only knew of one castle in this forest. The mere thought of it sent an involuntary shiver through my body.

"The… Castle of the Two Sisters?"

I tried to make my question sound more like a statement, but I guessed that didn’t work very well since Rainbow Dash still raised her eyebrow.

"Yeah?"

Well, the good part was that I knew where Rainbow wanted to go without having to think of some roundabout way to ask the question. The bad part was that it was the last place I ever wanted to return to.

I swallowed. If that was this group’s objective, then there was no way to avoid going to that castle if I wanted to keep acting like Twilight, was there? Unless I decided right here and now to give them the slip. But I hadn’t considered the benefits and drawbacks of this situation in depth yet, and I didn’t want to make a hasty decision. Once I left, there was no coming back. On the other hoof, if I stuck around, I could still decide either way whenever I wanted.

All I had to do was make sure not to go near that evil Tree, and everything would be fine.

I straightened my legs and back, standing with confidence. "Right. Let’s go."

I turned around and began to walk in the direction of the castle. If I recalled correctly, it wasn’t too far from here.

After taking a few steps, Rainbow called out from behind me. "Uh, Twi?"

I stopped and turned my head to look behind me. Rainbow and the two white ponies hadn’t moved.

Rainbow pointed with a hoof in the direction opposite of the one I was heading in. "The flares were that way."

Flares? What were those? I had no idea what she was talking about. In any case, they were irrelevant.

"The castle’s this way," I replied, pointing my own forehoof forward.

"That’s the way we came from, Twilight," Rainbow said.

I shrugged. This was a truly pointless argument, and I was already feeling done with it. The thing was, I didn’t know how the power dynamic worked within this group. Was Twilight Sparkle ranked lower or higher than Rainbow Dash? Regardless, my patience was wearing thin, and I couldn’t help but let my frustration show through.

"Are you coming or not?" I snapped, before facing forward and storming off.

I gained a bit of distance before I heard the sounds of three sets of hooves quickly following after me. I gently released some air out of my nose in relief. I was glad I didn’t lose my tenuous position here because of some absolute nonsense. Plus, it was good to know that I could be a little assertive while pretending to be Twilight and the group would still follow me.

Rainbow Dash settled into a hover just to the right of me. She was looking at me like she wanted to say more, but when I looked at her in return, she simply turned her head forward and began looking at the trees.

I was baffled. Why had she even contradicted me in the first place? She said we were meant to head for the castle, so I was taking us there despite how much I didn’t want to. What was the issue?

Whatever. I had no desire to worry about the thoughts of idiots.

As I walked, I noticed the pain in my forehooves had faded to a dull ache instead of an awful throb. It appeared that we spent long enough standing around and talking that they had some time to rest. That was good. Pain was annoying, and was certainly one of things I disliked the most so far about having a body again.

Though I wouldn’t say it was all bad. Other sensations were… interesting. Like, for example, the ground underneath my hooves. I focused my awareness on the bottoms of my hooves while I walked, aiming to feel the texture of the dirt as much as possible. I noticed earlier that the sensitivity of my hooves increased a lot when I concentrated on them like this. Weird.

But back to the dirt. It felt packed down, but soft, with a slight give to it when I put my weight on it. What made dirt feel this way? And why? What even was dirt, apart from brown stuff on the floor? Why was it brown? Why was it on the floor? It was fascinating.

"You’re not going to use your light?"

Rainbow’s voice broke me out of my reverie. I looked up at her, confused.

I took a few moments to think. What light could she be referring to? I played back my memories of my encounter with Twilight before I suddenly got it.

The bright light through the trees that prompted me to find a hiding spot when I saw it. Was that Twilight’s doing? If so, she was an undeniable fool. That light made her position visible from very far away. If she hadn’t used it, she might’ve been able to get the drop on me. Not to mention that the animals in the forest would be attracted to something like that. No wonder the group got into a fight.

I wouldn’t be repeating her mistake.

"No, I decided we should stay hidden. A light like that will announce our position to everything in this forest," I said.

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth as if to say something. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed before looking away from me.

I had no idea what her problem was this time, but at least she didn’t start with another senseless argument. Wonderful.

I turned to the left after passing a tree to keep us on the correct pathway toward the castle. Rainbow and the other two ponies seemed caught off guard by my sudden turn, and they scurried to catch up to me.

"Where are we going now?" Rainbow asked exasperatedly.

Wow. This winged pony sure was noisy. It almost made me wish the apathetic Rainbow Dash were here instead. As much as I hated her attitude, at least she didn’t engage in all this yapping.

"The castle," I said, never breaking my stride.

"I thought the castle was that way." Rainbow pointed in the direction we were walking a moment ago.

"And now it’s this way."

Rainbow groaned. "Twilight, you’re not making any sense. You’re not even using your map. How do you know it’s this way?"

A confusing thought came to mind. Did Rainbow not understand how the forest worked? Why would these ponies enter the forest if they didn’t know how to navigate it?

Granted, it wasn’t like this when I was first created. Something obviously changed during the time my body was destroyed. Did they think the forest worked the same way it did back then?

Should I even bother to explain it? I supposed I couldn’t get away with just blowing Rainbow off, as much as I wanted to. Twilight Sparkle would probably share information with her allies, and if I didn’t, Rainbow would start to get suspicious of me.

I cleared my throat. Explaining the gist of it ought to be good enough.

"The forest is full of magic that messes up places and time," I started. "At one moment, a place will be in a certain location in the forest. At the next moment, the place can move to another location. Or it can stay where it is. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty random whether or not a place will move, and how long it will stay where it is. It’s also impossible to predict when it will happen, or where it will end up.

"Similarly, there are areas where time will go faster than normal, and areas where time will go slower. The speed increase or decrease isn’t very substantial. You won’t go years into the future by spending a day in one of these areas. At most, a day will perhaps be a day and a half. The magic that makes these areas can also move around, independently of the magic that moves places.

"Now, on to the topic of navigation, which is what I’m sure you actually care about. If you want to go to a specific place in the forest, you can’t just walk toward it in a straight line. If you do, either it will move away before you’re able to reach it, or the place you’re passing through will move while you’re standing on it, taking you to a random location. You’ll just walk around aimlessly forever.

"Instead, you need to feel the magic of the forest around you. If you pay attention, you’ll be able to feel what I call ‘pathways.’ These pathways are magical links between all the places in the forest, and are disconnected from physical reality. This means that even if your destination moves, or the place you’re standing on moves, it won’t matter. You’re taking a magical route, not a physical route, so you can always get to your destination no matter what. Does that make sense to you?"

Luckily, my ability to feel the magic of the forest was not hampered by my inability to cast magic with my horn. I didn’t know what I would do if I was forced to be as clueless as these ponies.

Speaking of clueless ponies, the three of them were staring at me with bewildered expressions.

"Wow," Rainbow Dash said eventually. "I wasn’t expecting a sudden Twilight Lecture. When did you figure all that out?"

I made a turn to the left again as I searched for an answer. We were just about at the castle.

"Er… when I fell. It all suddenly came to me." A terrible answer, I knew, but I couldn’t think of anything more plausible quickly. I just hoped they were too dazed by my lecture to question it.

