//------------------------------// // Blindfolded // Story: Only a Blind Filly // by Skijarama //------------------------------//     Spike,     I’m on my way to Twilight’s Castle. Meet me there immediately.     Signed, Princess Luna.     The message had been short and concise, but it told Spike and Tulip all they needed to know. Their original plan was to head for the castle anyway, so this worked out rather nicely. Spike led the way through the silent evening streets, Tulip following close by his side. Winona stayed by Tulip, Owlowiscious flew overhead and the other pets formed a loose pack behind them. The trip was made mostly in silence, and soon enough, they were stepping into the front lobby of the castle. Tulips’ ears twitched and swiveled on her head when she heard the tall doors creaking as they swung open, and the dirt road beneath her hooves transitioned to a soft carpet. “Are we here?” she asked shakily. The way her voice echoed around her in this new setting sent a shiver up her spine. It was like she was surrounded by a dozen of herself...     “Yeah, we’re here. Welcome to Twilights castle,” Spike replied while ushering the pets in. Once they were all inside, Spike closed and locked the door behind them. The heavy thud and clang of the doors closing made Tulip jump in alarm with a startled squeak. “You’re alright, it’s just the door,” Spike explained plainly before stepping a little farther into the lobby. He stopped after a few paces to look around. The front room of the castle looked more or less the same as it always did, albeit with one or two of the decorative flower pots that were along the walls now shattered on the floor from the previous night’s struggles. Wincing at the memory, he cleared his throat. “Ahem. Princess Luna!? Are you here, yet!?” he shouted, his voice echoing all throughout the large room.     A few seconds passed in relative quiet before the answer came. Hoofsteps could be heard from a room off to the side, clacking loudly against the smooth crystal floor. The door opened, and sure enough, Princess Luna trotted out. Spike sighed in relief and went to greet her, but paused and tilted his head in confusion when he saw the thick strap of dark blue cloth that was tightly wrapped over the alicorn’s eyes. “Huh? You’re wearing a blindfold?” he asked in bewilderment.     Tulip shifted on her hooves, becoming visibly more uncomfortable with every step Luna took towards them. “Is that the princess?” she asked in a hushed, anxious voice, and Luna came to a stop not far away.     A gentle, regal laugh answered her question. “Yes, young one, I am Luna, the princess of the night and matron of dreams. You need not bow or use my title; We are all in the same situation, here. Treat me as you would anypony else,” Luna answered soothingly before turning to Spike. “As for the blindfold, Spike, I put it on to shield myself from our enemy. It seems to have done the trick for now.”     “Oh, I get it,” Spike nodded in understanding. It made sense, he supposed. After a moment, he turned and put a claw on Tulip’s shoulder while flashing Luna a warm grin. “This is Tulip Iris, the blind filly I mentioned in my letter,” he introduced, trying to sound friendly and casual. There was no hiding the tension in his voice, though, and nopony missed it.     Still, Tulip didn’t let it distract her. She nodded and gave a small nod of her head. “It’s nice to meet you…” she mumbled quietly before taking a step back to hide behind Spike.     “Likewise… I take it your blindness is what saved you?” Luna inquired gently, taking another few steps towards the filly and dragon.     “Mhmm…”     Spike chose this moment to speak again. “So, Luna, what’s going on? What happened last night? Do you have any idea?” he asked, his tone turning grim and serious. “Because Tulip and I are lost.”     Luna’s ears drooped, and her face fell in regret. “I am afraid I do not know much… all I know for sure is that, while I was going through the dream realm last night, ponies were suddenly waking up all over Equestria in droves. It was abrupt, and their minds were filled with a flood of confusion and panic. I stepped back into the waking world to try and piece together what was happening,” she paused and shuddered, the memory still fresh in her mind. “There were screams in the halls of the castle… My sister appeared in my chambers, confused and on the verge of panic. She tried to tell me something, but then… one of them burst through my door. One of my former personal guards, no less. He tackled Celestia before either of us could react and looked into her eyes...”     The way Luna hesitated told Spike and Tulip all they needed to know. “So we’ve lost Celestia...” Spike asked in quiet shock, wringing his claws together over his chest.     Luna nodded solemnly, her lips pulling into a thin line. “Yes. I disposed of the assailant quickly, and Celestia, bless her soul, was able to resist whatever was invading her mind long enough to tell me to not look into their eyes. Hence the blindfold,” she tapped a hoof to her head. “I made it from my bedroom curtains as I fled my bedchambers. Unable to see what was happening, though, I was powerless to help our subjects…” her ears fell completely flat against her head. “I had no choice but to run and hope for the best. I found a secluded spot in the wilds, far enough away that I could safely take off the blindfold, and waited. After an hour or two, the screams were silent, and all of them were leaving the city and disappearing into the countryside. I plunged into the dream realm again after that, to see if anypony had survived…”     She stopped speaking and looked away, a shiver beginning in her legs. Spike glanced uneasily at Tulip, who had shrunk behind him in fear, then looked back at Luna. “And…? What did you find?”     