//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 PT.1: Welcome to Bright Foals // Story: Twilight Sparkle: Dark and Light // by str1pped gh0st //------------------------------// As I began to get up and stretch my legs, I accidentally tripped somepony with my right back leg. "Oh my gosh, are you ok?! I didn't notice you there." I said with slight panic in my voice. "No no no, it's fine," he remarked as he got back on his hooves. "I was just telling this young gentlecolt over here about our annual summer sun celebration coming up. I hear even princess Celestia herself is going to show up." Then, another pony came up to us. "You just can't wait for the celebration so you have to spread it around to everypony, don't you hon?" Hon? That must be his wife. "Yeah, and I'll make sure to share it with everypony who listens to the radio. This is a very important event." He said with great excitement. I began to walk away when they called out to me. "I'm sorry, but we couldn't help but notice the wings with you're horn, are you a princess." Darn, I thought this would be a secret vacation. "Yes I am actually, my name is Twilight Sparkle." I said trying to look collective. "We're pleased to make your acquaintance, your highness." The stallion said as he lowered his head to kiss my hooves. I saw his wife gave him an annoyed look and pulled him back by his mane. "Heh, sorry dear." He then turned back to me. "Miss Twilight, do you think I could try to get an interview with you. If you didn't hear, I host a radio show in Bright Foals." I began to look a little worried, "Look, I'm flattered, but me and my friend came here to get away from the big princess thing. Do you think we could keep my being here just between the three of us, please?" I said with a nervous grin on my face. "He'd be perfectly fine with it. We respect you're opinion and we won't say a word, trust us." she assured with a warm smile and a nudge to her husband. Thank goodness, now onto getting off the train. I turned around and began to head back to Spike when my horn began to vibrate. I activated it and a visual of Pinkie Pie and Rarity showed up. "Hi there Twilight, when are you coming home?" Pinkie said with a sad face. "Pinkie darling, she just got there. Give her some time to settle in." "I'm just making sure my best princess friend is doing well on her vacation. Listen, Twilight, just say the word and I will get over there as soon as possible and have some stern words with somepony. After all, I wouldn't want you to get completely harassed by anypony." "I'll be fine Pinkie, you don't need to worry about it." "You know Pinkie Pie, Twilight, she's can be too curious and protective. Are you settling in well, how is the environment around it?" I'm guessing Rarity wants to come visit too if the description is nice. I gave Rarity a confused look "We literally just got here, can't say anything about it yet, sorry Rarity. Well, I gotta go, Spike and I need to get our cabin key. Talk to you later girls, bye." I then ended the transmission and walked over to Spike who was giving me a weird look. "What's wrong Spike?" "How are we suppose to have a vacation when you keep waving your hoof to everyone and yelling 'LOOK, THERE'S A PRINCESS OVER HERE, PAY ATTENTION TO HER'!" Then the whole train went quiet. We looked back and saw a few other ponies looking at us and smiling. "Run." We both bolted out of the train and ran for a taxi carriage. We told the owner to just move as fast as he could. We were chased for about 10 minutes before we came across a diner. I got off and told them to just keep going to distract them. I ran inside and looked out the window to find about 10-14 ponies chasing the carriage. I turned around and released all my joints to get out some stress to find there were a few ponies that I actually recognized. There was a grey Pegasus with her left eye facing the opposing way of her right eye and a yellow mane. She had 7 bubbles as her cutie mark and she was wearing a name tag that read Ditsy Hooves and a red hat with a white stripe. "Welcome to the O'Dairy Dinner Ms. Alicorn, what can I get you?" "Ditsy, don't you know who that is?" Dr. Whooves is here too? "That's princess Twilight Sparkle, I'm pleased to make you're acquaintance." "Doctor, you don't need to be that formal, we have get togethers. What are you doing here anyway?" "I came here because I was trying to find a certain flower for a brew that I've been working on. Ditsy came with me because she wanted to help me." He looked back at Ditsy and saw her jaw was wide open, staring at me. "Did you say she's a...a...PRINCESS!" Ditsy's face suddenly light up and she started freaking out. