Through the telescope Twilight Sparkle was looking at the starry night above. It was because of this simple and typically uneventful action that all the misery on her near horizon would occur. She noticed, in the sky, something moving across it quickly, then falling towards the ground somewhere above the everyfree forest.
What she saw appeared to be white in color, trailing a path of bright white light behind it, but both the object (relatively circular in size) and the trail of white light were speckled with dull black dots, as if seasoned with pepper. Twilight had never seen this sort of celestial object in the sky before. She was well read in astronomy and could not recall a single book which touched on anything of this exact nature.
A sort of anxious static electric feeling jolted through Twilight as she bounced off the chair she sat in and walked across the room, a giddy excitement putting a bounce in her trot that would make Pinkie proud. "A new scientific discovery?" Twilight questioned the empty air of the room "and I could be the one to discover it." Twilight grabbed a map of the everfree, marking on it about where she saw the object fall.
She trotted down the stairs to the first floor of her library house and down there, she saw her wife, Fluttershy, sitting at a sofa, steaming cup of tea on the table and a book in her hooves. She'd visited for the night, her animal friends in the care of Zecora.
"Hello," said Fluttershy placing her book on the table "You're finished stargazing early, ready to watch the movie?"
"Actually, while I definetly want to watch that movie with you," it was a romance, which promised snuggles, despite Twilight's relative disinterest in the genre "I saw something, and I think we must take a look, it may be something amazing, even ."
"Oh, you want to come up and take a look through the telescope?"
"No. It fell out of the sky, we can see it in person, it's in the everfree, not far in at all, you've been this far, I'd imagine." Twilight showed Flutterhsy the map, with the indicated spot on it.
"Well, yes, i've certainly been that deep into the everfree. But Twilight, are you really sure we should go? for one, do you know what it is that fell?"
"No, I'm not sure, that's exactly why it's so exciting, it's probably harmless, just a new sort of celestial object or some space debirs that fell, but if we see it first, wouldn't that be special." Twilight gazed forward now in a mixture of egotisical (or at least as close as Twilight could come to egotisical over her anxious self) self congratulation, and romatic thoughts (what if we kissed near a new universal discovery, Twilight thought).
"Probably harmless?" asked Fluttershy, with a heavy coating of emphasis on the probably.
"Well yes, probably, it is something i've never seen, and in the everfree, despite not being very far. But it will be fine."
"Isn't it freezing out right now?"
"What? no, it not even snowing." Twilight stepped outside for a few moment and came back in seconds later, teeth chattering "Okay, so we'll wear coats." she concluded.
Fluttershy contemplated in silence for a few moments, taking a sip of her tea. "I'm just not sure how safe I feel about this whole Idea, Twi."
"Well if you don't want to go, I obviosuly will not make you, but I have to go, so I will be right back."
Twilight began going about putting on a scarf and a coat to help against the cold night air. She was about to leave when she noticed Fluttershy getting ready to go out as well, silently, and in a quiet anger Twilight rarely saw her in. She's mad thought Twilight, but she'll be less angry after it turns out to be nothing too major, we might even make a bit of money from it, thought Twilight though she didn't care that much about money. Plus, Twilight would find a way to make it romantic.
The pair silently left the library house and began trotting through the cold, darkened streets of ponyville, the temperature and slightly cloudy sky gave a dark blue wash to the town, as if the streets and stone itself was caught in a deep sorrow. The pair were cold, but twilight wrapped a hoof around Fluttershy to warm her a bit as they walked. Fluttershy gave a nearly imperceptible smile at the warm touch, so slight not even Twilight had picked up on it.
The dark blue of the town was exchanged for the dark green and black dampness of the everfree. Twilight used her horn to provide some light as they walked. The shade of the trees made it somehow even colder, and the whistling of the wind through the dark trees felt like a cyclone of possible shadowy figures, each movement caused by the gusts another possible nightmare. Twiight felt unnerved by it all, and a sharp anxiety was spiking through her chest, but the thumping of her heart was not enough to subdue her curious enthusiasm.
Fluttershy herself felt a bit frightened as she watched what almost felt like the breathing of the forest around her. She leaned in closer to Twilight and slowly took deep breaths, the cold air was somewhat soothing. The darkness was still incredibly dense despite twilights glowing horn.
The pair walked through this beastly forest until eventually they came upon the place Twilight had marked on the map, and the object that had fallen from the sky. It appeared to be a massive white rock, glowing with a faint buzz of white light, it was speckled with sections of black rock which did not glow, but gave a slight sheen close to a glow. The air around the rock was warm and gentle paths of light seemed to slightly shoot out of the rock and then swoop back in luminous rings jutting out of it. The way the light moved in these rings seemed almost tangible.