"That makes sense. I’ve had something similar happen to me before too," Rainbow Dash said. "And you don’t need your map to find these ‘pathways?’"

I wanted to laugh at how easily Rainbow bought my flimsy explanation. I managed to keep my mirth off my face, though.

But what was a map? I had no idea. I’d just dismiss it.

"No, that’s useless," I said.

Rainbow tilted her head. "You just gave up on it after spending so much time working on it?"

"Yes," I said. "There’s no point in keeping useless things."

Rainbow Dash paused before replying. "If you say so, Twilight."

This was obviously not the answer Rainbow was expecting Twilight to give, but it couldn’t be helped. I simply didn’t have enough information about Twilight Sparkle to act convincingly in these situations.

Before I could try to figure out what the correct answer might have been, we emerged into an open area.

A short green field extended out from the tree line, but was cut short by a broad canyon carving through the land. The field resumed on the other side of the chasm, but was once again quickly interrupted by a solid wooden wall made out of large logs. Sticks that had fire set to their tips were placed at regular intervals along the top of the wall, lighting the whole area up in a dim orange glow.

I could see the tops of the crumbling and half-destroyed spires of the Castle of the Two Sisters sticking up behind the wall. In addition to the castle, I also saw the darkened grey forms of the heads of a couple ponies standing behind the wall’s parapet. It seemed that these ponies were wearing the same shiny things that the two white ponies traveling with me were wearing, because I could easily see the orange light from the sticks reflecting from the shiny surfaces on their heads.

I was unsure of what was happening here with all this. It looked like the ponies were fortifying this place, but why would they build a wall around that old trashed castle so quickly? They certainly weren’t here when I was last in this area a few days ago.

More importantly, were these ponies supposed to be Rainbow Dash’s allies? I turned my head to question her, only to catch her alighting on the ground with a loud huff.

"Finally!" Rainbow exclaimed. "We actually made it back to camp tonight! I was sure we were going to have to keep wandering around the whole night. I seriously wasn’t looking forward to not getting any sleep and feeling even more totally exhausted."

She looked at me, and after a moment’s pause she flashed me a smirk.

"You know, I feel kinda bad saying this, but I was actually starting to doubt your abilities a little back there."

Rainbow averted her eyes as she brought a forehoof up to scratch at the back of her head. But the next moment her eyes snapped back to mine.

"But you pulled through and got us here safe and sound with that whole ‘magic pathway’ mumbo jumbo." She grinned widely, and one of her forehooves shot out to hit me on my shoulder before I could even think to dodge it. "Great work, Twilight!"

Earlier she lunged at me with her nose, and now with her hoof? A rush of indignation and anger washed over me at her second random attack against me.

"Halt!"

Any thought of action against Rainbow Dash was interrupted by a sudden harsh voice from the direction of the wooden wall. I looked toward it, and I saw quite a few more ponies standing behind the parapet. Every single one of them was wielding a dangerous-looking crossbow and they were all pointed right at us.

"We know you’re there!" one of the ponies on the wall shouted. "Identify yourselves!"

I swallowed. What did the stupid featherbrain lead me into?

Author's Note

I'm looking for beta readers. If you're interested in helping me out, please send me a DM.

Chapter 2: Fish Out of Water

I stood frozen. My mind was racing, trying to figure a way out of this situation. If I tried to run, there was no doubt those crossbow ponies would easily hit me. Again, I had no magic to defend myself with. However, I was just a few steps away from the tree line. If I could make it back there, I could use the tree trunks as cover while I escaped.

I gave Rainbow Dash a sidelong glance, and an inkling of an idea started to form. Could I quickly grab her and use her body as a shield from the crossbow bolts? It would be extremely risky, considering how powerful Rainbow was, not to mention the other two ponies behind me would also be an obstacle. But right now Rainbow seemed to trust me, so I had the advantage of a surprise attack. It might be possible if I moved fast enough.

"Hey, it’s us!" Rainbow Dash shouted toward the ponies on the wall. "Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash!"

Were those crossbow ponies Rainbow’s allies after all? I decided to wait and see how they would respond to Rainbow’s call. If they continued to show hostility, I would take my chances with my plan.

A moment later, a new pony joined the crossbow group up on the wall. I could make out the horn of a unicorn on its head, which promptly lit up and projected a cone of light aimed at my group.

I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them with a forehoof at the pain of having a bright light suddenly shone right into my face in the middle of the darkness of the night. I grit my teeth as I tried to squint through the pain, but the discomfort was too intense for me to be able to open my eyes and see anything.

This wasn’t good. It must’ve been a tactic to blind their opponents before they attacked. I braced myself to take action, although what action that would be without my vision, I had no idea.

Suddenly, the intensity of the light lowered significantly.

"Princess Twilight!" the group of crossbow ponies cheered almost simultaneously.

I managed to open my eyes enough to see the blurry image of the group quickly lowering their crossbows and raising their hooves in delight. At the same time, I felt a droplet of warm liquid slip out from the corners of my eyes and run down the fur on my cheeks, but I ignored the sensation.

I was thoroughly confused. Why would seeing Twilight make them so happy? Or was this some kind of deception? I decided to remain on guard for now and see where this led.

"Sorry for the unfriendly reception, Princess Twilight," a pony on the wall yelled down. "We’ve been attacked a few times by the creatures of the forest since you left, so we’ve been jumpy. But we’re glad you’re safe. Quickly, come inside."

He motioned to a simple wooden gate that sat at the other end of a small rope bridge that connected my side of the canyon with theirs. Several of the ponies disappeared from view from atop the wall, and then a moment later the gate began to slowly open outward.

I could see the pony who spoke to me give instructions to some of the others, but I was too far to hear what was said, since he wasn’t yelling. One of the ponies nodded and left. This pony was obviously the leader here.

I was hesitant to enter through the gate like he wanted me to, since I would be completely trapped once inside with no escape routes. However, Rainbow walked right on past me and gave me another smile.

"What’s the hold up, Twi?" she asked as she walked toward the gate. "Let’s go hit the hay already!"

Well, if Twilight was expected to have no issues with going into this place, then I couldn’t act doubtful. And if Rainbow trusted these ponies, then they’d probably trust me too. They did look happy to see Twilight, after all. I’ve made it this far with the charade, so might as well keep going. I just had to hope my assumptions were correct and I wouldn’t be trapped and harmed in there.

I steeled myself and slowly began following Rainbow toward the gate. The two shiny ponies in my group followed after me.

Rainbow had already disappeared inside the gate and behind the wall by the time I cautiously made my way across the bridge. I watched the ponies atop the walls as I did so, searching for any sign of hostility or a trap, but they seemed to be focused on keeping watch on the forest behind me instead of paying attention to me. Their willingness to let their guard down that much increased my confidence that this wasn’t a trick.

Finally, I made my way through the gate and around the bend. What I saw caused me to suddenly stop and jerk my head back in surprise.

