//------------------------------// // All Alone in the Night // Story: Nightmares Yet to Come // by Detectivefish //------------------------------// "Deep in the darkest pit of the sunless void, On the throne of the black castle Midnight, Ensconced in dreamless slumber lies dread Tyrek. Waiting for the day when he shall rise once more, And the Night shall last forever." -Translated from book (title unknown) found in Spellhold, former library of Tambelon. Author unknown. It was funny, the way life twisted and turned sometimes. The odd choice here, and the odd decision there and anything could happen. You could make a friend, start a business, fall in love, destroy lives, cripple empires, anything. That was one of the wonders of life. Of those things, there were at least two Trixie Lulamoon, Dame and Representative of the Night Court of Princess Luna hadn’t accomplished yet, although given most of those things she’d done had been in the space of less than twelve months, along with numerous assorted acts of craziness involving a mad alicorn and artefacts of unspeakable power causing what felt like every maniac in Equestria to come chasing after her and her friends, she wasn’t about to complain. She’d been so busy reacting to everything she’d been through, she’d hardly had the time to react to not being incinerated by Corona. Or travelling to another universe where she was a drifting obnoxious hack. Or managing to start a chain of events in motion that had rocked Equestria and its political situation to the core, just by being heckled at a show. Not that she ever dwelt on that subject, especially not late at night when on her own. However, in the category of new and exciting things to experience, waking up to find her hooves tied to a pole from which she appeared to be hanging upside-down from was definitely not one of them. It didn’t help that it was dark, and while she was supposed to be used to all-nighters, having spent much of her formative years in Canterlot as the student of Her Highness Princess Luna herself, recent career changes had forced her to adopt a more diurnal schedule, much to the distress of her eyes (not to mention her sleeping pattern). She quickly amended herself. Dark and cold, being as it was in the middle of winter, and while normally she had her trusty hat and cape to protect her from whatever the Weather Patrol couldn’t fix, whoever had kidnapped her hadn’t seen fit to bring those along. Selfish jerks, she thought, through the post-awakening grogginess. It occurred to her she had no real idea who had abducted her, or where she presently was, though the large amount of trees suggested it was a forest (If she was very lucky, it wasn’t the Everfree. She had a strong suspicion she wasn’t going to be that lucky) but as her eyes adjusted (there were some handy torches around), she noticed something. There were a lot of ponies, all of whom seemed to be black. Closer examination revealed two things. One, they all seemed to be wearing hooded black cloaks to protect themselves from the cold (well, it was somewhere after midnight, in winter), and two, what she could see of their tails, hooves and muzzles (the only things revealed by those hoods) were black. If the local would-be tailor of Ponyville could have seen these ponies, she’d likely have applauded their dedication to colour-coordination, but probably have screamed at their lack of imagination. “She’s awake,” somepony said. Trixie became aware of several sets of eyes on her (all hidden by the hoods of their coats). Tragically, nopony said something like “good” or “excellent” or even “so glad you could join us”. As a performer, Trixie felt slightly insulted on behalf of her craft. One pony, a particularly large and unfriendly looking pony, moved over toward her, but did nothing. He (or she, Trixie couldn’t tell) just stood there. “Hey,” she called out, hoping to get the pony’s attention, “I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me what this is about.” The pony said nothing. “Alright then, I’ll guess.” Trixie sniffed. The pony did nothing. “You know, taking me captive isn’t gonna help. Princess Luna won’t negotia-” The pony turned to look at her, and Trixie could’ve sworn she felt a stab of fear in her as they did. “We’re not after money. You’re not a hostage.” The pony said, in a distinctly masculine baritone that suggested the pony it belonged to didn’t care in any way what happened to Trixie. “Oh, it speaks,” Trixie deadpanned. “Well, if I’m not a hostage, why am I tied up?” “Stops you running away” the pony said. With the torchlight, Trixie would’ve sworn she saw a smirk on the pony’s face, but if there was, it vanished quickly. A few seconds of silence passed. Well, silence for Trixie at least, as around them ponies moved and examined and checked things. Trixie tried to crane her head to notice but she couldn’t tell exactly what was going on. She did get that she was in a clearing. Not a very large one, but definitely a clearing. “Hey,” she called out to the pony standing next to her, “I don’t suppose there’s somepony I can speak