It can be astounding the difference a few seconds makes.

When an out of control cart is careening down the main street of a town, a few seconds could mean the difference between a flattened pony or an intact pony.

Or, when a unicorn is foalnapped to be used in an arcane ritual to resurrect an ancient alicorn made of pure malice by a cult that seeks to bring about eternal night, a few seconds can be the difference between life and death.

And a few seconds of hesitation from the guards dealing with the entire mess afterward meant certain things could escape notice.

“Did these creeps even get to do anything?” asked the last of the pair cleaning up. He looked over a bit of torn cloak, placing it in a burlap sack. The word EVIDENCE had been scribbled on the side with the bare minimum of effort expected from Equestria’s finest.

“Cut up the princess’ protege a bit, but nah,” his partner replied. “Came right in the nick of time. Her majesty herself got a lightning bolt off, and they scattered like rats. From what I heard, a whole lot of nothing went off. Shame we didn’t catch any of ‘em.”

“Scattered is right; there’s bits of their ritual everywhere. You sure we’ve found all of it?”

The wind picked up. Not much, but enough to make both guards shiver. Even out in Canterlot, they had heard stories of the Everfree Forest. None of them were good.

“Seems like every piece has been gone and got… right?”

“I’ll lie to the captain if you lie.”

“...Deal.”

Eager to move on, the guards hurried away. None of them noticed the saddlebag lying on the ground, and none of them noticed the orb that had been blown away by Celestia’s magic and into a nearby bush.

Inside the darkness of the branches and thorns, the orb pulsed, beating slowly. It had no mind or life of its own, but it had been constructed for a very specific purpose. And though it had been interrupted at the exact moment of its conception, it had not been stopped. As it burned with enchantment, tendrils of unseen magical energies inside reached out, seeking more fuel…

And found nothing. The spell had been terminated too early. A few seconds more and it could have powered itself, sputtering across the thaumic finish line with at least a bronze medal in resurrection.

But now it had to work internally. With nothing but a single drop of blood to fuel it, the spellwork began to collapse. Syntax failing, the arcane weaves unraveling, the orb swelled once, shuddered, and hardened.

And then it began to crack.

It was astounding the difference a few seconds could make.

Find her saddlebag, get the book, and put this entire episode behind her. No more thinking about foalnapping or magic rituals or anything. Let Celestia worry about those problems, and let her worry about them with a nice complete library.

It'd all be easy to do, and she really REALLY wished she had had this level of conviction before it started raining.

Twilight Sparkle realized that in hindsight she probably shouldn’t have spent so much time packing a bunch of supplies. What was she afraid of? It’s not like there were any cultists left or any sort of vicious monsters or—

“Dangit, Spike, why did you even suggest asking Celestia to go find my saddlebags? Now I’m going to be second guessing myself all night.”

She looked up through her shield as the rain poured down harder.

“Ohhh, I just hope I remembered to waterproof them too…”

Finally arriving at her destination, Twilight squinted through the force of the rain and tried to spy her dropped saddlebags. But the royal guards had been through the whole thing, and the grove was empty, nothing but wind and some leafy bushes and—

With a happy cry, Twilight spotted the outline of her saddlebags in the darkness, rushing over as she inspected them. Wet on the outside, but the book was (thank Celestia) still dry. What worse sin could there be than getting a book damp?

“Ha! Gotcha!”

KRA-KOOM!

She yelped as a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, too close for comfort. Shaking away the sound of the thunderclap from her head, the unicorn’s hearing returned, and she could suddenly swear she heard something nearby. Not the pounding of the rain or the whistle of the wind but…

It sounded for all the world like the cry of a baby.

Twilight froze. She knew the Everfree Forest had all manner of vicious things; maybe one of them had the ability to mimic a crying baby to lure in unsuspecting ponies? What could even do that? A manticore? Too small. A cockatrice? No, that was a chicken’s cluck, and what she heard then was clearly… a plasmoid, maybe? No, wait, she made those up.

Her heart sank lower and lower as she ran out of options on her mental checklist. Had one of the cultists brought their baby to the ritual? Why? She shivered at the thought as her imagination ran away at the possibilities, images of horror novels and ritual sacrifices and little bundles on bloodstained altars rushing through her mind. What if they had planned to—

“Nope. Come on, get a hold of yourself, Twilight,” she muttered. “It’s a magic evil bush that sounds like a baby or something. They didn’t actually bring an infant out to—”

Lightning flashed, and the bush screamed, wailing and shaking in response. Her heart wrenched and won out over her sense of preservation. Trotting over to the bush as fast as she dared, she lit up her horn and moved it aside.

“Are you—” she began, then froze, taking in the sight before her.

It was a baby—from Twilight’s estimates (though she honestly wasn’t the best judge), a filly no more than a couple of months old. Tears and dirt stained her face, and she was covered in cuts from the deep thorns of the bush. But that wasn’t what had made the unicorn’s body go cold as ice.

