Pillow Thoughts II

Author's Note: MANY thanks to Daniel-Gleebits for joining the team as an editor! Thanks to him and to Flutterbrony, I'm starting to learn more and more about grammar and the differences between my language and English. You guys are the best, thank you!

Apologies for being late with the chapter. Syncing three very busy people is difficult... and I'm working on a new Comedy Series too.

Don't worry, the chapters should flow a lot better now. Thank you, dear fans, for your awesome patience!

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Pillow Thoughts II

Chapter 3
Can’t we just stay put?

Rainbow froze, looking at the Princess, knowing that she had to move.

Applejack snapped her out of it: “Dash, go get Twilight! Go!!”

The pegasus shook her head violently and soared into the air. She heard the pony crowd gasping; that meant the masked alicorn started attacking again. Rainbow could feel the tension in her wings as she desperately tried to gain speed. Finally she saw the library in the distance and was forced to slow down, to make sure she didn't crash into it.

Luckily for her, a window was open. She landed in the treehouse, shouting after the purple unicorn: “Twilight!!”

The bedroom door opened as Celestia’s faithful student poked her head into the room.

“Oh, hey Rainbow... what’s—“

“No time to explain! Trouble! The Princess needs you, now!” and without further explanation, she grabbed her friend and took off. The unicorn was not used to such means of travel. The ground flew rapidly beneath her as she was trying to hold on to Rainbow as best as she could. Twilight let out a scream and started protesting when the pegasus took a few quick and unexpected turns, until her own words were covered by screaming voices getting closer and closer.

Both Twilight and Rainbow landed near Applejack. There were a few guards lying on the ground, still alive, but apparently in pain. The Princess herself was still holding her ground. She seemed unharmed but furious. The masked alicorn was holding its ground rather well, despite the fact that its size was not nearly as big as the Princess’.

“Bringing reinforcements, Celestia? I thought you were above that,” said the alicorn in the same genderless voice, after glancing at Twilight. “Well then, let’s give out this demonstration quickly, shall we?”

Twilight watched in horror as the masked stranger formed a bright light in front of them all, blinding them for a second. There came a shriek, then a strange vibrating sound. When they all could look in its direction again, the alicorn was already finishing up its spell over a poor levitating earth pony. She appeared to be lifeless, hovering in the air. Before Celestia or anypony else could react, with a simple move of its head, the alicorn dropped the pony on the ground, like a forgotten ragdoll.

“This is a warning of things to come, Celestia. You cannot stop the inevitable. Your kingdom will fall. Do you know what the best part is? I won’t even have to touch you with so much as a feather. You will be as healthy as ever so I can make sure you see it crumble bit by bit,” said the alicorn. With a short burst of blue light, it disappeared, leaving the marketplace engulfed in silence.

The ponies turned their gaze towards the light pink pony with white mane that was lying on the ground. Celestia took a few steps towards her.

“Your highness!” protested one of the guards.

“It’s alright... I do not sense any harm coming from her," the Princess promptly replied. She reached the pony and carefully started looking for any signs that she might be hurt. The light pink pony suddenly gasped and lifted herself off the ground.

“Easy there... you’re safe now...” said Celestia, not without a slight shadow of doubt. “How are you feeling?”

All the ponies looked at each other, not knowing what to think of all this. Twilight looked at her friends but they were just as clueless as she was.

“How do you think I am feeling?” replied the pony, terrified. “You are here to protect us yet you failed to do anything! You’re useless!” she continued, angrily.

The ponies around her took a step back, shock clearly written on their faces. The Princess raised her eyebrows, trying to make sense of this situation. She had never been spoken to in that manner before.

A group of ponies that seemed to be the light pink pony’s friends, approached her.

“A thousand apologies, Princess!” started one of them. “It’s the shock... Lilly didn’t mean to—“

“Of course, blame it on the shock!” Lilly said, interrupting the blue pony. “I don’t regret these words even if she locks me up”

“Lilly Fly, that’s enough!” said somepony else from her group of friends.

“Ha! Look who’s talking! The stupidest pony from the group... you’ve got some nerve, Bumbly!” she replied, and then trotted off, leaving poor Bumbly in shock.

The blue pony looked at their friend leaving, not being able to believe her own eyes and ears. She then turned toward Bumbly and, seeing how she was about to burst into tears, hugged her tight. “It’s alright, she didn’t mean it."

