//------------------------------// // CompaNioN // Story: Ever Watching // by Redback Spino //------------------------------// Applejack once again smelt that familiar smell of hospitals as she entered the ward. The mix of medicine, disinfectant and soap. Followed into the ward by her fellow ponies, she waved to the far bed; the only one with an occupant. “Howdy, Twilight! We’re here to take ya home!” But there came no reply from Twilight, who lay on her front on the bed as she flipped over another page in a small black book that lay open before her. Her eyes were fixed on the pages, breaking her gaze only to allow for a brief bout of dry coughing. Around her, there lay about a dozen sheets of paper, covered with notes and calculations. “Uh…Twi?” Applejack said again, a little louder as she approached her bed “We’re her to take you home now!” Apparently she heard that time, raising her head once her cough subsided, to greet her friends “Huh? Oh, hi guys. So, Nurse Redheart said that I can go then?” “Yep.” Came Rainbow Dash’s reply, as she smiled at Twilight’s absorption in her book “Geez Twi! Not even out of hospital and you’re already back to the studying!” Applejack, meanwhile, noticed with some concern that wherever there was a zero or an O in Twilight’s notes, it was crossed out with an X. Just like that strange symbol from the back of the photo. “So, ah…” Applejack watched as Twilight made another note, pen held between her teeth. Here was no mistaking it: Every time she wrote an O or a zero, she would put the X over it, as if it was the perfectly normal way of writing. Coughing nervously, Applejack continued “So… what’cha got there, Twi?” Twilight marked her place in the book by folding down the corner of the page, and flipped to the front of the book. Holding it up, the others peered closely at the two words written in black ink on the front page: “Cog…Cognitio…Comm…?” Rainbow Dash read aloud, attempting to decipher the crude writing. “’Cognitio Communis’.” Rarity finished for her “It’s Old Equestrian again, I believe… Though I’m not sure what it means, I’ve forgotten a fair bit of my Old Equestrian. Wherever did you get it, Twilight?” The violet unicorn closed the book, revealing a black, unmarked cover. “I’m not sure… I woke up in the morning, and it was right there on my bedside table!” “You think it was…” Applejack hesitated for a moment “…Them?” Twilight shuddered for a moment as she briefly recalled the silent, masked ponies that led her to that clearing outside Ponyville. “Maybe…But if it was, then why’d they give it to me? What do they expect me to do with it?” she asked as she pushed back the covers and slipped out of the bed. She stumbled at first as her legs gave out for the briefest of moments. But she found her strength quickly and stood tall once again. “Aahhh, it feels good to be on my hooves again.” Twilight closed her eyes a moment, straining to summon up her magical power. Her horn glowed a dim purple colour as the black leatherbound book slowly floated into the air, wobbling slightly. “Allow me, Twilight.” Rarity quickly stepped in, the white glow of her horn’s magic mingling with Twilight’s purple glow surrounding the book. It became steadier in its floating and slowly lowered into Twilight’s saddlebag, which floated up to land on her back. Twilight glanced at Rarity in confusion. The white unicorn shrugged slightly “Nurse Redheart’s orders, Darling. She says that you’ll need to keep magic to a minimum until you’re fully recovered.” ____________________________________________________________ The group of ponies blinked in the sunlight as they closed the door to the Clinic behind them. Rainbow Dash fluttered alongside Twilight as she asked “So, what was in that book then? Or was it all written in Old Equestrian as well?” But Twilight shook her head “No, I could read what it said clearly enough. But what it did say didn’t make much sense!” The group strolled through the town, in the direction of Pinkie Pie’s home at Sugarcube Corner. “I’ve only read about a third of it, and most of that was just pages of weird pictures, like a little foal’s drawings, with the occasional caption here and there. The rest of it just gets weirder. It’s like some scientific guide to something. It goes on all about Vita Energy, talking about its uses, just like one of my magic textbooks. But then it goes on about something called a ‘Dimensional Hourglass’” “What in the hay’s that supposed to mean?!” Applejack wondered aloud to nopony in particular. Twilight sighed “I wish I knew. Those pictures didn’t make things any clearer. I couldn’t make head or tail of any of them! It’s all a bunch of symbols, like eyes, globes, arrows, all sorts of strange stuff. I sure hope your friend can help us, Pinkie” “No worries, Twilight!” Pinkie replied from behind “From what I know about Tally, he’s kinda into this creepy stuff.” Twilight had to wonder what Pinkie meant by that. What exactly was he ‘into’? She turned his name over in her mind as they walked. Talisman Tome. She knew what both words meant: A tome is an old word for a book, and a talisman is some sort of charm that’s supposed to have some sort of magical power, often some sort of protective ability. Was he a magic student? How could he be, Twilight thought. He’s an Earth Pony. She put her musings aside as she and her friends arrived at the colourful gingerbread house that was Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie bustled about the shelves, pulling a small trolley with her tail as she shoved whole stacks of cakes and sweets into a basket resting atop the trolley. “Just lemme get his order together, “Pinkie called as she worked “and we can head over to Tally’s place, lickety split!” Moments later, she returned to her friends, laden with a pair of baskets overflowing with all manner of