No, what had driven a spike of fear into her soul was that this particular filly had a tiny pair of wings, a tiny horn, a tiny black coat, and tiny turquoise eyes.

Slap some tiny armor and tiny makeup on her, and she’d look all the world like someone had shrunken down Nightmare Moon.

Twilight began to panic, a thousand thoughts racing through her as she just stared at the baby in front of her. Did the spell work? Did it fail halfway through and just spit out what it had, like a half-written essay? Did someone somehow magically merge Nightmare Moon with their own child? Or was it a trick, or just—

Another flash and frightened howl from the apparent foal brought her back to reality, and Twilight only now noticed how filthy and bloody the filly was.

Aw, Tartarus.

Again, she stomped down the part of her brain that was screaming to run away. If it was a ploy or not, she wasn’t going to leave a little filly to freeze in the Everfree Forest. That’d be exactly what Nightmare Moon would do.

And wasn’t this exactly what Nightmare Moon would do? Exploit her emotions to get her to let her guard down? She pushed the thought out of her mind, trying to focus on what was immediately in front of her. If Nightmare Moon had intended to attack her, she probably wouldn’t have gotten stuck in a bush to bleed to death.

Bleeding to death, right. Those were the facts. A foal needed her help. Bad ponies didn’t help foals; she wasn’t a bad pony.

“Hey. Hey hey hey, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Twilight soothed in what she hoped was a calm voice, beginning to break away the branches with her magic. The baby simply stared up at Twilight through her tears, wailing but making an effort to remain perfectly still.

The poor thing must be too terrified to even move, she thought. From the looks of it, if she did, those thorns would continue to poke her. A pang of sympathy went out. If it was a ruse, let her fall for it, Twilight decided. If she got attacked by an evil baby, at least she’d have her principles.

With the branches broken away, she carefully levitated the freed filly out and under her rain shield. The foal still cried and struggled, but the sudden dryness and lack of thorns gentled it to more of a whimpering protest.

Old lessons learned and memories made when she had cared for Spike drifted into her mind. Pulling out her improvised wilderness survival kit and pulling off her raincoat, she levitated the filly closer. Best to get it over with while the foal was already crying.

“Shhhhh. You’re okay, you’re okay sweetheart. I’m going to help you, it’s going to be alright.” She pulled out parts of a first aid kid and tried to dig out the smallest bandages and gentlest ointments she could find.

“I’m sorry, this is going to sting, but it’s going to feel better, don’t worry, don’t worry. You’re being a very brave girl right now, that’s it. Thaaaat’s it,” she reassured, applying some of the ointment in the kit to the filly’s cuts. The baby squalled and squirmed, Twilight trying her best to hush her as she focused on what looked to be the deepest wounds she could see.

Finally, amazingly, the baby began to calm down. Wrapping her up in the raincoat (Twilight figured a soiled jacket was a small price to pay for keeping a foal warm) and holding the little alicorn close, Twilight rocked her back and forth while she spoke to her in what she hoped was a calm, even voice; improvising promises that the filly was going to be safe and warm and dry and please stop crying, please? It seemed to be effective, because wailing went to weeping, to whimpering, and then mercifully and finally ceased.

Baby crying stopped and baby death averted, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now could finally take a better look at her surroundings. If she could find a clue as to what just happened here, maybe she could…

What would she even be looking for at this point? The guards would have taken everything as evidence, right?

With her magic’s light washing over the grove and with care to keep the baby Nightmare Moon out of the rain and off the ground, Twilight peered over and began to comb the area, stopping when she felt something strange beneath her hoof near the other side of the bush. Moving her foreleg aside, she felt something shattered and cracked. Bits of… stone? She leaned in closer and inspected what she had stepped on.

Though it was black as night, it still looked all the world like some sort of hard eggshell.

“Is this… did you hatch from this?” Twilight looked back at the filly, still held in her magic. She had fallen asleep. Twilight could swear there was a content smile on her little face.

Taking in the entire scene, she sighed, having reached a conclusive decision.

“You can’t even understand me, can you? Alright. Alright, fine. Whatever you are, I can’t just leave you out here…”

Gingerly placing the swaddled foal on her back and making sure she was stable, Twilight set off back to the library.

Two hours. Twilight had said she’d be back from the Everfree forest in two hours with Celestia’s book. Because it just HAD to be Celestia’s book, didn’t it? Spike may have had a chance if it was just A Book, a slim chance, but a book from the royal library? Convincing Twilight to stop worrying over a royal book was a lost cause.

So she’d taken some supplies, ignored his protests, and given him two hours. That had been four hours and one Everfree Forest level storm ago.