“She... she called me like... the other mean ponies used to call me...”

“It was a mistake, she didn’t mean it. She’s just upset and scared,” continued the blue pony and then turned towards the Princess. “I’m really sorry about all this, your majesty. Lilly Fly is a really nice pony, it must’ve been the shock! Please don’t be mad at her...”

Celestia looked after the angry pony then turned her head towards her group of friends and nodded. She then turned towards Twilight: “I think we should talk. All of us. The Library will be fine.”

***

Twilight was desperately putting random books back on their shelves. She did not expect a sudden visit from the Princess and the library was, frankly, a mess. Blushing slightly and concentrating on dusting the place, she heard her name being called out the third time around.

“Twilight, I think that will suffice” said the Princess. The least of their troubles was the cleanliness of the Treehouse. The unicorn stopped and assumed her place near her friends, in a semi-circle, in front of Equestria’s ruler. “We have little to go on so I’ll get right to the point. This alicorn bypassed all security measures and simply appeared in front of me, in the throne-room. It accused me of being a failure as a leader and threatened to show me just how less I cared about my subjects”

“That’s not true!” jumped Rainbow, but her marefriend signaled her to be quiet.

“It then offered to demonstrate it in front of everypony,” she continued. “I tried to keep everything at a rational level, but it didn’t seem to be able to do that. It started talking… mumbling actually… about rights and wrongs, what is fair and what isn’t fair... then it told me that it won’t stop until it sees our kingdom crumble. At that point I gave the alicorn a chance to leave, but it suddenly engulfed itself in that ball of energy you saw and crashed through the window, heading towards the center of Ponyville. I pursued and, well…” she concluded.

The mane six were silent. Nopony knew what this was about.

“Your Majesty,” started Twilight, “do you happen to have any... enemies? Any foes? Any ponies that might want your harm?”

Celestia thought about it for a few seconds, then replied: “No. Even my worst enemy cannot be considered a real foe and he is locked away in stone, beyond anypony’s reach. His methods are quite unique and the alicorn didn’t seem to be one of his doings”.

“Perhaps it’s somepony new," said Rarity, more to herself. She, along with Pinkie and Fluttershy, were brought up to speed with the current events by Rainbow, who went to get them earlier.

“What happened to Lilly Fly?” asked Pinkie. “I know that pony ever since she was born and she never reacted like you guys said she did! What did that big meanie do to her?”

Although her words were rather foalish, the ponies could certainly distinguish the concern in Pinkie’s voice. She wasn’t the only one either... Rarity was looking rather panicky and there is no need to mention how Fluttershy looked. The poor mare was terrified.

“The alicorn mentioned honesty,” replied Celestia, frowning. “If you look at it objectively, I was indeed helpless when faced with the circumstances. The alicorn didn’t seem like it wanted to harm my subjects. After all, its words were directed at me. Only when it grabbed the first ponies from the crowd I reacted, trying to protect them. By the end of the entire thing, it wore me out and I couldn’t react in time to shield Lilly Fly.”

“Y’all tried yer best, yer Majesty! No reason to frown upon it!” said Applejack.

“Applejack, you of all ponies should see the reason to frown...” replied the Princess, turning to her. “Lilly Fly spoke the truth. The entire truth, without hiding it, and crossing it with her feelings of anger.”

“So she was a bit angry and said some stuff, what’s unusual about that?” asked Rainbow. “We all say things that we don’t mean when we’re angry!”

“Yes, but what if we all started saying those things... all the time?” replied Twilight who caught on. “The alicorn threatens to make everypony honest... it is removing their... politeness... their social masks.”

“Harmony is obtained when there is equilibrium,” continued Celestia. “Honesty at heart doesn’t mean honesty through words. It implies it… but we need words to cover our weaknesses, to co-exist, to blend in and to evolve together towards a point where those words won’t be necessary anymore. But if you force somepony to give up on that shield, on that protective form of interaction too soon... there will be chaos."

Fluttershy gave out a small whimper and tried making herself even smaller behind Rarity. The white unicorn placed a hoof on her head, trying to calm her down gently.

Applejack stomped her hoof on the ground, annoyed: “That good-fer-nothin’ alicorn is using truth as a weapon?! Who, in all of Equestria, ever heard of such a thing??”

“Unfortunately, nopony," replied Celestia, looking at the mane six. “...except one, maybe...”