to so I can learn what this is all about, if I’m not a hostage.” “No,” the pony said instantly. Trixie frowned. This clearly called for a clear application of all her charm and persuasion. “Look. I’m the personal student of her highness, Princess Luna.” More or less true, though her formal studies had sort of ended since her move to Ponyville, “which means whatever you’re after, you don’t need to hurt me to get it. I’m sure we could work something out, if you just let me go.” The pony stared at her again. She could’ve sworn she saw a glimpse of orange eyes in there. That was something. There weren’t exactly many ponies with black fur around, so all she had to do was break free, and find a police officer, or a telegraph, or… her eyes were drawn to her horn, where she couldn’t help but notice a small band of metal. Great, she thought. A horn ring, which meant she couldn’t cast any magic, which meant her escape options (which weren’t exactly fantastic to begin with) had been severely narrowed. Then she heard a great amount of noise, and tried to move her head. Somewhere, on the other side of the clearing, a group of ponies were moving something about. Trixie had a creeping suspicion the words “iron” and “cauldron” or “cooking pot” were going to come into it sooner or later, which was why she was quite surprised when she saw the ponies move away from it. Another pony, with their hooves tied to a pole just like her, hanging upside down. Even in the gloom Trixie could tell who it was. There wasn’t really any mistaking Twilight Sparkle for anypony else, after all. After a few seconds of Ponyville’s new librarian not moving, Trixie felt a creeping dread overcoming her. She turned to face her guard again. “Whoever you are, you should know Princess Luna and her Court don’t respond to threats or coercion.” “Okay,” the pony said. “Even if you kidnap her student and the daughter of a Vicereine.” “Got it.” Trixie scowled. Something wasn’t right about the whole situation, beyond the obvious fact that she was hanging upside-down in a forest when she could’ve and should’ve been in bed. Some of the black ponies were talking. She strained her ears in an attempt to listen in. “-figured it was best to just take her-” “Security wasn’t a problem, don’t think-” “-we ready?-” “Almost.” That, Trixie thought, really didn’t sound good. She looked about. Whatever was happening, the ponies doing it weren’t in any hurry. If anything, they seemed to be doing whatever it was with all the clinical detachment of scientists. Not that Trixie was really certain what scientists looked like when they did stuff. Ponyville didn’t seem to be a magnet for those sorts of minds. Just the crazies, like Rarity, and Bon Bon’s mother, and Corona. Oh, and Pinkie Pie. At the thought of Ponyville’s craziest baker, something occurred to Trixie. “You’re not Discordians, are you?” she asked tentatively. There was a sudden stillness, as she felt all eyes on her again. She guessed that meant no. One pony looked toward her, then toward her guard, before shaking their head and making their way over to her. “Good morning,” the pony said, as if Trixie were not hanging upside-down from a pole. “Morning,” she responded, hoping the pony would pick up the sarcasm evident. “What’s going on?” “You were asking about who was in charge, right?” the pony said. Trixie frowned. Either this pony had incredible hearing, or there were more of them keeping an eye on her than she thought. The pony looked almost uncertain about something. “I feel I should inform you, we don’t really have somepony in charge. Technically.” “Technically.” Trixie repeated, with all the weight of a stone. The pony, and Trixie was certain this one was a mare, nodded. “Technically.” “You know,” Trixie did her best to grin, even as the blood rushed to her head, “you ponies must be crazier than I thought. I mean, kidnapping me was one thing, but Twilight Sparkle? Do you know who her father is? Her mother? Her brother?” “Yes,” the mare said calmly, and before Trixie could say anything else she continued, “now then, even though we don’t have anypony in charge, there is somepony you could speak to, if you wish.” “If they’re a better conversationalist than Mister Dead Air over here, I’m game.” Trixie said. The mare paused, before her head bowed. Then it rose again. Trixie almost leapt backward at the fierce orange glow coming from under the hood. She could’ve sworn the temperature had dropped slightly around her. But that was nothing compared to the way the mare’s eyes looked, like that of a dragon, complete with a coldness she’d only seen on one other being alive. “Ah,” said the mare in a much deeper voice, “We meet at last, Trixie Lulamoon. Sorry, I couldn’t resist saying that. Do you prefer we include your title?” Trixie blinked. Then she stared intently at the mare. “Ha,” she said lifelessly, “Very cute voice work. Nice work with the eyes, as well. Very dramatic. Nice trick. I’d applaud, but…” she flexed her legs against her bonds. “Yes. A trick.” the mare smirked, “very good guess. That education is clearly paying