There were a lot of ponies here. More ponies than I ever thought were even possible to bring together in one place. A few of them, especially those keeping watch around the walls, were wearing that shiny stuff, but the majority of them had nothing on. Instead, they all seemed to be groggily getting out of a large cluster of prisms spread out around the field. The prisms were made out of a white fabric and had openings covered by flaps.

I vaguely remembered seeing cloth prisms similar to these in the past. It was difficult to recall since I barely paid them any mind at the time, but I believed there were a few of them set up down in the canyon near the Tree, which I passed obliviously by on the way to my destruction.

The ponies were looking around when I came in through the gate, but a few of them were quickly starting to notice me. As soon they saw me their faces broke out into wide smiles and they pointed me out to the ponies beside them. Pretty soon the whole crowd was erupting with joyful cheers.

I was absolutely bewildered, and all I could do was stand there and stare. What was going on?

I noticed Rainbow Dash off in the middle of the group, being swarmed by a large gathering of ponies. She seemed to be talking excitedly and making wild gestures, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying due to the noise of the cheers. Whatever it was had the ponies totally enthralled.

"Company, attention!"

The sudden intense shout shut everything down immediately. I could only feel surprise at how fast all the ponies stopped making noise and lined up. They all stood up straight, unmoving, with one forehoof raised up to their foreheads. One exception was Rainbow Dash, who stood off to the side away from the rest of the ponies. She had the same rigid posture but without her forehoof raised, and she seemed a bit more relaxed.

The shiny ponies who had been traveling with me also took up the posture with their forehooves raised, but they remained at my sides.

I spotted two ponies who started moving toward me, walking between the rows of lined up ponies. The one in the lead wore a different kind of shiny outfit, mostly colored purple with gold accents. She was a mulberry unicorn with a broken horn, a hard expression, and piercing blue eyes that were locked onto me. The pony following her was another white pony with the standard gold shiny outfit.

I couldn’t help but shrink back from that gaze as the pony approached me. My mind flashed back to that wretched Chrysalis. The mulberry pony seemed similarly cruel and like somepony not to be messed with. This was the first time I felt so intimidated by a creature since Chrysalis.

I swallowed as she came to stand before me. I couldn’t afford to show weakness to a pony like this. I straightened my back and did all I could to stare her down with confidence.

A moment later, the unicorn snapped her hoof up to her forehead. "Princess Twilight, ma’am!"

She proceeded to stare at me, unmoving, her eyes boring into mine. The two of us remained that way for a little while, both of us motionless and glaring. I started to get the feeling that she expected me to do something, but I had no idea what she wanted. From the intensity of her gaze, I also got the feeling that if I didn’t respond correctly I would be in big trouble.

With no idea what to do, I decided I would simply acknowledge her greeting and hope that would be somewhat satisfactory. I gave her a firm nod.

As soon as I nodded, she brought her hoof back to ground and relaxed her posture a little. Her expression softened.

"I’m glad you’re back, Your Highness," she said. "We got really worried when we didn’t see you send any flares up at the scheduled times. I was about to send a few platoons out to search for you at first light, but I’m glad that’s not necessary now."

Whoa, wait. This pony just called me ‘your highness.’ Chrysalis always insisted that we call her ‘your majesty,’ and the two phrases sounded very similar. I always thought Chrysalis wanted us to call her that because of her enormous ego, but did the title actually mean something?

On another note, I’ve heard ponies call me ‘princess’ on several occasions. On every one of those occasions I was too preoccupied with other things to think about or question the behavior, and I was starting to assume it was just a part of Twilight’s name I didn’t know about, but now I was starting to wonder. Did ‘princess’ have some sort of meaning too?

Of course, I couldn’t ask anypony here since Twilight should know her own name. I would have to find answers some other way.

The unicorn turned her gaze to the two shiny ponies standing at my sides.

"Sergeant, corporal," she started. "You’re dismissed from guarding the princess. Meet me at my tent for debriefing."

"Yes, ma’am!" the two shouted, but they stayed where they stood.

She flicked her gaze to me again. "Your Highness and Rainbow Dash should get any rest you can. We’re just a few hours from morning, and I’d like to discuss with you what our next moves are bright and early. Meanwhile I’ll find out what happened out there from your two guards."

Unable to come up with any better response, I simply nodded again.

The unicorn turned away from me and toward the ponies that were still standing stock-still in their lines. I was impressed at how long they were able to remain like that.

"Everypony back to sleep!" she bellowed. "I don’t want my company dead on their hooves and useless during the day! Dismissed!"

Immediately, all the ponies in the rows turned around in unison before heading back to their cloth prisms. I had to wonder how it was possible for them to be so coordinated. Were they using some sort of magic to unify their movements?

While I was watching the show, Rainbow Dash came up beside me and the mulberry unicorn turned back to me.

"Goodnight, Your Highness," the unicorn said, and she dipped her head low to me for several moments before she too headed off together with the one shiny pony who followed her out here but hadn’t said a word. She was tailed by the two other ponies who had been in my group.

Rainbow stepped in front of me. "C’mon, let’s go too."

She turned and started walking toward the trashed castle. I couldn’t think of anything better I could be doing, so I decided to follow her. Some quiet rest would be nice. I could use the time to think about everything that had happened so far, since I was feeling a little overwhelmed with everything happening so fast. Then I could figure out the best path forward.

As we approached the large, dilapidated doorway that led the way into the derelict castle, I realized that I had never actually been inside before. The first time I was here I went down into the canyon to find that Tree, and the second time I made sure to stay away. With the castle being up in this clearing and with that Tree being down in a cave in the canyon, I figured I wouldn’t be in any danger from the Tree while I was inside the castle. The interior might even be interesting to look at, since I’d never been inside of a castle before at all.

Rainbow Dash pushed the large wooden doors open, and all my thoughts immediately ceased.

Right in the middle of the ruins stood a giant crystalline tree. The evil Tree of Harmony was here! How?!

I didn’t hesitate. I bolted, galloping as fast as my hooves would take me back into the field full of fabric prisms. I was quickly forced to stop as I reached the wooden wall, and I pressed myself against it to get as far away as possible from the Tree. The air was coming in and out of my mouth rapidly, and the beating thing in my chest was thundering in my ears.

I kept my gaze fixated on the castle doors, waiting for the moment those agonizing tendrils of light would burst forth and rush after me. There was no way I’d allow myself to be destroyed like that again. I kept my shoulders lowered and my legs primed, ready to outrun the Tree in any direction. I would do whatever it took to escape.

Instead of the Tree’s malevolent tendrils, however, I saw Rainbow Dash emerge from the castle doorway and look around as if confused. She spotted me, and she started flapping her wings to quickly fly over to me. I split my attention between watching her and continuing to keep an eye on the doorway.

"Twilight!" she exclaimed as she landed in front of me. "What happened? Are you okay?"

I was still taking air in heavily, so it took me a moment before I could respond.

"Nothing. I’m fine," I said.

"Bull!" Rainbow shouted. "You tore out of there like a bat out of Tartarus, and you’re still freaking out. What’s going on?"

By now, I was beginning to notice many of the ponies in the fabric prisms poking their heads out of their openings and looking at me and Rainbow. Luckily they still didn’t seem to be hostile and were simply watching.