Twilight’s ears pricked up. “Who?”

The Princess sighed: “Ophil Gryasa, one of my oldest students, now a hermit somewhere on an island far away from here to the west. One would have to go by boat, for not even my wings are strong enough to carry me across such an expanse of sea—“

Her words were interrupted by the sound of Twilight packing some books and parchments in a bag. “Not to worry, Princess... we’ll be back as soon as we can”

Celestia smiled. “Twilight, I couldn’t ask this from any of you. It’s a long journey and I’m not even sure Ophil knows any ways of helping us!”

“Either way, it’s better than sitting here and waiting,” replied the unicorn.

“Yeah, we’ll find this Ophil and come back with a solution! Or even better, a cure!” added Rainbow, excited at the idea of a quest.

“Speaking of which, I’ll need to go back to Canterlot with Lilly Fly and try to find some way of reversing the spell. I’ll do anything I can to help you. Anything you need, it’s yours. I’ll arrange for a carriage to take you as close as possible to the Golden Sea” concluded Celestia and, with a nod, she exited the library.

***

The following minutes, all the ponies were quiet. Silence was interrupted by Twilight’s mumbling regarding the books she would need to bring on this quest, and what should the food/books ratio have been. After all, who could’ve studied on an empty stomach?

Applejack looked around the room, thinking that she should run back to the farm to gather some supplies as well. For both of them. Thinking of Rainbow, she realized that her marefriend was unusually quiet. She glanced towards her.

Rainbow was, indeed, too troubled to talk. She kept staring at a bookcase somewhere in a corner and, if one weren’t looking too closely, one wouldn’t notice that she had been staring at the same shelf for over ten minutes.

Applejack came closer to her and, keeping her voice down, she poked her lightly with her hoof: “You okay, sugarcube?”

Dash flattened her ears as she turned towards the orange pony. “Yeah… well no, not really. I keep thinking about this whole… truth-thing.” She looked at their friends. Rarity was comforting Fluttershy across the room and Pinkie was helping Twilight put some books back to their shelves. Spike was nowhere to be seen. Confident that nopony could hear them, Rainbow continued: “What if the allicorn attacked you… or me… We could blow it. I know it might be a bit selfish thinking about this now, but as much as I care for Ponyville and my friends… I care for you more. The last thing we need is a horde of angry ponies to jump on us for being together.”

Applejack frowned. It did sound selfish… but she was right. This spell doubled the danger for them. If they were concerned earlier regarding how their friends would react to the news, one could imagine how scary this idea of vulnerability was to them now. To both of them.

“It’ll be fine, Rainbow. Ah know what ya mean… but no matter what happens, we’ll be alright. You and Ah. Ah can promise you that. Dunno ‘bout the rest of ‘em… but Ponyville survived through a lot more, don’tcha think?” she said, smiling.

Rainbow returned the smile and wanted to give her marefriend a small peck on the cheek. She stopped halfway, realizing that she couldn’t do that in front of everypony else and her smile faded away. The earth pony wanted to say something but she got interrupted by Pinkie:

“This will be great! We’re all going on an adventure together! Isn’t this exciting? Are you excited? ‘Cause I’m excited!” she shouted, jumping around the room from pony to pony.

“Alright,” said Twilight, closing her last bag. “I suggest that everypony goes to her place and stock up on food and necessary items. Fluttershy, you should cover the first-aid kits. Applejack, a few ropes might be of use to us. Rarity, things might break along the way… so anything we can use to stitch things up might prove useful. Rainbow, any flying equipment that will make your life easier, bring it. We don’t know what we might face, so if you need to scout up ahead in heavy rain or scorching sun… you get the idea. Pinkie…”

Pinkie stopped bouncing and looked at the unicorn, putting on her most serious face. Which wasn’t really all that serious.

“Pinkie just… don’t bring… anything. Really, don’t.”

The pink pony’s face fell, looking heartbroken: “No… no cannon?”

“No, Pinkie… no cannon, no sweets, no… usual stuff. Just bring food, real food, you’ll need that," responded Twilight, a bit harsher than she would’ve wanted to. She then turned towards everypony again and concluded: “Don’t forget water. We’ll meet at the town’s western exit towards Canterlot in one hour. The Golden Sea is beyond the castle. I’ll send the Princess a message to send us the carriage. If anypony needs anything, now would be your last chance to say it.”

