The Forgotten Prince

Chapter VII: Trail of Memories

The purple unicorn felt utterly baffled by the sudden sensation of whirling uncontrollably inside an insubstantial space full of dark mist, and an indistinguishable uproar coming from every single direction. She had already lost her orientation and did not know where she was anymore, not that the constant, rapid pulsation was facilitating her discerning. It all seemed like a gigantic, eerie maelstrom. So much harsh was the turbulence that she had sworn it was taking forever to stop, until it finally did, only a few seconds later, in reality.

She landed violently on a hard surface with a painful dull sound. With great effort, she managed to gather some strength in order to get back up on her hooves, and proceeded to inspect her surroundings. As a slightly cold breeze soothingly caressed her aching body, she recognised a rather familiar sight before her: shining paved streets, beautiful tall buildings and a majestic, bright castle rising its high towers far away in the distance, all made of crystal.

She was still in the Crystal Empire. However, something looked very different about it. Despite the fact that it was still completely deserted and dead silent, it was no longer surrounded by the magical fog, and the sky was fully visible again, only with some ordinary rain clouds scattered around, menacing to start precipitating soon. She gasped when she noticed that even the moon had also returned to its original position, but found it more strange than actually relieving.

A déjà vu struck her upon realising that this was all like the strange dream she had the night before the events started. Yet, nothing made sense, she thought. The last thing she remembered was the dark alicorn mysteriously appearing inside the Crystal Heart chamber, striking Shining Armor and putting him unconscious, destroying the Elements of Harmony, and lastly conjuring up a spell on all of them. After that, they found themselves separated and spinning around inside the massive wormhole, which led to an apparently “normal version” of the Crystal Empire. Maybe this was all just an illusion... an alternate dimension, maybe.

Something definitely did not feel right. He could have simply killed them all with the greatest ease, so why would he send them there instead? She had to go investigate, and what better place to start than the castle itself, where it all started? It would be a long way to travel by hoof, though, and the streets were quite dark... but then again, they also seemed as empty and calm as back in the “foggy Equestria”, so there should not be anything that could possibly do her any harm, and hopefully she would even encounter her friends on the way... assuming that they were sent there as well.

As she began to walk, a loud thunder rumbled up above, startling her, right before torrential rain began to fall, which took her completely by surprise and soaked the entirety of her fur in an unpleasant way. Grunting and cursing a little, she rushed to cover under the balconies on one side of the street she was on, and continued walking while sticking close to the walls.

Meanwhile, back in the Canterlot castle, the princess of the moon had succumbed to weariness and fell fast asleep by her bedridden sister’s side, for even the embodiment of the night must sleep sometimes. She wandered alone in her own dreams, through some unknown dense and sinister woods, treading carefully over the fresh, dewy grass. It was the middle of the night... her night, back when everything was normal. Yet, that did not impede her from feeling uncomfortably frightened and aware, for she did not know where she was, or how she had even end up there.

Although the first sight of the massive tree line ahead seemed quite unfamiliar, she felt an unexpected déjà vu as she reached a vast clearing with a small hill in the centre. From there, one could clearly gaze the precious night sky, with all the stars dispersed and scintillating, and, in the middle, her stunning white full moon, shining radiantly, as always.

She could be admiring the gorgeous view, or wondering when did it all come back to normal, but instead her mind was distracted by a deeper and more sensitive thought.

“I’ve been here before...” she muttered to herself quietly “but when? Why?”

The annoying screeches of a random flock of bats passing by, high up in the air, alarmed her for a split second, but what really put her on full alert was the sudden desperate cry of a young foal that followed it, also coming from far above. She looked up and searched around very afflicted, until her eyes finally caught the silhouette of a filly falling from a great altitude.

She promptly spread her wings in an attempt to take off and go save her, but found herself unexplainably incapable to do so, like all her muscles had mysteriously frozen in the instant.

“No!... NO!” Luna screamed, devastated for being physically unable to save the helpless little filly, as she witnessed her falling to certain death.