"Nothing," I said again.

Surprisingly, speaking with Rainbow like this was actually doing a pretty good job of bringing me back from my state of absolute panic. She was definitely asking me stupid questions I had no intentions of answering, but this interaction was nonetheless very beneficial. It helped that the Tree had made no movements so far. Last time it grabbed me quite quickly, yet now nothing was happening. I continued to keep an eye on the castle doorway just in case, but my rational mind slowly began to reassert itself.

"Twilight, I haven’t seen you fly off the handle this badly in years," Rainbow said with a lowered voice, no longer shouting. "Something is wrong, and I want to help. Please tell me."

And as my rational thinking restarted, I realized how huge a blunder I just made. Rainbow obviously wasn’t afraid of the Tree, and by her reaction, Twilight would never act this way because she encountered the Tree either. The Tree must not be their enemy.

I could consider the implications of that later. Right now I had to get myself out of this hole I dug myself into. My thoughts whirled as I scrambled to come up with an intelligent plan, but I was still shaking on my hooves and I continued to feel like I was ready to gallop for my life at a moment’s notice. It felt like I was trying to think through a fog in this state.

All I could come up with was to insist I was fine until Rainbow left me alone.

I shook my head at Rainbow. "Nothing’s wrong."

Just then, I heard hoofsteps approaching me from the left. I turned my head to see the mulberry unicorn approaching me, but this time she was without her purple headpiece. Another grey unicorn was on her tail.

"Twilight?" she asked lightly, not at all like the intense tone of voice she was using just a few minutes ago. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

I tried my best to lessen my shaking and regulate the air I was drawing in back to normal levels. My efforts were only mildly successful.

"I was just telling Rainbow Dash," I said. "It’s nothing. I’m fine."

"Like hay it’s nothing," Rainbow muttered.

The unicorn eyed me for a moment before her gaze flicked to Rainbow.

"Could you tell me what happened, Rainbow? I didn’t see."

Rainbow groaned before lifting off the ground and into a hover.

"I have no idea!" she groused as she crossed her hooves. "One moment we were both walking to the Treehouse to get some sleep, and the next moment I look back to say something to Twilight just in time to see her running back the way we came at full gallop. I followed her out of the castle and spotted her pressed up against the wall in this exact spot shaking and cowering like a foal who came snout-to-snout with a timberwolf."

The unicorn’s attention turned back to me. "Did you see something dangerous, Twilight? Did it harm you?"

Maybe I could use that as my story? I decided to latch on to it.

"I thought I did at first," I said. "But I was mistaken. I overreacted. Everything is fine."

The unicorn narrowed her eyes a smidge. "If there’s something dangerous in this camp, Twilight, I need to know."

"There isn’t." I shook my head. "Like I said, I was mistaken."

The unicorn held my gaze for a moment before she nodded. "Alright then."

Rainbow blinked. "Wha—? Alright? What do you mean ‘alright,’ Tempest? Twilight is obviously hiding something from us!"

So the mulberry unicorn’s name was Tempest? I couldn’t recall Chrysalis ever mentioning that name. I had no idea who she was.

I could see the fur on Tempest’s cheeks start to take on a dark reddish hue. It was difficult to spot through the fur’s natural color, but it quickly grew in intensity. I also had no idea what this meant. Why would a pony’s cheeks become red?

"Lieutenant Rainbow Dash," Tempest hissed through clenched teeth. "Please stop making a scene in front of the entire company."

Rainbow Dash cringed as if struck. She craned her neck to look behind her as she hovered, and I followed her gaze. All the ponies in the white prisms were still poking their heads out of the flaps and silently watching us. I quickly averted my eyes. I couldn’t explain it, but now that I was no longer panicking, being stared at by so many ponies at once made me feel… strange.

Rainbow stopped her hover and landed abruptly before she proceeded to stare at the dirt. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Tempest gave a huff of air. She turned toward the grey unicorn who had been standing wordlessly off to her side this whole time.

"Sergeant Major," she said.

The grey unicorn took a step forward.

"Make sure everypony gets back to bed. I’m going to have words with these two."

The unicorn briefly brought a hoof up to its forehead before stepping away. Tempest turned back to me and Rainbow.

"Come on," Tempest said as she nodded toward the castle. "Let’s go talk."

She began to walk toward the castle, with Rainbow starting to trail behind her a moment later. My thoughts began to race as I fully took in the situation I was in. I knew I couldn’t follow them. I knew I had to refuse, and I knew how stupid and risky that would be. I was undoubtedly already suspected, and refusing to comply with Tempest’s demand would raise her suspicion into a conviction. But none of that mattered if I went near the Tree and it destroyed me again. I would throw away anything and everything to avoid that fate.

I felt trapped. This whole thing with pretending to be Twilight had grown entirely out of control, and I was completely overwhelmed and in over my head. If I had the chance to meet Rainbow back in that clearing again and had to decide to go with her or leave, there was no doubt I would be out of there as fast as my legs could take me.

Still, refusing Tempest’s demand was the best logical choice. With the Tree lay certain destruction. Out here, there was still a chance I could survive, however tiny that chance was. I had no confidence in my ability to talk or bluff my way out of their suspicion. I didn’t even understand most of what was going on, never mind the detailed knowledge I would have required of Twilight’s personality and behaviors in order to convincingly play off my foolish panic.

My only hope rested in my ability to escape this place, but that was a very minuscule hope. I was trapped and surrounded within these wooden walls, with no flight and no magic. I spotted the occasional staircase leading up to the wooden parapet, but even if I sprinted as fast as I could up one of them, I would still be way too slow. The ponies would have more than enough time to attack me with their crossbows or the unicorns’ magic. Also, one of the ponies that was stationed atop the parapet would likely block my way on the stairs and stab me with its spear.

If I somehow made it past all that and to the top of the wall, I would have to jump down to the ground. The wall was quite tall, so the risk of injury would be high. After that I would have to run across the bridge spanning the chasm while likely limping from my injuries. The bridge was a narrow choke point, so they could send winged ponies ahead of me to block my way across. All the while I would also be under attack from crossbows and magic.

In other words, there really was no hope for me. But that was fine. I would rather die to crossbows and spears than suffer the Tree again.

I swallowed the liquid in my mouth and pushed some air out of my nose as I worked up the courage to speak and deny Tempest. As I fixed my posture to stand up straight and squared my shoulders, I felt a strange and uncomfortable hollow sensation inside my belly. Yet another thing I would never understand.

If nothing else, I would not show them any fear or weakness.

"Tempest," I said, and my voice rang. I didn’t shout, but I spoke loudly and firmly, and it sounded like the air carried it effortlessly. There was no shakiness or hint of distress to my voice. It was confident. In charge. Strong.

Tempest stopped mid-stride and turned her head back to look at me.

"I’m not going near the castle," I stated.

Tempest paused for a moment, then turned around to consider me fully. I made sure to look her right in the eyes.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because I say so," I said simply. There was no need to explain myself at this point.

Tempest furrowed her brow and stood there, holding my gaze for a few long moments. Eventually, she spoke. "What about my tent, then?"

