'I can't believe this is happening! That monster... dear Faust, how are we going to come back from this?!'

'I-I don't-... a moment, just l-let me think.'

'We don't have time, Savvy!'

'... There’s one way... here. Here, hold this.'

'What are you... no... oh no. You're not going to-'

'Just take it! Alexander's servants will be here any minute! We must do this as quickly as we can!'

'I don't know if I can.'

'Twilight, please! This is the only chance we have! Think about your friends. If they find out what happened here, they will never forgive you! Do you want that?'

'O-Okay!... Okay, here goes...'

‘Wait. Wait, what's... Twilight? T-Twilight can you hear me?! J-Just b-breathe, Twilight! Just-’

A flame whispered, and her twitching ears woke her. She pried her eyes open to bleary browns and blacks, with orange dancing in the gloom. Faust, what a nightmare, she thought to herself, though she couldn’t remember the details. The voices seemed familiar, but she couldn’t name them. She waited for her vision to adjust, groaning as she fought to roll onto her belly.

Her senses returned, and Twilight felt no cover keeping her warm, no pillow cradling her head; she was splayed out across a cold floor. There was a bruise on her flank and a pounding in her head, and when she went to sit up, her hooves ached and trembled as if she’d just galloped a marathon. Most notable was the stench that seemed to be coming from her lips; potent and sickly sweet, like a poorly mixed punch, yet her throat was dry. It took her several minutes to push herself onto her rump and look about, dizzy beyond reason.

The walls were grey cobblestone, the orange light coming from a torch. The room was small, stuffed with dusty furniture; a wardrobe in the corner, a desk sat across from that. Paper lay underneath and around it, torn and ripped apart, and the door to the room was hanging slightly ajar, as if opened in a hurry. A candle on the desk was melted to a stump, the wick black and smoking, the wax spilled across the wood, coating the box of a strange item. Twilight took a breath, then rocked onto her hind hooves and wobbled over to it, sniffing at the object. A tinderbox? she thought, identifying the smell of burned charcloth, so a tinderbox it was, and recently used. Now closer, the desk looked to be an antique to Twilight’s trained eye, but in terrible condition. It bent downwards at the centre with a crack on the underside, and the wardrobe was similarly damaged, doors hanging open with one doorknob missing. The exposed splinters of each were clean.

'This... what in Equestria?' she said aloud. 'Where am I?'

Ask anypony and they would tell you Twilight Sparkle was no drinker, and she knew hangover symptoms well enough without having to experience them. Despite the tremendous migraine, drinking enough to lose her memory would have her feeling way worse. How in Equestria, then, did she end up there? Was she still close to home? What time was it? How long had she been asleep? Did her friends know where she was? Did Spike? She tried shaking herself into sense, holding her temples as her breathing involuntarily sped up. 'Sh-shhh... breathe, Twilight. Just b-breathe.’

She focused; one breath in through the nostrils, then another out through her mouth.

In through the nostrils, out through the mouth.

In, and out.

In...

Out...

After a few moments she opened her eyes. The first thing to do was find the owner of whoever’s home she’d passed out in, then try to make sense of it all, after profusely apologising of course. So, she made for the torch and gripped it with her magic; the spell sent a sharp pain through her horn into her head, the torch wedging in its holster. When she wiggled it free the wall spat the holster out and Twilight jolted backwards, gasping as it hit the floor. 'CLANG’.

‘Another thing to apologise for,’ she sighed.

Twilight hooked a hoof around the door and eased it open. It creaked into the shadows of a long hallway on the other side. She levitated the torch in front of her, which barely lit the chamber. C’mon, she thought when she found herself frozen at the doorway, you’re being a big filly now. Try as she might, she couldn’t reason with her discomfort, but pressed on.

Author's Note

So I sent this draft to a friend and she said I should post it. It's a remarkably short thing, I know, but it really only serves as the prologue of sorts to a larger story.

Mods: I indented the paragraphs in the editor but it doesn't seem to have an effect on the text. Send help.

I wrote the first draft when I was much younger, and have since been to university to study creative writing, so I decided to touch it up and sand off any rough edges. I have several more chapters that need to be looked over and edited, so I leave it up to you, the people, to judge whether or not you want more.

Thank you for reading, as always, and I hope you enjoyed.