Returning to the mysterious world, Applejack had just gotten up on her hooves a little disorientated and with a stinging headache from being thrown so fiercely to the ground after exiting the vortex. Upon taking a quick look around at her whereabouts, she came to the conclusion that she was still on the streets of the Crystal Empire, though the climate seemed to have returned to normal. She spotted the sky-scraping towers of the castle in the distance and, as if by instinct, she got the feeling that there was where she was supposed.

A few minutes later of walking alone, a shrilling thunder sounded, bursting through the dead silence of the streets, on which the only sound heard had been the echoing of her hooves stepping on the hard crystal floor with a constant, eerie cadence. It did not jolt her, actually, as she was accustomed to all types of weather from the agrarian work, so that she had already noticed the massive rain clouds approaching. However, it did irritate her a bit when the cold rain began to pour incessantly, soaking her coat and making her hat weighty on her head.

“Well, darn it!” she grumbled “Did it really have to rain now?”

Suddenly, her ears perked up, as she heard a faint moan coming from an alley on the other side of the street. She trotted there to discover its source, and found her rainbow-haired friend lying on the ground, her face visibly expressing the pain from her rough landing.

“RD, there you are!” Applejack rushed to her fallen form, promptly lifting her up and passing her front leg over her own shoulder.

“Where... where are we?...” the torpid cyan pegasus mumbled, while limping.

“Don’t know, sugarcube. We’ve all been separated inside that wormhole... that’s all Ah can remember.”

They got out from the alley, and went back to the main street.

“Where are we going?”

“Right now, Ah believe we should get to the castle.”

“Why?”

“Just this feeling Ah have...”

More minutes have passed. Despite the fact that their pace was significantly slowed down due to the hobbling pony, the sound of the large raindrops falling on the ground and the echoing hoofsteps duplicated in number made the march significantly more comfortable and less sinister.

At some point, in an attempt to break the silence between the two of them, Applejack spoke up.

“So... how did you get injured again?”

Rainbow Dash did not want to talk, for she had hurt her jaw on the landing, but she still made an effort to speak.

“Ugh... I was thrown to the rooftops and rolled all the way down, before landing where you found me... I’m lucky I didn’t break my wings!”

Applejack chuckled in a friendly way “Heh, well you sure do seem to be always getting yourself into trouble and later depending on me...”

The pegasus halted all of a sudden, forcing the earth pony to stop as well, and stared incredulously at her, like she had been awfully insulted.

“Excuse me?!”

“Yeah, remember yesterday, when you got struck by that lightening and Ah went back to get you, saving your life? This is the second time in two days that you get injured and end up depending on me...”

“Depending on you?! I didn’t ask for you to help me, you know!”

Rainbow Dash swiftly pulled her leg off from Applejack’s back and walked away from her, her eyes piercing hers like daggers.

“Now, hey, sugarcube, Ah didn’t mean to offend you...”

“But you just said it! I’M always getting myself into trouble, and I’M always depending on somepony else to save my flank! Do you really think that I’m that irresponsible, Applejack?! That I can’t take care of my own?!”

The orange pony could not recognise her anymore. That was the second time in two days that Rainbow Dash turned against one of her friends. Why was she unexpectedly behaving like this?

“Rainbow Dash... what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?! Perhaps it was befriending you eggheads, who think that I’m nothing but a whining filly and foolish brat, in the first place!”

Applejack refused to believe in her ears. She was not even able to speak after hearing such a cruel confession. She stood still and agape, as the pegasus spread her wings and readily flew off towards the sky, through the hard rain.

Alone once again, the farmer pony found herself more devastated now than before she had come across with Rainbow Dash in the alley. Her words had been like stabs through her heart, as she felt everything shattering at that moment. Not even the rain could appease her broken heart.

However, she did not remain stationary on the same spot for much longer, as an otherworldly, shrieking sound unexpectedly came from behind her, a few blocks away, which made her turn around to look back, slightly frightened of what she would find.