Tent? Tempest used that word once before. What was that?

I tilted my head in confusion.

"Did you forget where my tent is?" she asked. Then she turned and pointed her hoof. "Over there. Is that far enough from the castle for you?"

I followed her hoof with my eyes, and I spotted one of the white fabric prisms. However, this one was unique in that it was quite a bit larger than all the others, and it stood a little bit away from the rest of them at the head of the rows. It was also pretty close to the castle. It didn’t sit right up against the castle’s crumbling walls, but it was still close enough where I felt that the Tree’s tentacles could easily stretch out and grab me.

Also, it seemed that those fabric prisms were called tents. Learning this piece of information made me feel strangely happy. Probably because it was one more thing I managed to learn before my imminent destruction.

Tempest had turned back to face me after she pointed, and I felt the corners of my mouth naturally tilt upward as I looked into her eyes again. I had no idea why this was suddenly happening, but it felt good, so I did nothing to resist the sensation.

"Your tent," I started, testing the new word out. "Is still too close to the castle. I want to remain near the wall."

Tempest raised her eyebrow.

"Talk about mood whiplash," Rainbow Dash muttered from beside her.

Did I do something strange?

"Alright Twilight," Tempest said as she released some air from her nose. "We’ll stay near the wall."

She then looked in both directions along the wall before focusing on me again.

"But I’d like to talk in private, away from the troops. Could we move away from the tents? Maybe over there?" she pointed to a section of the wall that had nothing nearby save for a grassy field.

I saw no issue with moving over there. My dismal chances of escape would not really be affected either way. I nodded.

"Great," Tempest said, and she began to move along the wall toward the indicated spot. I walked with purpose as I followed her, and Rainbow Dash brought up the rear.

It took less than a minute to reach the area. When we did, Tempest spun around to face the two of us.

"Alright. First," Tempest started. "Rainbow Dash."

She locked her intense gaze onto Rainbow, and Rainbow averted her eyes in the face of it.

"I can’t believe I have to lecture you about this, Rainbow," Tempest said. "You should know better than to publicly contradict a commanding officer in front of the troops. You should know how bad that makes me look and how embarrassing it is."

Rainbow’s ears pinned back as she nodded. There was that strange ear behavior again. So it happened to other ponies too?

Also, I found it quite difficult to follow what Tempest was upset at Rainbow Dash for. Why would contradicting her make her look bad? I figured I should stop trying to overthink it and just listen.

"I know you’re a Wonderbolt and not under my chain of command," Tempest continued. "But that’s no excuse to be contradicting me. I value your friendship, but I will be telling Captain Spitfire about your behavior if it happens again. Am I understood?"

"Yes ma’am." Rainbow gave a single nod. "I’m sorry. I was caught up trying to find out what was wrong with Twilight and forgot everypony was watching."

"Pay more attention to your surroundings then!" Tempest snapped.

Rainbow Dash was silent. After a moment, Tempest closed her eyes and remained motionless.

Another moment later, her eyes opened and focused on me.

"Now you," Tempest said. Her voice was hard.

This was it. I readied myself to run, however futile it was.

"Twilight, you appointed me as Captain of the Guard because you thought I’d be the most capable in protecting you," began Tempest. "So that’s what I’m here to do. That’s what all one hundred and fifty royal guardsponies in this camp right now are here to do."

Hold on. I suddenly thought I was imagining things. Did she really say that all these ponies were specifically here just to protect Twilight? A hundred and fifty of them?

"But I can’t do my job if you keep secrets from me," Tempest continued. "You’re obviously terrified to go near the castle, and I don’t understand why you won’t tell me the reason. I know how powerful you are. Anything that can scare you this badly has to be a big deal, but you’re insisting that everything is fine. Let me do my job. What is going on?"

Tempest maintained steady eye contact with me. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to back down until she got an answer, but I had no clue what to say to her.

To my surprise, Tempest and Rainbow still didn’t suspect that I had replaced Twilight. I thought Tempest was about to expose me, but instead she was concerned about being unable to protect me properly. I didn’t understand why their belief in Twilight was so unshakable, but this was something I could exploit. Therefore, I needed to prolong this belief as long as possible, and so I couldn’t tell Tempest that I was avoiding the Tree. If my earlier guess was correct and these ponies really were allied with it, doing so would immediately reveal that something wasn’t right.

If Tempest was telling the truth and all of these ponies were here for the express purpose of protecting Twilight Sparkle, then that changed things. Up until now I had been playing it safe and taking a passive approach because I didn’t know what Twilight’s status was within this group of ponies. If everypony was here for Twilight’s sake though, then I could reasonably conclude that Twilight was at the very top of the hierarchy.

I tried to recall all my interactions with the ponies so far and tried to view them from this perspective to see if my assumption made sense.

From the very beginning when I met Rainbow and the two others in the clearing, it seemed that the ponies were always concerned for Twilight’s safety. The first thing Rainbow asked me was if I was injured, and then Tempest asked me if I was hurt after I bolted from the castle.

Also, they always seemed to listen to me in the end, even if they voiced their disagreement. Rainbow followed me in the forest, and Tempest accommodated me by staying near the wall even though she wanted to go speak in the castle at first. I tried to imagine what would have happened if somepony else were in charge, like Chrysalis. Chrysalis would have dragged me kicking and screaming into the castle no matter what I did.

There was also the whole business with calling me ‘Your Highness,’ and Tempest lowering her head to me when she said good night. I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but that action seemed quite subservient.

Everything lined up, and I suddenly had an idea for what to tell Tempest. It was my riskiest idea yet, and it would test just how far I could push things. There was still a chance all of my observations were circumstantial and Twilight was not actually the leader, and if that were the case then I would just be digging a bigger hole for myself. But if Twilight was the leader — which is what it seemed like to me — then Tempest would have no choice but to accept my answer.

"I can’t tell you," I said.

Tempest paused, then raised her eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because I can’t."

"Seriously Twilight?" Rainbow Dash groaned.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you realize you’re acting like a filly right now?" Rainbow asked. "This is a military expedition, not a game. How are we supposed to feel if our expedition leader acts like this?"

I cheered internally. I was right! I could impose my own will, and as long as the ponies continued to believe I was Twilight they had no grounds to question me.

I gave Rainbow a shrug. "I don’t know what to tell you. I’m tired of discussing this. Drop it."

Rainbow recoiled, and her ears dropped. She glanced at Tempest.

"Permission to go to bed, captain?"

Tempest was scowling at me. It took her a moment before she looked to Rainbow.

"Yes, let’s," she said, her tone frosty.

Rainbow wasted no timing in flapping her wings and spinning around to fly toward the castle.

Did I push it too far? I didn’t care at all what they thought of me, but if what I said was outside of the range of typical behaviors for Twilight then that was a problem. Perhaps I got a little overexcited there and it was still too soon to be so firm. I groaned inwardly as I decided to continue with a softer approach until I got more data on how Twilight would act.

"Will you be staying in this spot?" Tempest asked me.

I nodded.