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! I am pleased to make your acquaintance, anything you want, it's free." I began to give Dr. Whooves an annoyed look as I turned back to the grey Pegasus. "Actually, all I'm looking for is a stallion named Caramel, he's supposed to have a key for me." "Oh, Caramel, yeah, he's in the bathroom." She said turning around and pointing her hoof towards a dimly lite hallway. "Ok, thank you mam." I began to walk to it when a familiar voice caught my ear. "Hello there princess Twilight" I turned to my left to find the Flim Flam brothers sitting at a table. "Can you help me and my brother with the jukebox. It keeps making a noise that sounds like it's stuck, can you fix it." "Hello to you too Flim, what are you two doing here? Things not going we'll with you're con parade?" I said in a slight mocking tone. "Hey, the only reason we're here is you and you're dumb friends can't leave well enough alone! Now we're broke and don't have anywhere to go." I began to take pity on them and decided to help them out. "I'm really sorry, I'll help you with the jukebox, what do you think I should do?" "Try giving it a good solid whack! That should do it." Flam said while swinging his hoof in the air. I looked at the old jukebox and began to trot over to it. I leaned back with my hoof ready to go and pushed forward, smacking the windowed area and ending the malfunctioning noise. Flim looked at me and gave me a reassuring look "Thank you, really." I blushed a little as I turned around to head over to the hallway towards the bathrooms. I noticed there was a suspicious looking mare that was standing outside the hall and shaking, like she was scared out of her mind. "Ma'm, are you ok? Is something in there?" I trotted next to her and began to look inside the hallway. "I wouldn't go in there young lady, you can hurt yourself in the dark." She said those words in a very nervous and worried tone, but she didn't keep her eyes off the hallway. She also had what looked like a lantern next to her. "Thank you, but I think I'll be fine." I began to slowly trot into the hallway, examining the entire hallway. It looked so decrepit compared to the rest of the dinner. I finally reached the colts restroom door and began knocking on it. "Hello...Mr. Caramel?" I heard nothing. Then a old mare in a dark widow's outfit appeared behind me. "Mr. Caramel has become ill unfortunately. But I have the key for you and instructions on how to get to the lake." She said while slowly raising a key and an envelope towards me with her magic. "Okay...uh, thank you miss." I said confused as I took the items in my own magic aura. "I hope you settle in well. I'll come by to check on you and see how you've settled in. And to meet your friend. "I gave her a confused and slightly shocked look. "I insist." I began to trot out of the hallway and I could see the mare was still standing there at the end. "You got lucky this time young lady, you could hurt yourself in the dark." I began to walk out of the dinner as the grey Pegasus waved and said goodbye to me. I could see that Spike's carriage finally arrived and I entered it. "I finally lost all those crazy ponies." Then, Spike looked at the items I was holding. "I see you got the things we need to get to our spot. I also found some flashlights that we can use." "Spike, you know I can generate light with my magic right?" "I just want to give you're magic life a break. After all, your levitation spell takes less than you're light spell, right?" "Okay, thank you Spike." I said while giving him a hug. I pulled out the instructions and asked the carriage puller to take us there. He complied and we arrived there in a few minutes and Spike and I began to head inside. The power was out, so we had to light some candles (which is something I'm used to doing by now). As Spike began to take his test nap to see how the place was, I trotted outside and began to watch the sunset. I thought this was going to be a nice vacation. A few hours later I heard Spike call me from inside the cabin. I went inside and he wasn't around. So I guessed he was upstairs. As I went into our room he told me he had a surprise in the other room. I went in there to find a pile of paper, a quill and a parchment of ink. "Spike, what's this?" I said with a confused look on my face. "I thought you could teach new things here, tell Princess Celestia about--" "Seriously Spike, I thought I told you I wanted to--" "Hey, hey, hey, just hear me out. I heard there was a psychologist here, Dr. Hartcolt. He specializes in helping people out of depression, I thought maybe he could--" "So now you think I have depression. Why, because I'm a princess!?" "No, it's not like that! That's not--" Then suddenly, the lights shut off for a few seconds and he started calling my name. "Don't! Just don't. I don't wanna hear it. God damn it, Spike." I began to storm out of the cabin and trotted to the bridge that separated the cabin and Bright Foals. I leaned on the rope and began to rub my hooves on my head. "God damn it!" I said to myself. I sat out there for five seconds before the lights in the cabin shut off and I could here Spike screaming for me in terror. "Spike?! Spike, I'm coming!" I began to run back towards the cabin when a flock of darkly colored birds flew right at me. I activated my light spell and the birds flew away. "What in the world?" I ignored it and busted through the door to find it was pitch black. "Spike! Spike?" I noticed the back door also open and the wooden rimming broken. I ran over to it to find Spike in the water drowning. "Oh no." I dove in after him. Suddenly, I awoke to find I was on the ground in the forest with blood on my head. There was also blood on a tree I was in front of, so I had assumed I had smacked on the tree somehow. Waking up like this felt like I had awoken from one nightmare and entered another. I tried to use my calling spell, but I was to unfocused from what had happened for it to work. I had to find help on hoof.