There was a large group of ponies, of all the three common races, coming in her direction at a slow pace. At first sight, nothing unusual protruded about them, but, as they got closer, Applejack could notice that all of them had their coats and manes terribly discoloured and darkened. Furthermore, all of them walked with their eyes closed, which gave them quite a disturbing, spine-chilling aspect.

She had a bad feeling about those gloomy ponies, so, rather than go to them, she scampered away and took the first street corner she found, in an attempt to lose them. They did not seem to have followed her, but that she was not enough to ensure her that she was safe just yet. From what she had seen during the last couple of days, anything could turn up to be hostile, and jump out of nowhere when she least expected.

As she slowed down her pace, her eyes suddenly met with those of her own reflection on a mirrored store window, right to her side. The two pairs of green eyes got closer to each other, as she leant slightly forward, only to observe just how miserable she looked: all wet and soaked, with awful dark circles around her eyes from the lack of sleep during the last two days. Now that she thought about it, none of them had had any rest since the events started, just the day before.

She rubbed her eyes very gently with her front hooves, kneading them through her closed eyelids. As she opened them again and looked back at her mirrored self, she saw an image so startling it made her immediately jump away from the glass: her reflection was completely frozen in the same place, as in a photograph, and had now an identical appearance to that of those ponies from before, having its coat changed from orange to a murky brownish, its mane from blonde to a more dark and dead shade of gold, and its eyes closed, with what seemed to be blood tears beginning to stream from them and down her cheeks.

Then, before Applejack could do or think of anything else, her other self in the mirror shot her eyes open in a split second, revealing a pair of horrendous black eyeballs with two menacing bright red dots for pupils, staring at her, as its mouth curled into a sadistic smile, right before it rapidly jumped out of the mirror, launching itself to attack her, but missing barely, as Applejack managed to dodge it.

A creepy female voice sounded inside the orange pony’s head.

“I know your fears, Applejack. Imprisoned, but never truly gone, I have seen them. Basked in them. Dwelled in minds such as this realm you find yourself trapped in.”

She did not understand what it meant, nor did she lost a single second discerning it, as her attacker charged again at her with incredibly swift moves. She only thought about running away, as fast as she could, and try to get to the castle before more of those things appeared.

In the meantime, back at the Canterlot castle, a sleeping princess of the night roamed through what had suddenly become a nightmare.

“No!... NO!” Luna screamed, devastated for being physically unable to save the helpless little filly, as she witnessed her falling to certain death.

Then, to her great astonishment, she glimpsed a small dark blur hastily tearing through the sky, coming absolutely out of nowhere, and successfully grabbing the blue filly before she got to the ground level, and then flying with her to the pit of the hill, where it landed and carefully put her down.

The princess of the night was now able to take a better look at the filly, who was lying on the smoothly stirring grass, facing down and still trembling from the shock, until she finally calmed down from the trauma and turned her face up to look at her saviour.

At that moment, everything froze in time, as Luna widened her eyes and agape in disbelief: she looked just like her, when she was young.

After watching this whole scene, she realised that she, indeed, remembered this particular episode of her foalhood. This was when she met the one who would become her secret best friend, before he mysteriously disappeared and she forgot about him. A saddening thought came to her head, as she considered that this all was nothing more than just a dream, and that everything was happening inside her own mind, for only she knew about their meeting. Nevertheless, even if none of this was real, and merely a memory she was recalling during her sleep, she was still glad to see her friend again.

She carefully inspected the pony sitting in front of her younger self. A young colt, slim and tall, about the same age as her sister, with a pair of small wings. His mane and tail were black and his coat of a dark greyish, but no cutie mark could be found on his little flank. Her eyes then caught something sticking out on his forehead... a horn. He was an alicorn, too.

Alas, so dark was this particular night that she was not able to see more details about him, not even his eyes, much to her disappointment.

“T-thank you for saving me...” the filly Luna timidly faltered.

“Oh, that was nothing, really” he responded in a kind tone. He sounded a bit shy as well, but, nevertheless, she found him very sweet and his voice quite soothing.

The blue young princess slowly got up and sat facing him, while the adult Luna kept listening to the whole dialogue attentively, only scarce meters from them, not that they seemed to notice her presence.