The rock was immense, it was about the size of a small house, some fragments of once standing trees stood crumpled around the rock, likely from the impact, and the grass beneath the rock seemed to be a pile of a waxy white substnce, maybe metled or burned from the heat eminating from the rock.
The thing that gave Twilight such a puzzled expression, and Futtershy a confounded one, was the door in the center of the rock, made of the same speckled white stone, it's handle jutting out.
"w-what is that?" Fluttershy whispered timorously.
"I don't know" Twilight returned. She'd never seen anything like it, but the door attached made it evident it had been built by something, rather than being a natural phenomenon.
Twilight took a few steps away from fluttershy towards the door in the rock. "Wait Twi!" Fluttershy called after her, "We found this thing, we can alert the authorities or something, we'll be the ones who found it first still, but don't go too close, we don't know if it's safe." Fluttershy had tears pricking at her eyes as she spoke.
"I'll be careful, I promise, I just have to take a closer look."
Fluttershy tensed as Twilight walked towards the door, Twilight stopped where the waxy substance coated the ground and reach a hoof down, it had a slightly prickly texture that felt like pins and needles, it sent a jolt of pleasure through Twilight, her fur standing up taller as this happened. The substance was a bit warm, about as warm as a nice hot tub, she walked through the waxy substance to in front of the door.
With each step more of the energizing jolts went up through her body. She reached the door and gently, silently placed a on hoof on the door with a very slight amount of pressure. It was frigid to the touch. Twilight moved over to the rock at a point which wasn't the door, still cold.
Why is it cold despite the warth of the light and the wax substance? Twilight thought to herself. Now Twilight moved back in front of the door. Holding out her hoof and gripping the handle of it. Twilight open the door, the stone of the door scraping against the stone of the large rock itself, making an unpleasant sound with this scraping.
The inside of the rock was hollow, Twilight stepped in. Fluttershy had nearly screamed when Twilight stepped inside but held herself back, instead it was Twilight who screamed from inside the rock.
Twilight watched as her hooves began to turn waxy as if her entire body was one large candle, she saw her limbs begin to drip away, droplets of herself falling onto the ground like a purple and waxy rain. She screamed. "Oh celestia!" soon she sat down and could ony watch, she couldn't move as her body was no longer solid enough to move, her arm begans to melt into a the same purple liquid, flowing down the front of her and creating both a puddle at the bottom of the rock, and a vacant slot where her arm use to be. "I'm melting, I'm melting. Fluttershy, go get help, please!" waxy sobs escaped down Twilight face, melting out lines down her face as the hot wax tears burned the slightly cooler wax cheeks.
Fluttershy stood in great confusion as Twilight screamed about melting, she watched normal tears flow down the face of Twilight, completely unharmed in the center of the rock, no damage done to her whatsoever. Just screaming and crying from the center of the hollow rock. Fluttershy very carefully flew over to the entrance of the rock and, without touching anything, fluttered inside and grabbed Twilight by the arms, lifting her off the ground and out of the rock, never touching the rock throughout the entire process. Fluttershy propped Twilight up and began walking the both of them back through the everfree, after a few minutes of walking Twilight finally snapped out of it and realized nothing had happened to her body.
"A halluciantion? but it felt so . . . so r-real" Twilight managed once the pair were getting close to ponyville proper.
"Just be glad it wasn't, I knew we shouldn't have messed with that thing."
Fluttershy brought Twilight home and put her to bed, then she called both the ponyville police station, recounting the whole scenario over the phone, then the magical incidents station in canterlot, repeating her story once more. It was a tiring process and once she was done she went to bed with Twi, settling in and falling asleep quite easily, all things considered.
***
The following morning, Fluttershy noticed the crowd outside, getting more dense and larger the closer it got to the everfree forest. On her way there she noticed Zecora had brought all of Fluttershy's animal friends to outside a large medical tent in the center of town. Fluttershy gave a slight wave hello and said she'll be right back, moving towards where all the crowd seemed to be looking, Fluttershy stopped in horrified shock and amazement. Twilight had followed her and wrapped a foreleg around her in comfort as the two stared, just as awstruck as the crowd must have been.
In front of them they saw the white waxy substance coating every tree for a very long ways of the everfree, all of the ground as well, there was a caution fence blocking the crowd from reaching the substance of white wax which had consumed the forest, but Fluttershy looked down and noitced as the wax moved, ever so slowly, toward this fence, slowly consuming and coating the ground as it moved.
