It was late at night when Twilight heard the sound.
A strange scratching, bumping sound. It was very soft so as to be almost undetectable. But Twilight could hear it. Probably. Maybe. She was wide awake and unable to move. She lit her horn and pulled at the belts that lay across her chest. It was no use. They were held in place with a locking spell that she couldn’t break. They said it was for her own good, of course, and made up stories about fits and sleep walking. And, as predicted, they had already confiscated all the sharp things. All she could do was lie there a cold sweat as something moved around just at the edge of hearing.
Twilight lit her horn brighter for light and fearfully glanced around the room. The shadows lurched out at her in the magenta glow and made he see movement where there was none. Her breath came out hard and fast. But no... No, she was alone in the room. There was nothing to be seen. But still the sound was getting closer.
Oh no… It was in the walls.
Twilight wriggled against the restraints. Should she call out to the guard? Would he even care? Maybe he’d just think she was having another nightmare and he wouldn’t even check on her—just go and get the nurses. Or maybe it wasn’t real at all. Maybe she truly was loosing her mind. It couldn’t be real, right? It was bumping along inside the wall, right by where she was lying. What was it? There was nothing there but she could almost feel it.
It had magic. It was dark and cold and hungry. It was a twisted thing that only knew how to take and take and take and whisper lies. It was oily and smooth and it buzzed and clicked at the edge of her awareness—this unknown thing that moved inside the walls! She heard the scratch and quiet shriek of metal. Should she scream? Maybe she’d scare it away, whatever it was. Or maybe it would just get angry. Maybe if she stayed quiet it wouldn’t find her. Maybe if she closed her eyes it wouldn’t see her. She shut off her horn and tried not to breath. Metal squeaked again.
It was coming from under the bed.
Twilight let out a whimper despite herself. She was going to die. It was some kind of night creature come to finish her. Some horrible thing that was going to steal the last of her magic and nopony would even miss her and that would be the end!
Metal grit against metal for a moment. So subtle. So deliberate. Then something swooshed along the floor under her bed. Crawling out into the room. It was on her other side now—that oily dark magic. Twilight whimpered again, her breath coming out in fast panting. She stretched and strained again the straps. She felt the thing looming up beside her bed.
She screamed!
“Shhh,” cautioned a little voice.
Twilight held her breath.
“Twilight,” the voice whispered. “It’s okay. I’m a friend.”
In the silence that followed Twilight heard the guard outside shifting his weight on his horseshoes. He had heard her and he was considering what to do.
“What do you want…?” Twilight whispered.
“Are you okay?” the intruder asked. “You went missing and everypony was worried about you.”
Twilight knew that wasn’t true. She glared in the darkness.
“I heard you got in trouble for something,” the visitor said. “Are you hurt.”
“…no,” Twilight said. Then she repeated herself. “What do you want?”
The stranger seemed confused. “I wanted to find you. To make sure you’re okay. I’m here to help you.”
“Help me?” Twilight whispered.
She slowly lit her horn again, shedding light on the intruder.
It was a colt. A green and purple colt wrapped in a black cloak.
“I’m Spike,” the colt whispered. “I—”
“Who?” Twilight said.
“You don’t know me. But you can trust me.”
The guard shifted again and Twilight dimmed her horn-light a little.
“What’s this?” Spike touched one of the belts.
“They won’t let me go,” Twilight whispered. “They don’t like me so they tied me up and stole my magic.”
“What? Who’s they?”
“The Princess. And Cadence and everypony,” Twilight hissed.
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“I know what I know!” she whispered harshly.
Hushed silence fell again.
“What happened, Twilight?”
She glared. “They’re monsters. They did horrible things and I found out.”
“What things? Wait… does this have something to do with a spell book?”
“No,” Twilight sneered. “This is about the—” She cut off. “About trick questions. Always tricks. Everything was a trick and now I’m trapped.”