“How did you know that I was in trouble?” the filly inquired.

“I saw you falling from there” he pointed his tiny hoof towards another distant hill in the middle of the woods, which was only mass of land visible from the one where they stood.

“What were you doing up there?”

“I usually come here every night.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Do your parents know you wander in the woods this late?”

“Do yours?”

She blushed a bit and tried to avoid the topic.

“What do you come here for?”

“I have never been fond of the sunlight. It is just too bright and hot. I prefer the night, and I have always admired the way you raise it.”

The young princess blushed again.

“N-nopony has ever paid much attention to my nights...”

The adult princess shed a single tear, not really knowing where it came from. She had always felt like she was being put aside, and watched her elder sister get all the attention and respect, which ultimately made her succumb to the overwhelming jealousy in her heart and turn into Nightmare Moon. If only she had remembered back then that there used to be somepony who liked her so much for what she was... maybe Equestria never had to see the evil lurking inside of her, and she would not be imprisoned in the moon by her own sister.

“You... you really like the night?” the filly asked again.

“Yes. It is quite calm and beautiful. Such as you.”

“Well... thank you.” She looked at him, blushing even more, with an adorable face filled with a smile of pure happiness.

“What is your name?”

She bashfully turned her gaze to the ground, unaware that one of her front hooves kept scratching the grass nervously.

“L-Luna...”

“Nice to meet you, Luna. I like your name very much.”

“Thank you, you’re very sweet. A-and what’s your name?”

In the distorted dimension, Twilight was already close to the castle entrance. She was completely soaked in rain water and uncomfortably cold, but at least nothing out of the ordinary had appeared out of nowhere or tried to harm her so far.

At some point, she spotted something moving around in the distance, so she hastened her pace to go investigate it. It looked like the figure of a pony, seemingly lost, as it kept walking anxiously in circles.

“Hey!” she shouted, hoping for it to listen.

And it did, as it immediately halted, turned around and ran to meet her. As it got nearer, Twilight could clearly identify to whom that silhouette belonged to: it was Cadance.

“Twilight! I’m so glad to finally see somepony! Where are we?”

“I don’t know, but I think that the dark alicorn sent us to an alternate dimension created by his mind.”

“Oh no, what are we going to do now? How do we get out of here?”

“If he conjured up the interdimensional vortex spell in the Crystal Heart chamber, then there’s probably an exit point in that exact same location in this dimension.”

“So we need to get to the castle?”

“Yes, but, before we find the exit point, we should go find the others...”

All of a sudden, their attention was caught by the sound of many hooves approaching them from all directions. There were groups of eerie-looking ponies with darkened fur and their eyes closed absolutely everywhere, surrounding them completely.

“W-who are you?” Cadance asked in dread.

Their answer came in the form of a female voice reverberating inside both their heads, with a nauseating sarcastic tone.

“Ah, Celestia’s protégé. Where is your mentor now? She is not here to save you, is she? Poor, poor Twilight Sparkle. Stuck here in this demented world with a false alicorn!”

“Who are you?! Answer us!” Twilight demanded daringly, trying to conceal her immense horror at that precise moment.

“Tell me, Twilight Sparkle... do you fear death?”

One of the many threatening ponies around them walked closer and stopped, before shooting his eyes open, revealing two terrifying black eyes with shining red pupils that pierced through their souls and, below them, blood tears poured continuously, dripping on the floor. He grinned insanely, and immediately jumped at them to gash their flesh.

Suddenly, Applejack showed up and kicked the attacker in the middle of his jump, sending him through the air and onto the ground.

“Applejack!” Twilight and Cadance called at the same time, definitely thankful to see her.

“C’mon, y’all! We can’t stay here, it’s not safe on the streets!”

“We need to get to the castle!” the purple unicorn informed.

“That’s exactly where Ah was heading too, follow me!”

With Applejack on the lead, the three ponies found an opening between two of the mysterious hostiles and ran away swiftly towards the last intersection before reaching the main street in front of the big crystal staircase that led to the tall castle doors.