Rainbow approached Applejack, but ultimately took a step back. She looked towards the floorboards, not wanting to show her frustration to the earth pony. It was, indeed, very frustrating, trying not to raise suspicions. Even if all she needed right then was just a simple hug.

***

“Pinkie! I told you no sweets! That’s a bunch of sweets! Can’t you count?!” shouted Twilight, half amused, towards the pink pony.

“You’ll thank me later!” she responded, passing near the unicorn and climbing into the carriage. The bags were being secured on top of the vehicle by two of Celestia’s guards as the mane six were getting comfortable inside. There wasn’t much room, but they didn’t mind.

At least I get to stay close to Applejack without raising any questions, thought Rainbow. She knew Applejack was thinking the same. Or… maybe she wasn’t thinking the same. Maybe I’m the only one who is really worried about this.

She looked at her marefriend but didn’t really get any reaction from her. Maybe I’m making her feel bad. She dwelled on that thought as she focused her gaze outside the window.

The guard ponies started pulling the carriage, beginning the long and arduous trip to, what everypony hoped would be, an answer. Their orders were clear. They had to take the ponies safely as close as possible to the Golden Sea. The road was long and rather bumpy. The green hills that surrounded Ponyville were soon left behind, being replaced with brown fields and patches of vegetation. The sky’s color seemed paler and paler as the carriage kept going, as if the road ahead wished to convey to any traveler that it was a grim one.

The fillies were silent for the most part. Even Pinkie sat quietly and looked out the window. As soon as they passed Canterlot she closed her eyes for a second and gave out a small sigh.

“Everything okay, dear?” asked Rarity, drawing everypony’s attention.

“Yeah,” replied the pink pony. “It’s just the first time I ever went so far from home, and far from Mr. and Mrs. Cake… and many of my friends…”

“I… I think we all feel like that, Pinkie,” said Fluttershy, rubbing her hooves shyly. The other ponies nodded sympathetically and then fell back to silence once more. Even so, the pink pony didn’t feel comforted by that idea. She couldn’t explain it, and she didn’t try to… but she felt sad. Very sad.

Pinkie kept glancing out the window. One by one, stars started to appear over the horizon as night began to fall over Equestria. They were supposed to reach a nearby town and find a place to sleep there. However, that was not be the case.

The carriage stopped suddenly. Voices could be heard outside, growing louder and louder. Before anypony had any time to react, the carriage doors were engulfed in orange magic and yanked open.

“Everypony OUT!” a hoarse voice came from outside. “Move it, NOW!”

As the mane six bustled out of the carriage, their eyes fell upon two masked unicorns.

Oh no, robbers! thought Twilight.

The unicorns had knives suspended in magic, which were floating near the guards’ throats. Three knives to each throat, making any effort to escape and protect the mane six useless.

“They’re just mares, no threat,” said the first bandit, dismissively.

“Even so, let’s make sure nopony tries anything stupid!” said the other masked unicorn as he grabbed Applejack by her ponytail, exposing her neck, and levitated a knife to it. He then turned towards his partner in crime. “Grab their stuff. Focus on the valuables this time!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the other, breezily, levitating himself up onto the carriage roof.

Fluttershy was terrified, closing her eyes and covering them with her hooves. Rarity, Pinkie and Twilight were clearly not expecting this kind of danger. Not so soon, anyway. It took them a few good seconds to figure out the situation in which they found themselves.

Applejack couldn’t move, being held by the bandit. Even though she was strong enough to get out of his grip, the knife was far too close to her neck. She could’ve injured herself just by moving. Her eyes shifted to Dash.

“Dash!” she whispered.

The blue pegasus found herself in the same situation she hated. She could’ve easily tackled the bandit, fast enough that the unicorn wouldn’t know what hit him.

But she couldn’t. It was stupid, it was so stupid… but she just couldn’t move. What if… what if…

Applejack stared at her marefriend in disbelief, disbelief that she wasn't doing anything!

“Dash!” she shouted, this time loud and clear.

“Shut up, you!” he yelled in her ear. “Stop struggling!”

The orange pony was furious. How could she just SIT there?!

“Trouble down there?” asked the other unicorn bandit, poking his head over the side of the carriage.

“Yeah, this one won’t stay put!”

The bandit regarded his partner for a moment. He saw that the orange pony started making a fuss. With a bored look, he simply responded: “Run her through.”

End of Chapter 3