for itself.” Trixie stared at the pony. “Who are you?” The pony paused for a moment, her eyes darting away for an instant, before she began to smile slightly. Well, her teeth were showing, at any rate. “My name isn’t important, right now. What is important is that we have you, Trixie.” The mare casually looked over towards the center of activity, and then a curious look passed over her muzzle. “By the way, Dame Representative, what do you think of our little late night get-together?” Trixie tried shrugging, a difficult task when her legs were tied to a pole, but she still tried. “No idea.” she said, as nonchalantly as possible. The mare frowned. “A shame,” the dark mare said, “but, no matter. Probably best you didn’t know. The truth would only upset you.” Her gaze passed over toward the still-unconscious form of Twilight Sparkle. “I imagine your friend will be even more uncooperative.” Trixie, despite being surrounded by unfriendly looking ponies, found herself chuckling. “Oh,” she grinned, “you have no idea.” Then, quite curiously, the mare’s expression shifted to one she’d seen on Princess Luna’s face too many times for her own comfort, one of almost motherly disapproval mixed with something always just ever-so-slightly unreadable. “Excuse me,” came a noise from behind the mare’s back, in a voice which sounded suspiciously like a mare’s voice, and from the cadence to their voice, not a native speaker of Equish, or if Trixie had to guess (and there wasn’t exactly much else for her to do), somepony raised in a multilingual household. “But the professor says everything’s about ready.” The mare just nodded, “very good, very good.” Slowly, a small smile, a proud smile, spread across the mare’s face. “For the dawn” she said. Whatever meaning that phrase held to the other mare, it caused her to smile back, this smile slightly… anticipatory. “For the dawn.” At that point, Trixie felt her stomach drop, which was even more unpleasant considering she was upside-down. Hostage takers were bad enough, insane alicorns were one thing, horrific abominations animated by the darkest perversions of magic ever seen she could just about stomach, but this was a cult. “Attention, everypony” called a voice. Trixie turned toward the sound of the voice, deep and commanding. Standing in the centre of the clearing was a pony, still wearing black and with black fur, and Trixie was going to go out on a limb and guess his (and it was definitely a he) eyes were bright orange. “We’re ready to begin” he said. There were a few scattered cheers to this. “Your boss?” she asked. The dark mare turned back toward Trixie, and then grinned an unfriendly grin. “I don’t have a boss.” “But he’s in charge of this little cult you’ve got going, right?” Suddenly the mare looked offended. “We’re not a cult,” She said. “And before you say it, we’re not ancient, either. We’re barely any older than that little assistant of yours. What’s her name? Dinkle? Dazzler?” At the mention of Dinky, Trixie felt her blood run cold. “You stay away from her, or I sw-” “Oh, shut up.” The mare rolled her eyes. “We’re not going to do a thing to your precious little friend.” Then the lights of her eyes dimmed, and her hoof rushed toward her head. Looking dazed and not entirely unconfused, the mare shuffled away. Meanwhile, on the stage, the head pony moved away, and another, larger pony took to the stand. Trixie stared, thoughts of escape suddenly being overwhelmed by curiosity. Regardless of what exactly these ponies seemed to be up to, with their ludicrous dedication to colour-coordination, they seemed incredibly confident they could pull it off. “Are they ready?” the apparent head-pony called out. Trixie watched one pony, who by the light on their forehead was in all likelihood a unicorn, examining Twilight Sparkle. “Sparkle’s ready.” The unicorn called out. “And stirring,” another pony, standing on the other side of the mare, called out. And indeed, Twilight Sparkle was stirring. Her eyes slowly opened, and she began to yawn. Then shock and surprise managed to finish the job of awakening her that several cups of coffee would never have managed. And naturally, the barrage of requisite questions followed. Fortunately, someone was on hand with a scrap of cloth, which while unable to stop Twilight Sparkle’s inquisition did muffle it. “And the Representative?” Trixie felt an odd feeling wash over her, briefly, a cold and unwelcome feeling, before it vanished again. “Yes, professor.” “Good,” the proclaimed professor said. “Good. We don’t have much time.” He made a motion with his hoof. “Let’s begin.” Suddenly, the pony’s eyes glowed, followed by his horn. Trixie noted several other horns glowing. Well, two or three, at any rate. She was certain there were more. Her finely honed and trained instincts were screaming at her to try and flee, which given the ropes around her hooves were proving annoying well-tied, wasn’t looking like a possibility. Then she felt it. It would have been difficult to describe what happened to Trixie and Twilight Sparkle at that moment, but the closest description