cupcakes, doughnuts, muffins, pies, candy and general sugary goodness. Pointing to the lighter basket, she said to Twilight “You grab that one, and I’ll take the other.” “What about the rest of us?” Applejack asked from beside a display of applecakes she was admiring “Y’all need us to carry anything?” “Nah, just make sure we don’t drop anything.” With that the group left the sweetshop and returned to the town, Pinkie in the lead with Twilight and the others closely behind. ____________________________________________________________ The violet unicorn looked about nervously as she walked through the town. The fur on her neck stood up as she felt a feeling of anxiety. She just didn’t feel safe anymore, not even in her own hometown! Every street could have a masked pony just round the corner. Every window could have a figure peering from it, down at her. Her nerves only became worse as she and her friends rounded the bend and came to that street where she had chased that pony, before he vanished into the house. Her memory conjured up images of the figure of a masked pony, standing near the end of the street, beckoning with a hoof… “Twi? You feelin’ alright?” She jumped slightly as she heard her name. Flushing a deep crimson, she looked to Applejack, who was looking at her oddly. “OH! Erm, yes…I’m fine.” “You just sorta spaced out there for a sec.” Rainbow Dash remarked as she followed Pinkie. “Sorry” Twilight muttered, trying her best to regain her composure. But she could not help being nervous. They were so close to the clearing where it happened. “C’mon Twilight!” Pinkie gave her a gentle nudge with a hoof as she passed, trotting to the line of houses on the left side of the street. Twilight took a deep breath around the basket clenched in her teeth, steeling herself, and followed her pink friend. From the outside, the small bungalow appeared unremarkable. A grey-brown door, with misty glass windows either side. It looked like the lights were off inside. Pinkie knocked on the door with a forehoof, putting her basket down to call out. “Special delivery from Sugarcube Corner!” She called in a singsong voice. There was no answer. Pinkie knocked again, harder this time, as she shouted again “C’mon Tomey! It’s me, Pinkie Pie! I got your sweets for the week!” “The week?” Twilight asked incredulously, putting down her basket “You mean he goes through all these sweets in a week?!” Pinkie nodded, saying with a hint of concern “Yep. I keep telling him, someday his sweet tooth will be the only tooth left in his mouth. But he doesn’t listen, just keeps ordering more and more.” She knocked louder again on the brown door, but to no avail. “…Tomey?” Pinkie called with genuine worry. Trying the handle, she squeaked with surprise as the door swung open and she fell inside. Twilight and the others peered inside the house. She helped Pinkie up and apprehensively stepped into the dark hallway. It was a small house, with only a single floor, with a long hallway with doorways alongside both sides, with an open doorway to a living room on the left. On the side as they entered, there was a low rack, where there hung on a peg a blue denim jacket, next to another empty peg. Twilight noticed that the jacket was strangely faded and moth-eaten, and covered with dust, as if it had not been worn for a great deal of time. “Tomey?” Pinkie called quietly as she and her friends entered the hallway. It seemed deserted. The group bunched closely together as they slowly walked through the corridor, into the living room. Shadeless lightbulbs hung from the ceiling, switched off and giving no light. The plaster on the walls had begun to crack and traces of rot showed in the corners where the walls met the ceiling. “Good grief!” Rarity muttered to herself, “How can anypony live in such conditions?! It’s simply a mess in here!” “Normally, I’d be the first to tell ya to get a hold’a yerself,” Applejack whispered “But I gotta agree. Doesn’t look much like anypony’s lived here for a while.” “Well, this is the place alright...S’funny, I’ve never actually been in here.” Pinkie added, her voice uncharacteristically serious “Well actually he just never lets me in. He just shakes his head and says ‘Can’t today, I’m too busy!’” she said in an affectionate parody of a male voice “He’s kinda funny that way.” As they gazed about at the strange state of the house, Twilight noticed with some amusement the scattering of sweets, cakes and other treats, all about the place. In one room there would be a half-full box of cupcakes, in another a bowl of lollipops, in another a cake-tray. Twilight giggled slightly as she entered the dining room, where she found a gigantic, half-eaten cake lying on the table in the middle. Her laugh rang ominously through the darkness of the room, and she quickly fell silent. The whole house held an air of decay and age, and a forbidding feeling. Entering it and looking around it like this felt like they were disturbing some long sealed tomb, or some creature that had long been asleep. Her mind went back to those old ‘haunted houses’ that would open up in Canterlot every year for the Nightmare Night festival. Of course you’d get those ones that just use shock-tactics to get scares; a skeleton bursting from within a closet, a ghost dangling from the ceiling, a masked maniac chasing visitors down the corridors. But the ones that really scared Twilight, on those rare occasions when she would take a night off from study to join the macabre celebrations, were those ones that used no tricks or gimmicks to scare her. It was simply a dark, dilapidated house that she was free to wander about. It was not the act of scary goings on that got to her, it was the lack thereof. The tension and atmosphere it created was unbearable! As she wandered slowly down the corridor of the house, she almost