"Alright. I’ll have some ponies bring you your tent and have them guard you," she said, before she pulled a small golden circular object from out of her armor. "We wake up in three hours. Get some sleep."

I had no idea what sleep was, but I nodded anyway. Tempest put the object away and then walked off.

As I stood there, I looked around and observed that I was essentially alone. The camp was silent, with no ponies around save for the occasional one wearing the shiny outfit standing on the parapet. They seemed to be entirely focused on watching the outside of the wall, and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me or to the interior of the camp.

If I was going to be left alone and unbothered for some time, I figured this would be a good opportunity to finally think through everything that had happened since I replaced Twilight and figure out my best course of action.

Before I could delve into my thoughts, however, a group of four shiny ponies approached me. When they reached me, all of them bowed their heads low. One of them was carrying a bundle of fabric on their back.

"Your Highness," said the one in the middle of the group. "We’ll set your tent up over here and then we’ll guard you until sunrise."

I felt a bubble of pleasure in my barrel at their subservient behavior. I nodded, and they lifted their heads in unison before beginning to work with the bundle of fabric.

In just a few minutes, the ponies finished putting together a tent that was bigger than the one that Tempest pointed out to me as hers. The four ponies took positions around the tent’s opening and one of them used a foreleg to hold the flaps open for me.

"All ready for you, Your Highness," the pony holding the flaps said with a bow.

I stepped inside, and the flaps closed behind me. The space was roomy, but there wasn’t anything in the interior except for several square and fluffy objects along with other large sheets of fabric that were a lot fluffier than the stuff that the tent was made out of.

I decided that the fluffy sheets would be a good place to lay down to do my thinking, so I walked over to them and lowered myself onto my belly. The sheets were softer than I was expecting and felt very nice against my fur. It made me want to relax into them and not worry about anything. I laid my head down against my forelegs and released a long stream of air from my nose that carried the tension away from my body.

But I brought myself to my senses before I could slip away into the comfort. This was no time to be distracted. I had to figure out my plan before Tempest came to talk to me again. I replayed all of my memories of tonight’s events and tried to view them as objectively as I could.

Despite my earlier feeling of being overwhelmed and wishing that I had never gone along with this, the confirmation of my position as the leader here changed my perspective on everything.

First of all, this was undoubtedly a very lucky situation that I found myself in, and I stumbled into it via nothing but chance despite my numerous mistakes. There was no way I could have engineered things to turn out this way no matter how hard I tried, which meant that my current position was a valuable one and I should not discard it without a great reason.

I was the leader of the one hundred and fifty ponies in this camp, and all of the ponies I’ve seen so far appeared to take themselves and their obedience to me very seriously. They were not at all like those copies created alongside me, who only wanted to goof off and didn’t care at all about the things that mattered. This was good, since I wouldn’t have to try and wrangle my subordinates to get things done, and it meant I could prepare quickly and efficiently to fight Twilight and Chrysalis.

My main focus would need to be finding some way to restore my magic and my flight. Since the ponies trusted me, I could subtly try to question them for information or have them go search for any material that might be useful to me. Perhaps I could even have them find the Elements of Harmony for me. And since I was almost certain that they were hostile to Chrysalis, I could also have them keep a lookout for her so she doesn’t get me in a surprise attack.

The only two ponies I’d need to keep an eye on were Tempest and Rainbow Dash. Both of them had expressed their disagreements with me, but I figured this made sense if they knew Twilight well and were her — ugh — friends. In the end they always capitulated, so they were loyal, but I would need to try my hardest to behave like Twilight when they were around. They would also be the most likely to start suspecting me if I constantly made mistakes. This made them dangerous.

Thinking of Rainbow Dash specifically, she was one of the extraordinarily powerful ponies capable of defeating Chrysalis’ armies on her own. She was an incredibly valuable asset to keep close, and despite her complaints, she listened to me. If I could use her to vouch for me with the other five super-powered ponies, I would be safe from everything save for the real Twilight. Safety was the most important, since it would allow me to focus on getting my magic back without constantly worrying about being attacked.

Unfortunately, I had made Rainbow upset. I didn’t fully understand why, nor did I have any clue how I would rectify the situation, but I would need to do so as fast as possible and get in her good graces again.

Once Rainbow was no longer upset at me and I secured the protection of those ponies, though, it would be best if I had as few interactions with them as possible. They knew Twilight, and every moment I spent with them was another opportunity for me to mess up and for them to pick up that something was wrong. No, I would make up some excuse and distance myself from them, but I’d keep them close enough at hoof to use as my defence when necessary. I could also try to find out the group’s weaknesses or any cracks in their friendships with each other that I could exploit when Twilight returns and has them fight against me. The real Twilight would easily be able to prove that I’m the copy once she returned, but by then I’d ideally be strong and ready to defend myself.

Thinking of drawbacks to this position, there were several. The most major was obviously that I had no idea how to act like Twilight, and the longer I stuck around the more actions I would take that were contrary to Twilight’s personality. This would cause the ponies’ suspicion to grow over time. I had no idea if it was even possible to improve this shortcoming, but I would have to figure out a way to try. For now, I would have to carefully restrain myself and always worry about doing the ‘right’ thing.

The next was that it would be difficult to keep the fact that I had no magic and no ability to fly hidden. Tempest already mentioned that I was supposed to be powerful. Ponies would be expecting me to use magic and fly, and excuses would only work for so long.

Another was my general lack of knowledge. I didn’t even know how my own body worked. Ponies would expect me to know these things, and if they caught on that I didn’t that would be a massive giveaway. I would need to find a way to learn quickly and secretly.

So overall, the main dangers of this position came from letting my identity slip, and the main benefits came in the form of safety, freedom of mobility, resources, and information. If I left right now and went out on my own, it would be great that I wouldn’t have to worry about being discovered, but instead I would always have to worry about being attacked. I would have no knowledge, no resources to acquire knowledge with, and no idea where to even look for knowledge. My mobility would be restricted because it would be safest to always avoid ponies, while right now I can walk among them with ease.

Thus, the only conclusion I could come to was that remaining in this position was the best and most logical choice. The opportunities it provided far outweighed the risks.

I felt glad to finally set out on a definitive path instead of floundering in uncertainty. I still felt somewhat overwhelmed, and I was sure that more overwhelming things would happen in the future, but now that I knew what direction I wanted to take I could focus on playing the part of Twilight as best I could instead of second-guessing my choices.

As I continued to idly ruminate through my thoughts to see if I missed anything I should’ve considered, I lifted my head from my forelegs before moving them slightly astride. I then lowered my head to the fluffy fabric and rested my cheek against it. I closed my eyes almost involuntarily at the sensation. It felt absolutely wonderful. I’d never felt anything this pleasing before.

My mind began to swirl with pointless thoughts as I basked in the sensation, and I began to feel a strange and indescribable lightness of being.

"Your Highness."

The sudden voice mercilessly crashed through my contented rest.

I jerked my head up and looked toward the tent’s entrance. One of the shiny ponies was standing there, one foreleg holding the flaps open. The lower half of the sky behind it was lit up with the faintest tint of dark blue.