Drastic, draconic action had to be taken. Twilight could be mad at him later, once she was safe and dry. Quill discarded and scroll in his claws, he readied his hasty letter to Celestia.

“Should’ve just done this from the start, but hey, why would anypony listen to me?” he muttered, taking a deep breath.

A light pink aura clamped around his snout, shutting it and smothering the flame.

“Don’t you dare send that letter,” Twilight hissed, carefully walking through the door as the storm raged outside.

Spike gulped, swallowing the fireball as her magic eased up. He breathed a sigh of relief, before taking another breath and launching into a tirade.

“Two hours, Twilight. Two hours, and you’ve been gone for four! I know how to count! You know I know how to count!”

“Spike, I—”

“And what were you thinking going off in the middle of a storm? Right after everything that just happened? You got foalnapped,Twilight! Foalnapped by a cult, and nobody’s even caught the ponies who did it. And all over a book! Did you even find it? I can’t believe you’d be this reckless over ONE book! It wasn’t even a first edition, for Celestia’s sake!”

“Yes, fine! All those things, sure, I agree,” said Twilight, trying to shoosh him. “Just please, PLEASE,can you be a little quieter.”

“WHY?”

“Because I—”

It was only then that he noticed the small swaddled mass on her back that had begun to shift and whimper. Before Spike could say anything, it sat up suddenly, wailing in fear, tears in its eyes.

Its bright turquoise eyes.

“I didn’t want you to wake her…”

“We’re just going from one disaster to another, aren’t we?” Spike complained. “Can’t there just be one week in Ponyville where nothing happens? Something quiet, no magical disasters? No mythological creatures trying to eat Sugarcube Corner? No cults? No evil babies? Just once? Please?”

An hour had passed. Twilight had managed to reshape a cup into a nursing bottle, and they had even scrounged some milk from a carton at the back of the fridge. There were enough improvised infantile accessories to calm the alicorn filly, and she was sleeping peacefully among some freshly undusted old blankets.

Twilight was improvising, and that wasn’t good.

“She’s not an evil baby. She’s just a baby,Spike. Not a cataclysm in waiting.”

“Okay. Sure. But what if she’s not?”

“Can we not have this argument again? Please?”

“I just—” Spike sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What’s the plan here, Twi? Tell me you’ve got a list at least. I’d feel a lot better if there was a list for something as big as this.”

“I’ve got a plan!”

“Do you? I mean, come on, you turned a random towel into her diaper, and she’s sleeping in a laundry basket after drinking the last of the 2% we had in the fridge. You are winging it.”

“And? I can wing it. I’ve winged it before.”

“No plan and no list? Twilight, this is nuts.”

“I’ve got a plan!” she insisted. “Look, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. We can’t just let her out of our sight. I can take a couple of days to research more about what went into that spell and—”

“And you can’t just tell Princess Celestia because…?”

“The moon, Spike. You want to risk sending her to the moon?”

“Oh for the love of—”

And so it continued. No matter what points he brought up, Twilight seemed wholly and uncharacteristically unwilling to listen to reason.

It didn’t matter that the filly was an alicorn who looked all the world like Nightmare Moon (“She can’t even walk,” Twilight said), that she had been found right by the same site as Twilight’s foalnapping (“Where she was freezing to death in a thorn bush!” Twilight said), that she was clearly, very obviously Nightmare Moon (“You don’t know that!” Twilight said) and that the best option would be to either throw her out or, better yet, call Celestia and let her deal with it (“She’s a baby, Spike!” Twilight said).

That’s what it came down to, at the end. Nightmare Moon or not, Twilight wouldn’t just abandon a baby.

And, if he had to admit it to himself, neither could he. Something about getting rid of a creature that hatched out of an egg felt… wrong to him.

“Just a couple of days?” He sighed. Why did he even feel guilty over Nightmare Moon?

“At least until I know more about what exactly happened that night.” Twilight nodded.

“Twilight.”

“Yes yes, just a couple of days.”

“And you promise there’ll be a list by tomorrow?”

“I’ve already got a mental checklist ready to go.”

“And a grocery list. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re out of milk.”

“Okay, sure, grocery list, got it.”

“Twilight?”

“Spike?”

“It’s just a couple of days. Right?”

“...Right.”

With her finally agreeing to something concrete, he let himself relax. At least, he hoped she agreed to it. Twilight was looking down at the filly in the basket with an expression that he couldn’t quite read. She didn’t seem upset, or tired. If anything she seemed… fascinated?

That… that was worrying.

He took a deep breath. It was just a couple of days. How hard could it be?

Author's Note

You ever get so mad at how bad the food is when in small town Ohio that you end up writing 20k words of a fic you kind of wanted to see, then realize that you've already committed to it and figure "eh, might as well."

So welcome to my first of several longfics. The good news is this one is finished, I just still need to proofread and help proofreading through it. I'll be posting chapters when