Spike didn’t seem to understand. He stood there confused and directionless. Then he drew breath and fixed a decisive gaze on the belts that held her against her will.
“Let’s go,” Spike said. “I’m going to get you out of here. We can crawl out through the vents and they won’t find us.”
The vents. So that’s how he came in.
“You mean escape?” Twilight whispered, her light growing brighter.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” Spike said. “But we can sort it out later. Come on.”
It all seemed too good to be true. Too good indeed… And Twilight was no fool. This pony looked like a colt but his aura was all wrong. Layers and layers of lies, even under the black cloak he was still hiding something. He was no unicorn and he had no right to project such power. Such… unnatural magic.
He was no pony.
The colt grabbed at one of the straps and pulled it with his hooves.
“No good,” Twilight said. “Magic binding. I don’t have the counter spell.”
She watched him take a shaky breath and release it. “Okay. Maybe if I burn it off.”
“Don’t burn me!” Twilight hissed, maybe a little louder than intended.
Silence hung.
The guard outside the door shifted on his hooves again.
“Okay. Okay,” Spike said. “It’s alright. I’ll be careful.”
“How?” Twilight asked. “Even fire can’t undo good magic.”
He fumbled inside his cloak and came up with a glass bottle of some kind. Twilight lit her horn a little brighter so she could see—and more importantly so he could see and make sure not to burn her.
“What’s that?” she whispered fearfully.
“Just a potion,” he said. “I hope this works.”
“You hope?” Twilight snarled.
“Shh,” he said, uncapping the lid with his teeth.
Twilight flinched back from the sudden sizzle of new magic. Whatever the potion was it was hot like lava but also cold enough to snap glass. She got a brief mental impression of melting colours, whatever that meant.
Spike’s hooves were shaking—no, fumbling.
“Give me that!” Twilight whispered harshly, grabbing the bottle with her magic. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Just a drop,” Spike warned her quickly. “I don’t know how strong it is but it was made to—Uh, to deal with some potent stuff.”
Twilight held the bottle with her magic and tilted it ever so slightly over the first strap. A drop of orange liquid oozed out and met the magically-locked clasp. There was a strange sizzle and a little wisp of smoke followed by a snap as Twilight felt the locking spell vanishing into fragments that dissolved like soap bubbles. She repeated the process on the next strap and found the same result.
Twilight resealed the potion and passed it back to the strange non-colt. Then she seized the straps with her magic and unbuckled them easily, wriggling free from them at last.
“Come on,” Spike said. “Through the vents.”
“No,” Twilight said.
She lit her horn and grabbed the potion back from his clumsy grasp. Then she stared screaming.
“Shh!” Spike was saying. “What are you doing?”
Twilight gave another scream and then a long wail and screamed again.
Spike looked frantically from her to the door and to the space under the bed.
Twilight lowered her cacophony to childish whimpers and whines as she heard the guard groan loudly and trot off to fetch the nurses.
“What was that?” Spike hissed. “We have to go now!”
“I’m going,” Twilight said. “But not with you!”
She conjured a shield and slammed the colt against the wall with it, pinning him there. She winced at how brittle a shield she was still allowed, but it should hold him long enough. Assuming he didn’t have any magic abilities. Oh dear… What if he had magic abilities? Twilight raced to the door and tipped some of the orange potion into the lock.
“What are you doing?” Spike cried.
There was a hiss-snap of dissipating energy, as well as the sizzling ooze of molten mechanical parts. Twilight pulled the door wide open and gazed out into the empty lamp-lit hallway.
“Wait!” Spike called. “Don’t do this. I’m trying to help you.”
Twilight felt her shield straining. It would fall apart as soon as she left proximity. And she wouldn’t get far without being spotted. Or maybe this ‘Spike’ would sound the alarm on her himself. So she stepped back into the room and set her new potion down safely on the floor.
“Twilight, come on,” Spike was saying. “It’s okay. I’m your friend.”
