Hold Your Horses: A My Little Pony Story

Twilight anxiously sat through the Leaders of Equestria meeting, offering a half-witted comment whenever she was expected to and completely zoning out for the rest of the time. She eyed Sombra from across the long meeting table. She planned to meet him as soon as the meeting was over. If anypony knew where Prose may have gone, it had to be one of her best friends, Chorus–Sombra’s stallion.

“I feel comfortable adjourning the meeting here,” Celestia spoke, her royal presence commanding yet comforting. “Thank you so much everypony for meeting here today. Let us hope this means peace and prosperity for the future of Equestria. I hope to see all of you soon.”

As soon as Princess Celestia had spoken her final words, Twilight exited her seat at the table and briskly made her way across the room. She spoke as soon as she approached him.

“Hello, Sombra,” she greeted awkwardly.

“Hi, Twilight,” Sombra greeted back.

“I have something I need to ask you,” Twilight prefaced.

“That’s strange,” Sombra commented. “I have something I need to ask you as well.”

“Do you, by any chance,” she started. “know where Prose is right now?”

Sombra became quiet, and a worried look crossed his face.

“What?” Twilight asked. “Do you know where she is?”

Sombra looked frightened. “I was going to ask you if you knew where Chorus is,” he said.

Twilight’s expression dropped. She picked it back up again quickly as another possible solution appeared in her mind.

“Savoir Fare is here; I saw him. Maybe Ginger Blush knows where Chorus and Prose went!” Twilight suggested.

The wait staff had begun to clear the table as Twilight and Sombra had been conversing. Twilight spied Savoir Fare not far away, clearing plates off of the meeting table. Twilight chased him down, and Sombra followed.

“Savoir!” Twilight called.

Savoir Fare turned around to face Twilight and Sombra.

“Do you happen to know where Prose and Chorus may be at this very moment in time?” Twilight asked with no precaution.

Savoir’s eyes depicted a worried sadness and disappointment.

“I…” he started. “I was going to ask you two if you knew where Ginger Blush is.”

Each of them shared a worried glance with each other.

“What could’ve happened to them?” Twilight wondered aloud. “Where could they all have simultaneously disappeared to?”

“They wouldn’t leave us like this voluntarily, would they?” Sombra questioned.

The group fell silent.

Suddenly, a spark of a bright green magic appeared directly in front of Twilight. After a couple seconds, the spark appeared again, stronger. The spark lengthened into a solid slit of bright green light, and a piece of parchment slipped right out of it, as if being printed out. It swayed back and forth in the air, descending towards the ground. Twilight caught it out of the air before it touched the floor. She held it in front of her and saw the words written on it, unmistakably in Prose’s hoofwriting. Twilight read the letter aloud to Sombra and Savoir.

Twilight,
You’re probably wondering where I went. You may even be wondering where Chorus and Ginger Blush went. The truth is, we all just felt that we needed to escape. We felt it was time for us to have some space. We’ve gone on a retreat–far away. Don’t try to come find us. Locating us would be impossible, even with magic. Don’t try to intellectualize this with your special books. What’s done is done. Would I ever lie to you?
Good luck,
Prose
As she finished the letter, tears welled in her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. Sombra stepped back in defiance.

“That can’t be true. Somepony must’ve forged that,” he stated.

Twilight became choked up. “It’s… it’s Prose’s hoofwriting. I would recognize it anywhere.”

Savoir’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t understand. Ginger seemed perfectly fine, happy even. I can’t imagine she would ever feel this way. Something else is going on, I’m certain of it,” Savoir defied. “She wouldn’t just… leave…”

Twilight looked back at the letter, ready to reread it again so it could finally set in for Sombra and Savoir. But, suddenly, certain words began to catch her eye. She began to remember a conversation she had had with Prose that very morning. Words began to pop out at her. Escape. Time. Space.

“She would,” Twilight spoke in realization.

“Excuse me?” Savoir spoke in shock.

“She would lie to me,” Twilight realized.

Savoir and Sombra shared a glance with the same thought in their minds: What is she talking about?

Twilight pushed past them and set the letter down onto the meeting table, gesturing for them to come look at it with her.

“The last line of the letter,” she started. “‘Would I ever lie to you?’”

“What about it?” Savoir questioned.

“It’s a clue!” Twilight claimed. “She’s trying to tell us how to find her–how to find all of them! She’s trying to tell us that we shouldn’t believe her.”

Sombra raised an eyebrow. “How can you be sure of that?”

Twilight pointed down at the letter. “Look at the words she used. ‘Escape’, ‘time’, ‘space’, ‘find us’, ‘magic’, ‘books’... it’s all intentional. As soon as she wrote ‘The truth is’, she started lying. She’s asking us for help. She wants us to find her.”

The group pondered the possibility.

“Even if she is lying, what is she hinting at? How does she want us to find her, to find them?” Savoir asked.

Twilight began to head back to her seat.

