//------------------------------//
// Pt.1 - Chapter 21 
// Story: The Starlight Broadcast 
// by ponyfhtagn 
//------------------------------//

Lunch time.
A pony brought Twilight a tray of food. He was either a guard or a nurse. Twilight wasn’t ever sure. Still, she knew that nopony here was her friend. They were all wardens of a kind, making sure that she behaved; trying to learn her secrets.
They had moved her to her own room in the palace. It didn’t look like a cell or anything. There were windows and there were books for her to read—all stories and history; no magic studies. There was a nice comfy bed and there was a desk where she could draw or write. They hadn’t yet confiscated all the sharp objects but Twilight suspected it was only a matter of time and imagination.
Cadence hadn’t come back to see her yet. Probably still drowning in shame from the verbal lashing Twilight had given her. Serves her right…
Shining Armor had come to visit a couple times. Sure, he seemed really worried at first, but then they just got into fights about how Twilight had made Cadence cry. Then Shining Armor would tell Twilight she was being a threat to Canterlot security. He was such a puppet. He didn’t come to see her anymore, but Twilight would often hear him outside the door asking her guard how she had been.
“Sometimes she’s quiet,” the guard would say. “Sometimes she screams. Mostly at night.”
Yes… Twilight recalled how she would wake in the night to find nurses trying to hold her down. They were sneaking into her room to do things to her, obviously. Sure they told her that she was having nightmare fits and they were only trying to stop her hurting herself. But really they were the cause of her waking up and screaming. Probably. Definitely.
They were probably trying to use mindreading spells on her—figure out what she knew. But she had already told them everything she knew about the hatchery. She would scream the story at anypony in earshot, about the real nightmare that was Project Draco. Twilight wasn’t certain of a lot of things in her world right now, but she was certain of that. That secret lab where dragon eggs were kept prisoner.
Of course, Twilight hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t told them about the Starburst Event. How it was clearly Celestia behind it all. There was no point telling them that. They were all Celestia’s good little soldiers. If they ever found out that Twilight knew about Celestia’s involvement with the Event then she would be…
…well, she didn’t know exactly what would happen to her. But it wouldn’t be good. They’d probably wipe her mind, or disappear her, or seal her away in Tartarus. Legend said that Celestia had found a portal to Tartarus and made deals with the forces down there. That Celestia kept the most dangerous enemies of Equestria locked away in that cold stony netherworld, guarded by the great dog Cerberus.
Twilight wondered how long it would be before she would join them.
…she had to escape.
And soon.
Hoofsteps approached her door.
It was her brother again. Twilight could tell partly by his step and partly by his aura. In the past few days Twilight had realised that overuse of Warhock’s spell had left her a little oversensitive to magical energies, so that even though she could not use the spell anymore she still found herself able to feel magic, if she remained aware. It was only to a small degree. She had felt Cadence’s power as something greater than expected. But of course Cadence was an alicorn, Twilight reasoned. It was nothing otherwise remarkable.
Shining Armor’s magical presence, also, was well familiar to her by now.
“How is she?” Shining Armor asked, outside the door.
Twilight groaned and poked at her cupcake. She didn’t want to deal with this again. More lies and betrayal behind a mask of false concern and empathy.
“She was having fits again last night,” the guard reported. “If this keeps up the doctors are thinking she might need to be restrained or given something to help her sleep.”
Twilight growled at the news and jabbed her fork into her cupcake.
“I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” Shining Armor said. “Are we sure there’s no evidence that anypony put her up to this or helped her?”
Twilight stabbed at her cupcake again. They still didn’t believe she could have done it all on her own. How they belittled her, even now. Stab, stab.
“I’m not up to date,” the guard deflected. “We’re still looking into it, though.”
“Right, right…”
There was a pause.
“Hey, um…” the guard spoke up. “Sorry we’ve been giving you such a hard time lately. We were just hazing you, you know. But we’re definitely backing off now. I mean… your sister…”
“No, I—” Shining Amor sighed. “I don’t want any special treatment, but… Thanks. Really. It’s been rough.”
Pause again.
Twilight was prising her cupcake open now and sneering at the red jam filling. What did he know of how rough it was? He hadn’t seen what she had seen. He wasn’t the one locked in a room against his will with a magic spell on his horn to suppress his power. He wasn’t the one with the burden of truth.
“Would you like to see her?” the guard outside asked.
Shining Amror made a few indecisive sounds.
Twilight dropped her fork, hopped down from her desk and marched over to the door. She stuck the wood with a sharp blow from her hoof.
“If you want to talk about me then come in here and say it to my face!” she demanded.
Stunned silence followed and she paced away again, muttering.
Then the door opened and Shining Armor came cautiously into the room.
“Hey Twily,” he said, slightly guilty.
The guard shut the door behind him.
Twilight lit her horn and picked up the mangled cupcake. She proceeded to pull bits off it and roll them up into little balls, not looking at him.
“Okay, sis, this has got to stop,” Shining Armor said.
Straight to the rules and discipline already, Twilight thought.