found herself wishing that something would pop out and shock her. A good scream would at least relieve the tension welling up inside her. On her left, Another doorway caught the unicorn’s eye, just off to the side of the dining-room table. Peering around the doorframe, her jaw dropped. From the floor to the ceiling, the walls of the room were covered in all manner of papers and photographs, haphazardly pinned all over the place. At least, any space on the walls not taken up by overflowing bookcases. The floor was similarly covered with stacks and heaps of sheets and books, with the odd bowl of sweets here and there, as well as a single double-drawer dresser against the right hand wall. Twilight entered the room, treading carefully, so as not to disturb any of the papers that littered the floor. Looking down between her hooves, she saw that many of the sheets of paper were covered with strange, crudely draw symbols, recognising many such symbols from the black book. Among the crude drawings, she saw that ever-present symbol, of the O with an X through it. Scattered among the papers were a variety of books. Some were clearly old, bound in tattered cloth with worm-eaten pages. Some were much newer, with pristine dust-covers and crisp white pages, and several were little more than great masses of notes bound together with strings looped through punched holes on the edges. They were a strange mix of books, including compilations of pony-tales, horror stories and myths, as well as several she recognised from copies she held in her library, such as ‘Ghost, Goblins and Ghoulish figures’ and ‘Mythological monstrosities’. But one string-bound bunch of papers caught her eye, labelled ‘Cognitio Communis: The Collective Knowledge’ “Collective Knowledge?” She read aloud. So, is that what that means? The opposite wall seemed to hold most of the photos in the room. As she peered closely at them, her face grew pale. She’d recognise those masks anywhere. The photos showed images of the dark, twisted trees of the Everfree Forest. Among the trees could be seen those mysterious masked ponies, walking together in the blackness of the Forest. Next to these pictures, there was a sort of collage of pictures of various ponies. All of them were unicorns, she noticed, including herself and many others she recognised, from around Ponyville. All these pictures had been seemingly crossed out in green pen, except her own, which remained blank, and another unicorn stallion that she did not recognise. His smiling image had been crossed out with a red marker pen, while hers remained devoid of any marking. “Wh-what is this?” Twilight whispered in confusion. “Why am I on here?!” “Twi?” The unicorn jumped slightly as she heard Applejack’s voice from behind her. Turning around, she saw the earth-pony framed in the doorway, gazing into the room in amazement. “What the Sam Hill…? What’s all this?” She muttered as she came in to join Twilight. Moments later, the others joined them in the room, looking around at the mess. “Hey! My house is in this one!” “Hmmph, I must say, whoever took these could use a lesson in photography.” “What’s with all the drawings all over the floor?” Their aloud musings were cut short, however, as Fluttershy gave forth a terrified squeak. The others turned around to see her pointing fearfully at one photo on the wall, quivering like a leaf in the breeze. As soon as Twilight saw it, she knew why. There it was. That thing she dreaded the most. That huge, gangly, pale, faceless figure, in Its black suit and red necktie. It was depicted walking through the clearing between the outskirts of Ponyville, and the Everfree Forest. Twilight recognised it as the very place where she encountered It that evening, where It… took her. It seemed to be walking out of the forest, followed closely behind by another pony of regular size, with grey fur and a brown mane, a white mask strapped firmly to their face. The photo itself appeared distorted and grainy, as if the camera was broken when the photo was taken. The ponies silently looked at the image, eyes wide with horror at what they saw. Even with Twilight’s description, they were shocked at the sight of it. It looked unnatural, monstrous, as if from an illustration in a book of spooky pony-tales. “So…that’s him, huh?” Rainbow Dash said quietly. Twilight nodded dumbly. “My stars…I’ve never seen anypony like it…” whispered Rarity timidly. “If ya can call it a pony at all.” Applejack added. Twilight just gazed, frozen with fear, at the tall, faceless pony in the photo. So, somepony else had managed to photograph It as well then. What connection did this Talisman Tome have to this all? Was he also being followed and visited in the night? Was he working with them? “Oh!” The six friends froze simultaneously as a new, unfamiliar voice suddenly came from behind them. “Oops…” Twilight whimpered, as she slowly turned around to face the doorway. A lightish brown colt stood before them, with a dark brunette mane that hung messily about his neck and face, rather long for a colt, but still short in a filly’s eyes. The black jacket that he wore around his shoulders failed to hide his rather thin and gangly frame, and his green eyes and agape mouth held that odd expression of blank, dull surprise that, somehow, only a young colt can pull off. “…Well…This is unexpected…” He said. He stared blankly at Twilight and the others, completely unsure how to react. Twilight stared back, equally blankly. Is this really him? “T-Talisman…Tome?” He nodded, eyes still wide with surprise “Uh huh… And you’re...Twilight Sparkle?” Nodding, the violent unicorn stood up and reached out a forehoof to the brown colt. Hesitantly, he reached out a forehoof to meet hers with a gentle Clack, tapping together in the pony equivalent of a handshake. “Talisman, We need to talk.”