Darkness of the Gate
Chapter One: From the Gate
Far above the streets of Ponyville, a spot appeared in the sky. A small, black spot, too tiny to see by any eye further away than a few feet at most. If that dot hadn’t changed, it would be just a curiosity, but it hadn’t even been there for five minutes before it suddenly, explosively, grew. It quickly coalesced into a form, a living creature, who hovered in place for a few seconds as the gate finished depositing it into the world, then abruptly fell as gravity took hold. The creature, not a pony at all, desperately tried to recover from the sudden fall, trying to call upon its wings or magic to save it, but in the end, all it managed was to steer towards a tree on the ground, far below...
It was a pleasant summer morning in Ponyville, with the sun warming the town, and the sky being kept clear by the weather team. In the Golden Oaks Library, Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic and personal student to Princess Celestia, was struggling with an ancient tome, trying to read and understand the magic and concepts held within. That book, Magic of Reality, Here and Beyond, had been sent to her by the Princess the day before. It was a completely new field of study to the young unicorn, and a fascinating one, even if it had been incredibly frustrating. There was absolutely no reason the book had to be written in vague metaphor and symbology, but even worse, it was written in Old Equish, owing to it's incredible age. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Twilight had been up at dawn to start her studying, and since then had been holed up at her desk, with her scratch paper already covered with dozens of notes in the just over three hours she'd been working on it.
It barely interrupted her concentration when the tree suddenly shook from the force of an impact. A brief thought crossed her mind - Rainbow Dash is up a little early this morning, isn't she? - before Twilight dismissed the thought from her mind, and put her focus back on the tome. After all, Spike could see to Rainbow Dash when she inevitably came in, and divert the boisterous pegasus before she could interrupt Twilight's studies. Much as Twilight loved her friends dearly, her love of learning was even greater, and Spike knew to head off such interruptions when she was studying like this. She wasn't particularly worried about her friend, either. After all, Rainbow Dash was quite possibly the toughest pony she knew, and had crashed into her tree on quite a few occasions before. Barely a minute passed before any thoughts of Rainbow Dash or her antics had vanished entirely from Twilight's thoughts, replaced with more frustratingly vague metaphors she'd just read.
"TWILIGHT!" The yell shattered Twilight's concentration, leaving her confused for a brief second. Over the last couple of years in Ponyville, she hadn’t heard her name called with that amount of urgency many times, but every time it happened, it meant an emergency. The unicorn broke into a gallop, the transparent purplish field of her telekinesis yanking open doors in front of her.
“Spike? Where are you?” Twilight yelled as she ran, but the question proved to be pointless, as she was forced to stop before running over the little dragon himself, who was racing to find Twilight.
“Out... on the balcony! Quick!” Spike pointed back the way he’d come, eyes as wide as Twilight had ever seen them. “It’s some kind of... of... of... I don’t know what it is!” Twilight eyed Spike for a second, but seeing that he wasn't hurt, only freaked out, she hurried past him, and out onto the balcony.
There, she found that Spike hadn’t been exaggerating in the slightest - a strange creature was indeed on the balcony. After a second, she realized she’d also found the source of the impact she’d heard earlier, as the creature, whatever it was, was laying there, clearly unconscious, and clearly hurt. She could see blood, and Twilight rather suspected there would be more to it than that.
“Spike! Go find that book on healing magic! The one from last month! And hurry!” Twilight didn’t even look to see if her assistant followed the command. Instead, she lowered her head, looking more closely at the strange being. Whatever it was, it was clearly bipedal, and had very little fur - only a long mane of fiery red. It wore clothes, strange ones, probably to compensate for the lack of fur, but it did have wings, the feathers red to match the creature’s mane. It had a nearly flat face, and pale skin... and freckles? She wasn’t sure, but they looked like the same marks that the ponies called freckles. It even had hands, similar to the minotaurs she’d seen, but with one more finger, totalling five. But unlike the minotaurs, this creature had straight legs, and no hooves at all. She couldn’t tell, not with the strange shoes on the creature, but it clearly had some kind of flat appendage.
In fact, except for the wings, it rather resembled the old, and rather ridiculous myths of humans.
Twilight snorted to herself at the thought, banishing it for the moment as she stopped trying to figure out how it was hurt. No, not it, she realized after a second, but she. Twilight looked at the creature’s curves - it was clearly a mammal, even with the wings, and no male mammal had anything like that, not that she’d ever heard of. Realizing she’d let herself get distracted again, Twilight shook her head, then began looking for injuries.
After a moment’s work, Twilight had identified a few injuries. The creature had clearly hit the tree head-on, and had, at the very least, a head injury of some kind and a torn scalp. The angle of one of the wings suggested it was broken, and she could see other scrapes and cuts, particularly where clothing was torn. She reasoned that the creature had probably hit the tree higher up, then fallen through some of the branches to the balcony. She hoped that was the extent of the injuries, but knew that there was a strong chance of worse that she couldn’t see.