For some reason I couldn’t comprehend, an abrupt feeling of mild pain and pressure occurred in my head. I brought one of my forehooves up against my temple, but that had no effect. I moaned as I closed my eyes.

"Your Highness?"

I opened my eyes again to look at the shiny pony.

"Captain Tempest told us to wake you since it’s morning, and to tell you that she’ll be by in a couple of minutes." The pony paused. "Are you alright?"

My mouth felt dry. There was none of that liquid that was usually there. Why?

"I-I’m fine," I said with a hitch in my voice.

I shook my head very slowly so as to not aggravate the pain in my head before I pulled my legs underneath my barrel and lifted myself up to stand on my hooves.

"I’m ready," I managed to say with more clarity. Turned out that moving my tongue around a little helped bring the liquid back.

The shiny pony nodded and stepped back, allowing the flaps to fall closed. I was suddenly alone again.

I looked around. What was the point of disturbing me if they were going to keep me waiting?

I moved toward the tent flaps and reached my forehoof to throw them open, but just before I could somepony else beat me to it from the other side.

Tempest strode through the entrance with such momentum that she nearly crashed right into me. Luckily she seemed to notice at the last second and stopped nose-to-nose with me.

"Your Highness," she said with a dip of her head.

Wasn’t Tempest upset a little while ago? Why would she be acting deferential now?

"I’m glad you got up on time," she said. "Let’s get this meeting sorted out quickly. Daylight’s burning."

I stepped backward a few paces to allow her to fully enter the tent. She moved off to the side, and another pony entered after her. It was that grey unicorn who was following Tempest before, and he was carrying a square wooden table in his magic. After he entered he planted the table down in the middle of the tent’s interior.

Behind the grey unicorn was Rainbow Dash. I looked at her, but she didn’t return my gaze. Instead she wordlessly positioned herself near the table.

One more pony entered my tent. It was a white winged pony wearing the typical shiny outfit, but I had never seen this one before.

I felt like the previously spacious tent was now starting to feel crowded. I didn’t like being packed in like this.

"Alright, everypony’s here," Tempest started. "Princess Twilight Sparkle and Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, I got the story of what happened last night from your escorts’ debrief. Correct me if I’m missing anything, but to summarize: you went out to investigate the anomalous magical readings as planned, using Princess Twilight’s new invention — the holo-map — as a navigational aid. You successfully reached the target area and collected data, but when you tried to retrace your steps to return to camp, you couldn’t find us. You never saw our flares either, even though we sent them up every hour as agreed.

"You spent all evening walking around in circles until nightfall, at which point you decided to sleep in the field. During your rest, one of your guards spotted all of our flares going off at once, which should have been impossible. Princess Twilight decided to pursue the flares before you lost sight of them again, and as you did so you got attacked by a tatzlwurm.

"You defeated the creature, and then Princess Twilight figured out that the anomalous magic of the forest had created ‘magical pathways’ and areas with time dilation. The time dilation would explain the issues with the flares. Princess Twilight then used this new information to lead the group back to the camp, and you arrived safely.

"Am I correct in this summary?" Tempest gazed at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow gave a nod. "Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened."

Tempest switched her gaze to me.

I nodded as well, even though I had no knowledge of any of the events until after the supposed attack.

As a side note, I got the feeling that ‘princess’ was some sort of term of respect or rank, similar to ‘lieutenant’ or ‘captain.’ And since Rainbow Dash stated that I was the leader, then ‘princess’ must have been the highest rank here. Now how did ‘princess’ relate to ‘your highness?’ They seemed somewhat interchangeable, or at least connected, but I couldn’t put my hoof on it.

"Aside from the pathways and time dilation, did you learn anything else about the forest from the data you gathered at your objective yesterday?" Tempest asked.

Data on the forest? I had no such thing. I navigated the forest by simply feeling it.

I shook my head. "The knowledge of how to navigate the forest was the main discovery."

"Alright," Tempest said. "Could you draw these pathways on the map?"

Tempest motioned to the table, and I examined it closely for the first time. ‘Map’ was a word Rainbow Dash had used while we were walking to the castle, but I didn’t know what it meant.

There was a large piece of paper laid on top of the table, and the paper was marked up with what I assumed was black ink. It took me a moment to recognize what the ink was depicting. There was a small drawing of the castle where we were, and the chasm that surrounded us. Then trees filled most of the space around us, with the occasional clearing breaking up the monotony. There was also a singular triangle-type shape in the middle of an expanse of trees somewhat far from the castle. I had no idea what that was supposed to be.

Three of the sides of the map had trees all the way to the edge, but at one edge the line of trees stopped short. There was a winding line that began at this map edge, cut through the expanse of trees, and then ended all the way at the castle. I was unsure what this was representing as well.

I found this concept quite interesting and impressive. With a resource like this — this map — a pony could plot their route between two points using landmarks and direction and greatly reduce their chances of getting lost. It would have worked wonderfully within the old state of the forest.

Unfortunately, the map was currently completely inaccurate and useless. What it was depicting was not the reality of the forest as I felt it around me at all.

I turned my eyes to Tempest.

"I can’t draw the pathways," I told her. "As I explained to Rainbow Dash and the other ponies earlier, the locations of everything in the forest are always changing. That includes the pathways themselves. This map is entirely inaccurate."

Tempest furrowed her brow.

"I see," she said. "That will pose a problem."

I took a moment to think. If I was understanding things correctly, these ponies wanted to be able to navigate the forest, but they currently had no way to do so. I didn’t know what they wanted to do in this place, but since Twilight was their leader, they would expect her to solve their problem. Normally I wouldn’t care at all what somepony expected of me, but unfortunately it was important to acquiesce as Twilight or else they might start to question my leadership capability.

It helped that the solution was extremely simple.

"Tempest," I said, and she focused on me again. "The ponies should have told you that I can feel the pathways by focusing on the forest’s magic around me. A unicorn should be able to do the same thing."

Instead of Tempest replying, it was the grey unicorn who took a step forward.

"Your Highness, I’ve already tried that when I first heard about it from Sergeant Shield Wall," he said with a bow of his head. "And so have a few of the other unicorn guards. None of us can feel the magic of the forest."

I blinked. I didn’t see that coming.

"Are you sure you’re doing it the right way?" I asked. "Close your eyes, don’t move, and focus on the sensitivity of your horn."

He nodded. "Yes, Your Highness. Of course we know how to sense the magic in the environment, same as every other unicorn. We’re simply not getting anything from the forest, nor are we getting anything that could be described as ‘pathways’ within the forest."

I stared at the unicorn for the moment, my mind drawing a blank. How would I even begin to solve this problem then?

"So it seems that you are the only pony currently capable of navigating this forest, Your Highness," Tempest said, and I turned back to her. "If we were to become separated from you, we would be stranded here helplessly. And from what I’ve heard in your own description of the forest’s nature, it’s likely that we would never make it out without a guide. We would wander around pointlessly until we ran out of food."

Tempest lowered her head. "I hate to make this suggestion, Your Highness, especially knowing how excited you were to come out here and research the Everfree Anomaly. But for the sake of everypony’s safety, I have to recommend that we retreat back to Canterlot and declare the Everfree a restricted zone until a safe way for ponies other than yourself to navigate the forest is developed."