Luna took in a long, deep breath, let it out in a heavy sigh, then spoke with resignation and regret. “I counted only a couple thousand dreams… as compared to the millions on a normal night,” she revealed slowly, her voice shaking.     Tulip Iris whimpered pitifully from her place behind Spike, cowering down onto the floor and shaking horribly. Winona was quick to step forward and press herself into Tulips’ side while also offering her a few gentle licks of comfort. Owlowiscious, too, offered what help he could, settling down on Tulips’ back and giving a gentle hoot to try and comfort her. Their efforts were appreciated but were insufficient to ease the filly’s despair, as she continued to quietly whimper from deep in her throat.     Spike sagged at the sight while reaching out a claw to give Tulip a few gentle pats on the head. “Hey, don’t worry,” he said softly. “We’ll figure this all out, okay? I promise. You’re immune…” his words were enough to make Tulip stop shivering, but she was still unquestionably filled with despair. Sighing, Spike turned back to Luna and clasped his claws behind his back. “Alright… what do we do now?” he asked quietly.     Luna was silent for several moments. Her horn lit up with a blue glow and raised her blindfold over her eyes just enough to look at Tulip in sympathy. After a few moments, she replaced the cloth over her eyes, sighed and turned her back. “I do not know, yet, Spike. We don’t know enough about the enemy to come up with an effective plan…” she admitted before starting to trot forwards. “Until we know more, we need to take care of ourselves. It has been a stressful night and day for all of us. Spike, I am raiding your pantry. I trust you have no objections?”     Despite himself, Spike managed to chuckle at that. “Technically, it’s Twilight’s pantry, and we were on our way to raid it ourselves when you wrote back,” he pointed out before glancing back at Tulip. She still looked petrified with fear and dread, but the suggestion of food had at least gotten her ears to perk up. Smiling softly, Spike reached down and gave her hoof a gentle tug, beckoning her to come with him. “Come on, Tulip, let’s get something to eat, eh?”     That finally stirred Tulip into motion. She stood back up and, with her hoof held in Spike’s claw, the trio made their way down the hall for the kitchens and dining rooms.     Their meal was a quiet, somber affair for the most part. More than once, Spike had attempted to strike up a conversation, but the discussions never managed to get anywhere meaningful. The oppressive nature of their situation made the words stick in their throats more often than not. If nothing else, though, the food was good. Tulip was quite happy to share her satisfaction with Spike’s cooking, her compliments to the chef being the longest conversation they were able to have.     Once their food was all gone, though, the mood began to fall again. Tulip’s ears twitched on her head with every tiny sound, and she was clearly waiting for somepony to say something, anything to break the quiet. Eventually, Spike was the one to break the silence. “So, Luna… you said that only a few thousand ponies slept through last night’s, er, ‘events’ right?”     Luna gave a curt nod of her head. “Yes. I had already considered that others may have managed to avoid the affliction without sleeping through it. Sadly, I have no way of knowing for sure how many there are. I plan on observing the dream realm tonight and questioning anypony I can. We are in desperate need of tangible answers...”     Spike rested his claws on the table, his expression despondent. “Yeah… we are low on those...” he muttered quietly before going silent again. Then, with a snap of his claws, his expression brightened considerably. “Wait, what about Zecora?!” he asked in a loud voice, drawing the attention of the others.     Tulip’s muzzle scrunched for a moment as she tried to recall who the name belongs to. “That’s the rhyming zebra, right?” she asked quizzically.     Luna nodded slowly, a thoughtful look on her face. “Yes, it is possible she was spared the terrors of last night as well. Closely related though as she may be, Zecora is a zebra and not a pony. This affliction only seems to infect ponies, so she may be safe…”     Spike pumped a fist into the air with a cheer. “Yeah-haha! We can go find her in the morning! Maybe she’ll have an idea of what’s going on,” he exclaimed loudly.     Tulip managed to offer a smile as well. “I hope so. But, uh…” her smile faded, and her ears fell flat against her skull. “Doesn’t she live in the E-e-everfree f-forest?”     “She does,” Luna replied simply. “But worry not. I am more than capable of keeping us safe from wild creatures or beasts that may attempt to accost us on the way.”     “What about them?” Spike suddenly pointed out, his own voice losing some of its confidence at the thought. “If any of them are in the forest and ambush us, what do we do then? They’ll be going after you, and we can’t lose you.”     