Twilight forced more power into her shield. She was reaching the limits of the suppressor and she felt that heat rising behind her eyes again, imagining how the golden runes must be blazing on her horn. But she increased the strength of her shield and managed to bend it around the little non-colt, hefting him through the air and down onto the bed.
“Twilight, what are you—” he began.
Twilight’s magic took hold of the loose belts and used them to strap the creature down. The buckles were warped and the spell on them was broken but she could still tie them into some difficult knots.
“Twilight, stop it!” Spike complained, not worrying about noise now. “I’m trying to get you out of here! You need my help.”
“I don’t need anypony’s help,” Twilight said, pulling the socks off him. “What I need is your outfit and this useful potion. What I don’t need is you stabbing me in the back!”
“Me?” Spike exclaimed. “I’m not the one who’s betraying a friend here!”
“You’re not my friend,” Twilight said, stealing his cloak.
Now revealed he still looked like an ordinary earth pony. But Twilight knew better. He was a slimy thing all full of secrets and holes.
“I don’t know what you are,” Twilight growled, putting on the clothes. “But you’re not a pony. And you’re not my friend.” Twilight fastened the cloak around herself. “I have no friends.”
“Twilight, wait!” Spike called.
She didn’t listen. She grabbed up the potion again and bolted out of the room. The hallway was still clear. She hadn’t been to this level of the palace before but she could tell by the windows that she was a few floors up and she had a rough idea of which direction to go in.
She met a locked door. Another few drops of the potion and the lock was defeated. She pulled the door open a crack and peered through to check for guards. The room beyond was a tower of stairs, all safely railed off, but stretching upwards through many levels towards the top of the tower. Twilight looked down. Down was where she needed to go. It was only a few levels to the ground floor but… but… the stairs just kept going and going, down much further.
What were all these other levels?
Twilight’s skin began to crawl and she glanced back over her shoulder. Strange and terrible magicks were at work somewhere back down the hall. No doubt it was that non-pony in her room, struggling to break free. The sense of magic was different now, though. This was larger and therefore more easily detectable, even at this distance, and it was… familiar. Something that whispered like a remembered song through her mind.
It was almost like—
At least, similar to—
…it was the dragon egg.
Twilight blinked to clear her focus. She saw smoke spilling out of the room and in a moment she spied the colt-like shape of the thing as it escaped into the hall. No. It was just playing tricks on her again. Twilight went through the door into the tower and hurried down the steps to the next level. She had made it down another level before she heard the door open and shut above her. Twilight went to the door on her level and shakily tipped a little too much potion into the spell-lock. It snapped and melted and she was through the door without even checking what was on the other side.
Ground floor. She was on the ground floor now. That was good. The hallway here was still unfamiliar to her but she could see out the large windows to a section of courtyard that she could navigate by.
Alarms suddenly sounded throughout the castle. Did they really have alarms for her escape!? How had they known so quickly? But then Twilight recognised the wailing tone as that of the fire alarm. Yes, that creature behind her had somehow set fire to her room during its escape. Maybe it had another potion and some had splashed on the bed sheets. Whatever the case, guards would soon be summoned to that room to extinguish the flames. It would be a short distraction, but it also meant that everypony in the palace was now wide awake and alert to danger.
Twilight saw a door opening further down the hall and felt a familiar aura approaching. She skidded to a stop and looked back the way she had come. No! She could feel the aura of the non-pony still behind her. She had to get out of here!
Twilight uncapped the potion and splashed almost half the bottle onto the large glass window in front of her. At first she thought it would only sizzle through a small portion of the glass—but without warning the entire window suddenly shattered into huge lethal pieces. Twilight stumbled back from it, throwing up a shield against the falling shrapnel and hoping it would be strong enough.
New magic flourished into life and she heard glass shards breaking against a barrier, but she did not feel them on her own fragile spell.
“Twily! What are you doing out here?” exclaimed a voice.