was that they felt like something was sorting through their mind, their memories, their thoughts and dreams and most deeply buried wishes. Perhaps sorting wasn’t the best word, since what was going on was far too forceful, and whatever was doing it felt horrifically cold. Perhaps one of them felt like screaming, but whatever it was that was happening, they felt too drained already to scream. On the outside, faint wisps of light drained from their horns, flowing over toward the pony standing in-between them, slowly channelling into his horn. Then, Trixie could’ve sworn she heard something, as the magic flowing seemed to stop. The odd draining feeling seemed to stop, colour seemed to restore to the world, and the horrible sensation receded. Then she heard the ponies speaking. No, not speaking. Curiously, they were looking up. “What is it?” she heard the “professor” ask. Trixie slowly moved her eyes upwards, to see a cloud hanging leisurely over the clearing, the tips of somepony’s wings (black, as was becoming standard) peaking over the edge. “One trick ponies incoming!” came the pegasus’ voice downward. Suddenly, it was like something had exploded. Dozens of ponies moving in a blind panic, some looking ready to flee, some looking to stand their ground. Then, a lightning bolt lanced across the sky, evidently missing the cloud-bound pegasus. Trixie grinned, as she saw several dark blue shadows appear over the sky, just barely sticking out against the dark purple skies, the odd flash and glint of blue. She was fairly certain she recognised the colours. The Royal Guard. Princess Luna’s royal guard. And where they went… There was a crash of thunder, and the ground trembled as a furious Princess Luna made her entrance, landing hard against the ground, her teeth bared and her wings open, her horn already glowing. Trixie heard a multitude of noises, and a brief moment of weightlessness as somepony freed her hooves, causing her to drop to the ground. She wasn’t really paying attention as the royal guard made grabs for the ponies, several of whom were vanishing, either into the undergrowth or just… no, she told herself. It only looked like they were vanishing into the shadows. She knew enough about illusions to know that a well-crafted one could look like anything. Then, everything seemed to slow. She looked toward the pony on the stage, who looked pained by something. Then she looked to his horn. It was glowing. Then there was a bright light, and the next thing Trixie knew, everything went bright. Just as it did she felt something wrapping around her. A short time later, once the bustle of activity had finished, and Her Highness and her guard moved to more secure and well-lit locations with Trixie and Twilight Sparkle safely recovered, and there was stillness in the Everfree forest once more. Aside from several gouges and furrows in the ground, along with a few splinters of wood, there was no sign of the unusual ritual that had taken place. Then, there was a noise. Faint, at first, it grew as the minutes passed, gradually building. Above the spot where all that stolen magic had gathered, a light appeared. The light grew in size, pulsing and shifting. The stolen magic, dispersed after the ritual had so catastrophically failed, was now re-gathering. But something was different. It was drawing in more magic to itself, more and more and more. But there was more than magic. Something else was drawn in all well. The light changed to a deep, malignant purple. And then, apparently just because, the light burst forth. Trees, grass, weeds and dirt were sent flying by the force of the blast. Then there was the sound of something hitting the ground. For a moment, there was only the sound of this something breathing, rapidly. Newly-formed eyes blinked in confusion, limbs that hadn’t existed a moment ago twitched, and slowly tried moving. Thoughts raced through a mind not accustomed to anything, much less being. Slowly, cautiously, the new lifeform examined itself. It wasn’t sure how exactly, but it knew it was small for whatever species it was. A cautious glance confirmed it had the requisite number of limbs. Four legs, ending in hooves, a tail, a pointy thing sticking out of her head, and wings, just like… wings. Craning its neck to look, the new life form examined these wings. They looked incredibly unimpressive. Moving them caused them to flap, and then curl back up again. “Huh,” it said, before pausing. It tried saying something again, and then again. Each time, it was in the same abnormally squeaky voice. Was it supposed to be like that? Had somepony sat on it earlier? Then it clicked. Pony. It was a pony! A living, breathing pony! Its grin faded when it realised it had no idea what a pony was. And then it vanished completely when it realised wherever it was, it was very dark, and not very warm, and very, very quiet indeed. Not entirely certain what to do, it decided to wait and see if anypony else would show up. Maybe in the meantime it could figure out what the pointy thing on its head was, or why its insides felt so strange.