“Twilight!” For a second, Twilight was confused - she’d heard two voices, hadn’t she? A second later, she realized she had, and from two different directions. One was Spike, appearing at the balcony door with the book she’d asked for. The other belonged to Rainbow Dash, who had just flown down to hover level to the balcony.
“Twilight! Are you okay? What’s that?” The pegasus landed near Twilight, eyeing the creature warily. “It looks evil.” She poked at the unconscious creature with a hoof, before Twilight could hold out a foreleg, pushing Rainbow back.
“I don’t know what she is, but she’s hurt. Don’t touch her.” Twilight’s telekinesis pulled the book from Spike’s claws, and flipped it open, as the unicorn searched for the spell she needed. “Thank you, Spike,” she said absent-mindedly. After a few seconds, she found the spell she wanted. After she read the spell to refresh her memory, she set the book aside, then turned to the creature. Carefully, Twilight leaned down her head, her horn igniting with power as she performed the spell, then she gently touched the creature’s shoulder with the tip of her horn.
In her mind, Twilight could see the creature’s body, and knew she was right - it was definitely a she - and as the magic worked, she could see the injuries the creature had. It took a moment for them all to visualize in her mind, and finally, she breathed a sigh of relief. There were more injuries, but none of them truly dangerous. A couple of cracked ribs and some sprains and bruises she couldn’t see before, as well as a very small fracture in the creature’s skull (and definitely a very nasty concussion), but nothing that couldn’t be handled with the right magic.
Letting her spell fade, Twilight picked her book back up, flipping through it again. “Rainbow, what brings you here?” Spike stood in the doorway, staring at the creature warily, but Rainbow Dash stood next to Twilight, peering at the injured thing with suspicion.
“Huh? Oh! One of the other weatherponies saw this thing appear and head straight for the library, and thought it looked weird, so he came to let me know. It was a good thing we’d just finished clearing that shower over on the other side of town, too. I came right over. He was right to warn me, that thing looks like trouble!” Rainbow Dash never turned away from watching the unconscious thing, definitely on high alert, with her muscles tensed... just in case it moved.
“Dash, she’s hurt, and bad. She didn’t head here, she crashed. Whatever she is, she’s not starting trouble like that. She needs help, and that’s what I’m going to do.” Twilight’s page-flipping finally stopped as she found the spell she wanted. It was significantly more difficult - in fact, it was one of the more difficult spells she knew - but it would do the trick.
“But you don’t know if it’s here to do stuff! Like kill ponies and drink their blood! Or steal magic! Or, or...” Rainbow’s protest broke down into sputters as Twilight gave her friend a disbelieving stare.
“You can keep an eye on her if you want, Dash, but I’m going to help her anyway.” Suiting action to word, Twilight set the book aside, then lowered her head again as she summoned her magic. This spell took even more concentration, and a great deal more power, than the first. Her horn flared up brightly, little sparks sputtering off of it, then a second layer of glow appeared as Twilight forced the magic into the right shape. Finally, the spell took shape, and she released it, sending a beam of energy towards the injured being. As it touched the creature, it spread across her, enveloping her in a field of power. The initial burst of power caused the unnaturally bent wing to straighten rather suddenly, and the rest of her body to twitch, then settle again as the energy seemed to sink into her, leaving behind the faintest trace of sparkling across her skin.
“What... what was that?” Spike asked from the doorway, the tiny dragon having never actually seen the spell performed. He’d been too busy munching on gemstones when Twilight had been learning the spell, before.
Twilight sank to the floor, panting softly from the exertion of the spell. After a few seconds, she caught her breath enough to answer. “It’s a combination of forced healing and accelerated regeneration. I decided to focus on healing magic for a while after that one crash you had before, Rainbow, when you were stuck in the hospital. Although the doctors in Ponyville Hospital are very good at what they do, they’re not strong enough to perform magical healing on bones, so I thought having someone in town who could might be helpful in an emergency. Now I’m glad I did.” Twilight picked up the book with her magic, closing it, and passing it to her assistant. “Don’t put that away yet, I might need it again.” Spike nodded, and took the book back inside, pausing for one last look at the strange creature before vanishing.
“Great. So you healed it. Her. Whatever. What is it, and where’d it come from, and why is it here? And why should we help it?” Rainbow Dash hadn’t lost even the slightest bit of her suspicion, still staring at the creature.
“I don’t know yet, Rainbow. She kind of resembles an old myth I read about, but the wings ruin that one. Come on. Help me move her inside and then I’ll do some research while she heals. With the injuries she took, she probably won’t wake up until tomorrow.” Twilight pushed herself back onto all four hooves. Her horn lit again as she wrapped the creature in a telekinetic field, lifting it carefully. “Make sure her wings don’t hit anything. Particularly that one - the spell’s only set it, it’s still going to need careful moving.” Rainbow groaned, but nodded, and together, the two ponies moved inside the library, the creature floating next to Twilight as they went.