Twilight opened her eyes and saw the magenta shield-shaped spell glowing full and strong between her and the broken window. She looked left and saw her big brother advancing on her, horn glowing, and he was only half armoured.
“What happened?” Shining asked, conveying a tone of concern.
Twilight felt the non-pony approaching the door she had left behind.
“Shiny it’s after me! It’s burning things!” Twilight pointed. “It wasn’t me, it was the monster! It hurt me! It made me take the dragon egg!”
Shining Armor looked from the cloak-wrapped filly and the shattered and half-melted window and then to the opening door down the hall and the shadowy figure there.
“Who goes there!?” Shining Armor barked. “Twilight, get behind me.”
The non-pony shrank back from the door and slammed it shut. Twilight wasn’t even sure if her brother had gotten a good look at the creature. Then she shivered violently as the sense of slimy rotten magic suddenly spiked and receded. What was it doing now?
Shining Armor hadn’t reacted to the magic. Instead he raised his shield-shaped-shield and took a step towards the door. “Come out here now!” he yelled over the wailing alarm.
Twilight took her chance and bolted. She leapt through the now open window and shot across the courtyard outside. Shining looked from the intruder’s door to his escaping sister and came to a decision in a heartbeat.
“Twilight, come back!” he called, chasing her across the grounds.
“No!” Twilight yelled in defiance.
He was bigger than her, and faster. He would catch her soon. She could feel him gathering magic to trap her in some spell. Twilight grit her teeth. She lifted the potion bottle and flung a spray of orange liquid out behind her. She heard her brother cry out in sudden shock, followed by a series of agonised bellows.
Twilight didn’t look back.
She just surged ahead, dodging statues and hedges, leaping over small garden walls and heading for the nearest gate. As she ran she saw the sky flickering overhead and felt the weakening of the magic dome that surrounded the palace. It was Cadence’s magic, she realised now. Cadence was the one who had put the perimeter in place. But why was it failing now?
Twilight didn’t know. She just kept on running until she was at the gate. One lonely night guard was patrolling near by and he spotted her soon enough.
“Stop!” he barked.
Twilight raised a shield and slapped it against a nearby statue. The shield broke but she had inflicted enough force for her plans. Stone scraped and the sculpture of three acrobatic ponies slipped from it’s pedestal and fell towards the guard. He brought his own shield up against the collapsing stone with a grunt of surprise and effort.
Twilight reached the gate. Cadence’s spell was flickering very low. Twilight tipped the last of the orange potion into the locking mechanism of the gate. It smoked and sizzled. She felt magic warping like tortured metal. Stone scrapped and thudded to the ground behind her. She heard the guard give a gasping cry of ‘stop.’
The lock-spell snapped. The gate lock melted. Cadence’s spell was but a dying ember. Twilight lit her horn and encased herself in a shield of magenta light and recklessly charged across the threshold.
“Stop!” the guard called again.
Magical auras fizzed and crackled for a moment and then Twilight was through the gate. That last pressure proved too much for Cadence’s dwindling spell and the barrier collapsed completely. Twilight heard hoofbeats behind her again and flung the empty glass potion bottle back at her pursuer. Glass shattered but he had gotten his shield up in time. So with a flick of her magic Twilight unclasped the dark cloak from her shoulders. The piece of fabric billowed out behind her and struck flat against the guard’s shield, obscuring his view as Twilight locked eyes on the nearest side-street and shot off into the shadows as fast as her little legs could take her.
Dark corners and twists and turns. Twilight ran and ran and ran. Her memory clicked into gear and reminded her of the various patrol routs of the guards. She dodged them as best she could. Where was she going? What was her plan? This was pointless! She—
Twilight scrabbled to a halt at the end of an alleyway as the dark figure of a royal guard stepped in to block her escape.
“Stop right here!” he ordered.
Twilight took a step back but his shield was too fast—blazing to life behind her and trapping her between it and him. Twilight flattened her ears and growled—she would not go back to Celestia!
“…wait,” said a strange voice. A mare’s voice, unfamiliar.