Luna frowned thoughtfully for several seconds before putting her hooves together and resting them on the table. “My blindfold shields my eyes, and under normal circumstances, it would prevent me from seeing. But, with a little bit of magic, I can still see the world around me. It’s how I’ve been finding my way around since last night. I am using echolocation to see.”     Tulip’s ears immediately perked up, and she turned to face Luna with her milky eyes flying wide open. “Oh, oh, could you use that spell on me?” she asked hopefully, an enormous grin on her face. “Please?!”     Spike’s face lit up as well. “Oh, yeah! Echolocation would probably be great for you. You can’t see normally, but I bet you’ve got really good ears to make up for it!”     “Uh huh!” Tulip replied with an enthusiastic nod. “Mom told me that I can smell, hear, feel, and taste a lot better because my eyes don’t work. But Luna, please?” she turned to the princess again and clasped her hooves together in front of her. “Please, please, please?!”     Luna looked back at Tulip for several seconds with a thoughtful look on her face. “It’s worth a try, but I must warn you now that the spell is not designed to work with blind eyes. It stimulates the vision receptors by using sounds in the ears to create an image of the environment. I’m still looking at the world around me with my eyes, the information is just being sent to them by my ears instead of my pupils…”     Tulip’s ears drooped, her smile fading. “So… so it wouldn’t work?” she asked in a timid voice before slumping back in her chair.     Luna winced and looked away. “I never said that for certain. There is a very high chance that it would be a failure, yes, but as I said, it is worth a try if nothing else…” she reiterated before slowly rising from her seat. “But not tonight, I am afraid. I must go and begin the night. Spike, Tulip, you two should go and get some sleep.”     “Alright. Goodnight, Luna,” Spike called.     “Goodnight.” With that, the lunar princess made her exit. Tulip remained motionless, and visibly flinched when she heard the dining room door shutting in the alicorn’s wake. She was perfectly still for several seconds before quietly sniffling, drawing Spike’s attention. Her dull, empty eyes slowly opened and began to shimmer with tears. Finally, with all of the stress, fear, anxiety, and confusion of the last twenty-four hours becoming too much for her, she did the only thing she could.     Her face fell forward and thumped onto the table, and she began to cry. Her sorrowful wails were long and loud, and for a while, she was all alone in her misery. Eventually though, even if she was only distantly aware of it, she heard Spike standing from his seat, and the feeling of his claws on her shoulders as he tried in vain to help her feel better. Eventually, with nothing else to hold onto, she turned and wrapped her forelegs around Spike’s shoulders while burying her face into his neck and continuing to weep. All the while, he just held onto her, letting her cry as much as she needed to.     Later that night, with the moon high in the sky and the sun long-since set, Spike guided Tulip to one of the castle’s many guest rooms. She had been quiet ever since her meltdown, refusing to speak the entire time. When at last they got to the room, Spike helped her up into the bed and tucked her in. She visibly relaxed from the softness of the mattress and the warmth of the blankets, a relieved breath slipping out of her. “Kay, how’s your leg?” Spike asked once she was settled.     “It’s alright for now…” “Okay, just checking. Now, my room is right next to this one. First door on the left when you walk out,” he explained softly before glancing down at his feet. With a small chuckle, he reached down and lifted something up. It was Winona, who he set down on top of the blankets. She quickly curled up by Tulip’s side, sharing body heat with her. “If you need something, just holler or come get me. Winona will start barking of something’s wrong, alright?”     “Okay…” Tulip mumbled before slowly opening her eyes. She looked up and around at the room for several seconds. “Spike?”     “Yeah?”     “Would you describe the room to me, please?”     Spike hesitated, then nodded with a soft smile on his face. He looked around and took it all in for a second before beginning. “Uh, sure. It’s a pretty big room, first off. The walls are made of this bright blue crystal. There’s this big red rug on the floor around the bed so your hooves don’t get cold if you have to get up in the middle of the night. There’s a big chest of drawers on one side of the room, along with a tall mirror. There’s a bathroom right through a door on the right-side wall. The ceiling is really high, and in the moonlight, it’s almost like a night sky filled with stars. There are two windows behind your bed, one on each side, and each one is letting in a stream of moonlight…”     Tulip Iris managed a small smile as she soaked it all in before slowly closing her eyes again and laying down fully in the bed. “It sounds nice…” she murmured before lightly nuzzling her pillow. “The bed is nice, too…”     “Yeah…” Spike agreed before looking down at Winona. “You take care of Tulip tonight, okay Winona?”     Winona gave him a look with her eyes. He didn’t need anything more than that. She was on it. And so, with that, Spike began to make his way for the exist. “Goodnight, Tulip.”     “Goodnight, Spike…”     The last thing Tulip heard that night was the sound of her bedroom door closing before she fell into a restless, dreamless sleep.