“I just don’t understand why you’re so angry with me,” he said. “With any of us. I’m sorry about the Gifted school. I’m sorry about all of this. I am so, so, very sorry that you exposed your mind to that kind of magic. I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like.”
Of course he couldn’t. Typical Shiny. Limited understanding of the world.
“But you’ve got to stop treating us like we’re the enemy,” Shining Armor said. “You’ve been hurt. The magic burned you and you need healing just like any other burn. I want you to be happy again. I want you to stop being angry with me.”
Twilight finished another ball of cupcake flesh and set it down on her tray next to the others, all in a neat row.
“Is this about the suppressor spell?” Shining asked.
Twilight accidentally squished the ball she was making. She started over.
“Look. I talked to some ponies and they say it’s not forever,” he tried to convince her. “They’ll take it off after you’re feeling better. We just don’t want you to hurt yourself again. Your magic and your mind… they’re both very fragile right now. The suppressor spell isn’t a cage—it’s a cast. It may seem restricting but it’s actually helping to hold you together right now. Just let the doctors and the healers and the psychologists do their work.”
Twilight set another ball of cake down on her tray.
“Twilight, I don’t know how to help you,” he lamented. “Don’t you understand that’s all I want to do here? It’s a big brother’s job, Twily. Every day that you’re being difficult is a day that you’re not getting better—is a day that you’re not happy—is a day that I spend feeling like a failure.”
Twilight had used the last bit of viable material from the cupcake. She admired her row of little cake spheres with an appraising eye.
“Twilight, please talk to me,” Shining Armor said.
She levitated the little cake pellets into a circling precession around her horn.
“If I throw these at you,” Twilight said, detached, “do you think they’ll rescind my cake privileges?”
He sighed. “Twilight, please don’t throw things.”
“If they took my cupcakes I would be unhappy,” Twilight said. “But they’d tell me that taking my cupcakes is going to make me better. Because then I won’t be throwing things anymore. Are cupcakes a right or a privilege?”
“Twilight, I don’t know where this is going,” Shining said. “But if it ends with me covered in cupcakes I’m going to be annoyed.”
“You’re annoyed. I’m annoyed,” Twilight was saying. “But did you stop to think about how the cupcake feels?”
Shining Armor huffed and turned away. “Fine. Be difficult. I’ll see you later.” He knocked on the door and waited for the guard to open it.
Shining Armor left and Twilight just sat there with an almost bored expression and little bits of cupcake dancing around her head.
He couldn’t help her anyway. Even if he was on her side, he wasn’t strong enough or smart enough to help her escape. Besides, he was already one of them. He hadn’t even mentioned her cutiemark this whole time. Some big brother he was. No, Twilight had to get out of here on her own. She’d be saying goodbye to everypony she ever knew or loved. But maybe that was for the best at this point. They clearly didn’t feel the same towards—
Twilight’s coat suddenly bristled and she sat up stiff. Instinctively she silenced her magic, letting the bits of cupcake fall and bounce away. Eyes wide she stared transfixed at the door to her room.
Something was coming. Something big.
Twilight stumbled off her chair and went to hide under the bed.
Stars above, what was that thing?
Twilight flattened herself to the floor, panting hard despite her efforts.
The magic was rolling down the hallway outside, slowly advancing towards her door. It was huge! It was white hot, even through the walls, and Twilight could not shield her face from its terrible heat. Her limited perceptions began to interpret things like a humming sound that got louder and louder; a numbing taste; a powerful vibrating of all matter within in the radius of that encroaching force.
The world became hotter and louder and Twilight felt like every atom of her room and every cell of her body were resonating with maddening friction. As if the world were on fire and bursting with song—rising and rising beyond belief! It must be right outside her door now and Twilight was sure she would lose her mind if it came into the room with her. She couldn’t stand it! And then—
…and then it passed her by. Whatever that power was it had carried on down the hall and passed mercifully beyond Twilight’s detection. Once gone, it left ruin in its wake. The cold lifeless wastes of the stark, abandoned world behind it. Twilight’s room seemed smaller and emptier now. Seemed almost… purposeless. Pointless. Lifeless in comparison to that brief touch of wilful creation.
Twilight dragged herself out from under the bed, grateful that whatever that thing had been that she hadn’t had to look upon it with the full technique of Warhock’s spell. She was certain that whatever the dragon egg had done to her mind it would be nothing compared to whatever ancient being had just blazed past her room.
Her skin still crawled and her limbs all trembled. She tasted blood but could find none when she spat. Her desire to act hung unfocused for several moments before she could rally her thoughts together. One step, two step, get those back legs moving. Twilight shakily approached her chamber door and rapped loudly on it.
“Guard?”
No reply.
Surely the guard could not have survived what had just happened.
“Guard!?” Twilight demanded.
The pony outside opened the door and conjured a shield of his orange magic to cover the exit—preventing Twilight from escaping, of course.
“Is something wrong?” he asked automatically.
“What was that?” Twilight demanded in a whisper, as if speaking about it could draw it’s attention back. “What was it that just went past my door?”
The guard seemed puzzled by this question.
“Just tell me and I’ll leave you alone,” Twilight said.
The guard relented easily enough and with a shrug he said simply: “Princess Celestia.”