And Twilight thought she heard music. A sweet and sad song she couldn’t place.
The guard stopped advancing. He took a step back even and turned to talk to somepony around the corner. They were whispering too low for Twilight to make out words. But then the guard lowered his shield, nodded and quietly left the scene.
Twilight turned and bolted back down the alley behind her.
A dark shape rushed in front of her—way too fast! “Whoa there,” giggled that voice again.
Twilight put on the breaks and sat panting. “I won’t… go… back,” she huffed.
“Go back?” the mare repeated. Her voice was young and soft, yet bubbly and a little… unfocused. “Sayyyy… You must be that little Twilight Sparkle. Let’s get a look at you…” The mare started pacing a canter around her.
Twilight just sat there, breathing and watching. The strange mare was dressed in a dark cloak—a clear red flag for a troublemaker, Twilight knew by now. The mare’s features were hard to discern as a result. Her coat was a shade of pink, as best Twilight could tell in the dark alley. And her tail drifted out from beneath her cloak; purple and white, moving strangely in a way that Twilight couldn’t explain.
And all around her was that music—that song. It was like listening to the distance between you and the mountains. It was like a music box wound backwards, stealing the notes out of the air. It was like a lullaby that kept waking you up—like playing a violin as a guitar, or using a flute for percussion. A mischievous major key performance that ran proudly—fearfully—over a trembling minor key that seemed stuck in an endless loop like a skipping record. A tune that kept rising—don’t look down!—but never seemed to get louder at all.
Twilight’s eyes widened as she realised that that music was—it was magic. It was how Twilight’s senses were interpreting the power of this stranger; and it was like nothing Twilight had ever experienced before. It made no sense to her—it seemed to just exist—not a spell or an aura but… like… like art for art’s sake. But in a living pony?
“Wh-what are you?” Twilight whispered, standing up. “…are you real?”
The stranger moved so quietly, and Twilight saw that the mare’s hooves were not touching the ground as she paced her circle.
“I’ve heard so much about you…” the stranger said. “They say you live in your own little world.”
“They’re the ones who put me here,” Twilight protested. “They’re the ones who built the cage.”
The mare came to a stop in front of the filly. “Oh, I understand completely,” she breathed. Her frame seed to tense as her hooded face glanced around. “This isn’t my world, either. They took it all away—the place I knew. But that’s alright.” She sighed a breathy laugh. “I’ve spent long enough being bitter about it. It’s time to put things right again. Don’t you agree?”
Twilight took a nervous step back. “I… I don’t think I understand.”
“Nopony does,” the mare snickered. “But I understand you, Twilight. Don’t you want that twisty golden spell off your horn?”
Twilight blushed. “H-how did you know about that? You can’t even see it right now.”
“Oh, I can see it,” the mare said. “As clearly as I see your special cutiemark, there.”
Twilight let slip a shaky sob. “You… You can see my cutiemark?” She sat down and scrunched her eyes shut. “I thought I was just me. I thought—Because they didn’t see it, I thought—” Twilight laughed softly. “They tried to make me think I was mad.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a little mad,” the mare said, drifting past. “Follow me, and I’ll show you. I too live in a world of my own…”
Twilight turned to watch her. “B-but… I need to get out of Canterlot. They’re going to find me and take me back. They’ll never let me out again. And that other thing is still hunting me—I don’t know what it—”
“Nopony will find you, Twilight,” she promised. “If you come with me… Nopony will ever find you again.”
As the strange mare drifted away down the alley, Twilight felt the music leaving, too. It’s gentle lullaby—it’s soft embrace. The cold panic of the Canterlot streets set in all around her once more. Twilight thought she could hear horseshoes clattering somewhere in the street behind her.
“…wait,” Twilight whispered, taking a step forward.
The second step was easier. Then the third and then she was running; following the song and that smoke-like purple and white tail. It didn’t matter where she was going. It only mattered what she was leaving behind.