“We’re almost there! Just a little further!”

Before they noticed, they were already inside the enormous entrance hall, with the heavy doors shut behind them. At last they could sigh in relief and have some calm, comfort, warmth, an opportunity to dry their fur and, most importantly, safety.

“Thank goodness Ah’ve found you just in time!”

“Thanks, Applejack. By the way, have you found any of the girls outside? Or my brother?”

The farmer pony hesitated a bit, but ultimately spoke up, leaning her head slightly down in shame.

“Ah’ve only met with Rainbow Dash. She was hurt, so Ah offered to help her up, but then Ah... said some nasty, stupid things in a joking way, which only made her become mad at me. After that, she took off and... she was gone.”

“What?!” Twilight scolded her “You let Rainbow Dash fly away ALONE with this rain? And with all those things creeping around on the streets? What if she falls down and they get her because she can’t get up?! How could you abandon your friend like that?!”

“Ah’m so sorry, Twi. You’re right, Ah shouldn’t have left Dash on her own. Ah’m a horrible friend.”

As Twilight calmed back down, she realised that Applejack was, indeed, extremely regretful and angry at herself. She walked over to her and placed a friendly hoof on her shoulder.

“Don’t say that, Applejack; you’re a wonderful friend, and I’m sorry for yelling at you like that. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I do know that you would never say or do anything with the intention of hurting your friends. And I’m glad you had the courage to tell us the truth straight away.”

“Thanks Twi...” she forced a modest smile.

An astounding beam of orange light suddenly began irradiating from Applejack’s chest.

“What in tarnation? What’s happenin’ to me?!”

Twilight and Cadance watched in surprise and wonder, as the collar representing the Element of Honesty materialised around their friend’s neck all in one piece, once again.

“That’s it!” The librarian pony jolted in great enthusiasm “When the dark alicorn shattered the Elements, he only managed to destroy their physical form. Yet their power is still alive, within each one of us! We’ll just have to revive them, and the jewels will appear again!”

“Yeah, but we don’t even know where the rest of the girls or your brother are!” Applejack recalled.

“Then we’ll have to go find them. Who knows? Maybe some have been sent inside the castle, or already got in here before us.”

Twilight promptly took the lead as they proceeded deeper into the castle’s long, dim and bare corridors.

Fluttershy had exited the vortex in the upstairs hallways of the castle, where the dormitories were, and she had been wandering around the many corridors there for several minutes, each looking absolutely identical to the previous one, and everywhere she turned had the same faint amount of light and a deadening silence that put all her senses on full alert.

After countless twists and turns, she finally made it to a hallway that was clearly different from the others, for it was shorter and only had a single door, right in front.

The diffident yellow Pegasus slowly approached it, rotated the knob and pushed it open as quietly as she could, afraid of what could possibly await on the other side.

It was just an ample room. There was a majestic round canopy bed on one side, and a big closet on the other; ahead of the door was a large window, through which all the light in that room entered, and one could see the rain pouring outside.

Fluttershy got a bit scared when she noticed somepony sitting on the floor by the window, but she immediately calmed down after realising it was just... a foal? What was a young foal doing here, in this place? From a closer look, she stated that it was a colt.

He remained there, sat perfectly still, facing the window and watching the rain fall outside, utterly absent of her presence.

“Hello...?” she muttered serenely.

The little colt was a bit startled to hear somepony there, as he turned his face quickly around to see her. Only then could Fluttershy observe him better: he was a young alicorn, with a greyish coat and a slightly darker mane and tail, and he had no cutie mark. His eyes stared at her, more frightened than she was of that bizarre dimension where she had entered; they were of a very brilliant icy-blue, like two small, glowing sapphires. She could almost swear that those were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

“Oh, please don’t be afraid...” she said in her characteristic kind and peaceful manner, trying to gain his trust before stepping closer to him carefully “I’m Fluttershy. What’s your name, little one?”

He faltered a little at first, but ultimately managed to give a full response.

“M-my name is...”