“She’s referring to a conversation we had today, right before she disappeared.”

She reached her chair and grabbed her saddle bag from it. She dug her hooves into it and pulled out the book she had been reading on the train: Time, Space, and Magic.

“This is why she talked about books and magic in the letter. She must be referring to this book. Her wording is too specific to ignore. In that short letter, she mentioned time, space, magic, and books. I think, somehow, Prose, Chorus, and Ginger Blush escaped time and space. I know it seems like quite a stretch, but… but I don’t know what else to believe right now.”

Sombra and Savoir stared knowingly at Twilight.

“It may be a stretch, but it’s all we have,” Savoir accepted.

“If you believe it, I believe it,” Sombra remarked. “What do we do now?”

Twilight led Savoir Fare and Sombra to a more secluded room in the castle, where they could conduct magic privately and without interruption. Twilight flipped through the pages of her book, scanning for a passage or a chapter that could help her. She paused on one chapter that seemed helpful: A Radar into Nowhere.

“Did you find something?” asked Sombra as he noticed her pause.

“This chapter here,” Twilight began. “It describes a detection spell. I would be able to detect anomalies outside of the realm of space-time. If our ponies are out there, this spell could find them.”

Savoir, Sombra, and Twilight shared a hopeful smile.

Savoir looked to Twilight. “So… detect them! What are we waiting for?”

Twilight’s eyebrows lowered slightly. “It’s just… magic like this… is complicated. It’s a daunting task, even for me. The spell would work, but I’m not sure I’m capable of performing it.”

Sombra stepped forward towards Twilight. “What if… I helped you? Is that possible?”

Twilight considered the thought.

“That just might work,” she hoped. “If we combine our magical forces, we could be able to provide enough magic and stability to successfully perform the spell!”

“Perfect,” Sombra cheered. “How can I help?”

Twilight wasn’t used to Sombra’s reformed personality. She never imagined herself cooperating with him like this, but there they were.

“You really have changed, huh,” Twilight observed.

“I guess… I have,” Sombra agreed.

Twilight smiled.

“Come sit beside me,” she instructed. “I’ll do the heavy-lifting regarding the spell. All I need you to do is combine your power with mine and help keep it stable. Our combined forces should be enough to perform the spell.”

Sombra nodded in understanding. “I’m ready when you’re ready.”

Twilight closed her eyes and began concentrating on the spell. Without warning, her eyes shot back open, glowing white. Pink magic began to swell around her horn, materializing into a bright pink beam that shot straight into the ceiling. A wind began to swirl around the room, levitating stray papers and objects into a miniature cyclone around Twilight, Savoir, and Sombra. Sombra took this as his cue, and began his part of the spell. He commanded magic out of his horn and towards Twilight’s beam of magic, combining them as one. He watched as his blue magic swirled into Twilight’s glowing pink.

Sombra felt the weight of the spell crash down onto him, realizing Twilight wasn’t exaggerating about the difficulty of the spell. Sombra pushed back against the spell, utilizing the strength of his powerful magic to stabilize the spell for both him and Twilight. Twilight opened her mouth to speak as the spell began to take effect.

“I… I think I… sense something.”

“What do you see, Twilight,” Savoir prodded.

“It’s all… nothing… except… something…” she observed.

“What do you mean? Do you see them? Do you see Ginger?” Savoir pressed.

“I can’t… see… I can only feel,” Twilight explained. “But I feel… something. It’s a vast expanse of nothing, but there’s something out there. It’s the only thing I can sense. If they’re anywhere out there, they’re there.”

“Can you pull them out of it? Can you bring them back?” Savoir asked, his tone almost desperate.

Twilight experienced the spell for a few moments in silence.

“That’s not how the spell works,” she concluded. “It doesn’t work in reverse. I’m coming at it from the outside, I can’t pull something from the inside.”

The group contemplated their conundrum.

“What if… we didn’t make it go in reverse?” Savoir suggested.

“Can you please discover the solution a little quicker? I don’t know how much longer I can hold this up,” Sombra grunted, struggling.

“What if we rode the current the way it’s already facing? We follow them to wherever they are, and then once we’re there, we take them and spell ourselves back out. That way we’d only be moving in one direction each time,” Savoir devised.

Twilight considered the plan. “That could work.”

The wind swirled and blew torrentially around the ponies.

“Let’s do it then,” Sombra advised. “I can’t hold this up anymore.”

Sombra bared his teeth in struggle as he kept his magic intertwined with Twilight’s.

“Twilight?” Savoir pleaded.

“We’ll do it,” she confirmed. “Brace yourselves.”

The ponies braced themselves as the light in Twilight’s eyes began to increase in luminosity. The light glowed brighter and brighter until it became blinding. The magic encompassed Twilight, Sombra, and Savoir Fare, entrapping them in teleportation. In an instant, the ponies disappeared from the room. The winds slowed, and the room returned to vacancy. The only evidence of the ponies’ presence was the open spellbook lying on the floor.