Canterlot? Where was that within the forest? I looked back to the map to try to find it, but there were no landmarks other than the castle with the chasm, the triangle, and the squiggly line. Could it be the triangle?

I was hesitant to assume. It was too dangerous. Tempest spoke as if Twilight was familiar with Canterlot, so if I got it wrong, that would be an immediate giveaway. I didn’t need to know where it was on the map per se, because the map was useless, but I at least needed to know what Canterlot was so that I could feel for it in the forest. It would be impossible to navigate the group to Canterlot if I didn’t have a clue on what it was.

Also, apparently researching this ‘Everfree Anomaly’ was supposed to be important to Twilight, so it would probably be good to act sad that I couldn’t do that anymore. Except I had no idea how to act sad. I understood the concept of the emotion enough to give a definition, but I’d never felt sad before.

I figured instead I’d stick with what I knew how to do: argue back. I didn’t care about this at all, but it seemed Twilight cared a lot. I’d bluster about it for a bit before capitulating to Tempest’s reasoning. Maybe I could also subtly make her tell me what Canterlot was?

I stomped a hoof aggressively. "Seriously, Tempest? We came all the way out here and now you want to leave just like that?!"

Tempest’s lips curled down into a displeased expression.

"I understand how frustrating this is, Twilight," Tempest said. "But I will not risk losing a single member of my guard to this forest needlessly because you want to be unreasonably stubborn. We will return when we are prepared to do so, and not a moment earlier."

"There’s no risk to anypony!" I insisted, though I couldn’t care less about any of their lives other than what they could provide me with. "All of you can just stay here while I go research the Everfree Anomaly."

Tempest shook her head slowly. "Despite your power, you still need an escort, Twilight. The tatzlwurm attack proved that."

I snorted, and I felt some measure of pride at how great my acting was. "Fine. If you just need me to be escorted, then whenever somepony leaves the camp they’ll always be with me. I’ll always be able to navigate for them, so they’ll never get lost."

"That is still risky," Tempest said. "If you get attacked by a creature again, some of your escort might become separated from you. If you’re unable to find them, they’ll be permanently lost on their own, and they’ll eventually succumb to a predator or hunger."

"That won’t happen. I don’t want to leave," I said stubbornly, throwing reason out entirely.

Tempest closed her eyes and took a few moments to slowly blow air through her nose.

"Look, Twilight," she said as she opened her eyes again. "You’re the princess. You’re in charge, and you can do whatever you want. But if you insist on risking ponies’ lives for no reason, I will have no part in it. I’ve already done my time serving an uncaring tyrant, and I have no interest in doing it again. So if you say we’re staying, I’m resigning as Captain of the Guard."

Her eyes locked onto mine, and I resisted the urge to shrink back at the fire burning behind them. I had only seen such a fierce gaze once before, when Chrysalis cowed me and the others into obedience.

"So choose," Tempest said. "Either we leave the forest today, or I’m done."

Leave the forest? Was that what Canterlot was? The outside of the forest?

I felt trepidation at the concept. While the forest certainly had many dangers in it, I was at least familiar with it. I more or less knew what to expect here, and I took comfort in that fact. Plus, with my ability to feel the forest’s magic, I could go anywhere I desired with ease. I also had the ability to sense nearby creatures due to the effects their presence caused on the ambient magic, which would protect me from ambushes and had allowed me to find that slimy creature I used to turn Twilight to stone.

On the contrary, I had zero clue on what to expect outside of the forest. I didn’t even know for sure that the forest had an end to it until a few minutes ago when it was confirmed to me via the map. I didn’t know what was out there at all. Would any of my magical senses even work? I was afraid to find out the answer would be ‘no.’

Still, Tempest had finally given me a hint, so it was time to wrap this silly act up. I didn’t intend for things to escalate this far, but it seemed that Tempest felt very strongly about this issue for reasons I couldn’t fathom.

What would be the best strategic move here, though? Tempest had just given me an easy way to get rid of her. Should I seize this chance to get rid of a dangerous element in a believable way before she can do me any harm?

I felt like I wanted to do it, but the logical side of me was hesitant. Obviously, Tempest’s rank was Captain of the Guard, and she mentioned before that Twilight appointed her. I had no idea what the function of this position was, other than that she seemed to be the one in charge of all of these ponies second only to me. If I got rid of her, I would probably need to appoint a new Captain of the Guard, and I had no idea where to even begin looking for a candidate that would be trustworthy and loyal to me.

Plus, since Twilight appointed Tempest, getting rid of her would be going contrary to Twilight’s personality. Doing so could create all kinds of problems in the future that I had no way to predict right now, and it might make some ponies that were loyal to Tempest decide to oppose me. I didn’t know anything about her social connections. Worst case, all of these ponies would stop obeying me instantly.

So I decided it would be best to err on the side of caution and keep her around. Tempest was competent enough from what little I’ve seen, and if she started to be too much of an obstacle then maybe I could find another reason to get rid of her later.

Consequently, it seemed I had no choice but to leave this forest, no matter how afraid I was of doing so.

I looked at Tempest. "Alright. Let’s leave."

"Great," Tempest said as she nodded. "I’m glad you saw reason."

She turned to the white winged pony who was silent up to now.

"Lieutenant Wind Chaser," Tempest said. "Dismantle the camp and get everypony ready to go. I want to be moving within the hour."

The pony brought his forehoof up to his head. "Yes, ma’am!"

After his shout, he turned around and swiftly exited the tent. I watched him go.

"I’ll go help," Rainbow Dash said. I turned to her, but she was already rushing out of the tent. Usually she was so noisy, but this time she was so quiet I almost forgot she was here.

"Twilight."

Tempest’s voice called my attention back to her.

"Will you be able to navigate us out of the forest?" she asked.

I actually hadn’t thought about that. The outside of the forest was, by definition, not inside the forest. I doubted I would be able to feel for its location within the forest’s magic, nor feel for any pathways heading out of the forest.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sensitivity of my horn, trying to feel for any hint of where the end of the forest might be.

I could sense the forest’s magic in quite a large area around me, extending far beyond the wooden walls of the camp. I could feel each individual tree and plant if I really narrowed down my focus, but because they were so numerous they felt more like a continuous blob that covered everything if I concentrated on the big picture. I could also feel the occasional creature here or there, which felt like irregularities in the sea of plant magic.

Then, of course, there was the foul magic of the Tree nearby. It shone like a beacon, pouring out of the castle and spreading its nasty essence in a wide area. It made me feel nauseous to concentrate on it for more than a couple of seconds, so I did my best to ignore it despite how close it was.

As I suspected, there was nothing obvious pointing me out of the forest. I felt pathways to every other location within my range, but none that led away from everything else.

I swallowed. How was I going to do this? I’m sure Twilight would be able to accomplish the task easily with her powerful magic. If I couldn’t, Tempest would likely become even more suspicious of me what with all the blunders I’d made. I needed to avoid that at all costs.

Author's Note

Many thanks to G33kySt3v3 for beta reading this chapter.