For the longest while, Twilight believed that she was alone in this foreboding castle. The empty hallways and otherwise dilapidated appearance of much of the structure gave the impression that this place was old and crumbling. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that the place was in advanced disrepair by a good several centuries.
And yet, somehow that couldn’t be right. The entrance hall still appeared to be relatively new; there were smooth, white and black tiles on the floor and a pretty red rug that went straight from the main gate up the staircase for heaven’s sake. So why did everything else seem like it was crumbling?
Regardless, her thoughts of the castle being abandoned were first dashed away back in the Old Archives when she was cornered by… something. Twilight didn’t know what it was, but she sure as hay didn’t want to find out. Even then, she was still certain there were no real ponies anywhere else in the castle.
But now, her beliefs were well and truly buried when she saw a yellow pony with a light-blue mane and tail shambling down the right-wing of the staircase, a look of pained despair on her face.
“Please… help… me…”
After uttering those weakened words, the mare slumped and fell. She tumbled and went down the rest of the shallow staircase, and came to rest at the foot of it, where she lay on her side quite still.
Twilight wasn’t sure how to react at first. When she first saw this pony arrive out of nowhere, the unicorn’s first reaction was fright. What if it would try and hurt her? However, she immediately perished the thought when the poor mare called out to her for aid and collapsed on her side.
Though delayed as they were, Twilight’s base instincts clicked on like a switch. In seconds, she had rushed to the mare’s side. “Hello? Hello?! Are you okay?!”
The yellow-coated mare didn’t reply. Horrified, Twilight placed a hoof on the mare’s chest to check for signs of life. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a beating heart, however weak it was. The mare’s chest gently rose and fell also, so she was still breathing at least. Good, good…
But… what was wrong with her? Twilight checked the unconscious pony over once again, trying to diagnose the issue. She was no doctor, but it didn’t take a genius to recognize that this poor mare was in pain. Taking a glance over her body, the unicorn discovered that this pony seemed to have… wings? In an instant, she realized that this mare was, if truth be told, a pegasus.
Twilight examined the pony’s entire body for signs of distress, but found no clear wound of any sort. At least, not any from her angle. Then what was the problem with this mare? Was she just exhausted, or what? She grunted with frustration and nudged the pegasus’s cheek with her hoof. “Come on… wake up…”
“…” The pegasus mare still did not stir. Twilight brushed aside a lock of the pony’s light-blue mane and forced one of her eyelids open. Besides the blue-colored eye facing in a completely off-center direction, the pupil was severely dilated. Letting the eye shut again, the unicorn knitted her brow in confusion. The pony’s breathing was getting weaker by the minute. What was wrong?!
…And then, slowly, Twilight realized that she seemed to be stepping in some kind of puddle.
She looked down, and spent a moment processing what she saw. It was red. A thick, red fluid. She lifted a hoof up and looked at it. There was red staining it as well. Twilight gave it a cautious sniff. It seemed to have a… strangely pungent and metallic scent…
Her brain spent a moment connecting the dots. And when the realization finally hit her, a surge of horror swept over her being like a blast of arctic air. She was standing in a still-growing pool of this pony’s blood.
A scream echoed throughout the chamber and beyond.
Gasping and blubbering with alarm, Twilight grabbed onto the mare and flipped her body onto the other side. The unicorn almost screamed again, but she held it down with a strained gulp. A large, gnarly laceration was gouged in the pegasus’s side, reaching from the flank to as far as under the wing. It was still hemorrhaging badly.
Twilight was in shock. What kind of creature could inflict a wound this large!?! It must’ve been huge, or something! This poor pony would die if she didn’t do something!
…But what could she do? She had no medical experience to speak of. She was unsure if her “past self” knew such things, but did know that, right now, it didn’t matter. Somepony was dying right in front of her, and she could do naught about it.
…Wait a second! Th-there has to be something!
In a rush, Twilight threw the saddlebags off of her back and started rummaging through them. She took out the lantern, turned it on, and set it off near the pegasus. At least it could help her see what she was doing. The only other things she could find were the red crystals (“Useless!”), the two note pages (“Need those!”), and… that bottle. The one with the…
Ah! Of course! This should work!
Taking the bottle of ‘Laurenum’ out of the bag, the unicorn went back to the unconscious pegasus and spent a moment observing the wound and weighing her options. The sight was sickening, but there was no time for weakness now. Twilight yanked to cork off of the bottle with her teeth, and proceeded to pour the green fluid over the wounded area. It came out as a blob of semi-gelatinous gel, so she had to spread the substance over the wound with a hoof.
Even as she did so, the thought ran across her mind that the wound was still open and bleeding. Directly applying a medicine might not help any infection, or stop the flow of blood at all. But the only remotely medical item she had was the Laurenum, and if she tried to look elsewhere for proper bandages and first aid, the pegasus would likely die before then. Twilight just had to hope that this would be enough.
“Please be alright… Please…”
As she said that, another notion awoke in her psyche. Why, in all of the land, was she helping somepony that just waltzed in out of nowhere? She didn’t even know her! …But, she was injured… and the thought of letting somepony else die without cause was just… just… terrible.
…And who knew, maybe this pony was one of her friends that she was supposed to save.
Twilight observed her “patient” for the next hour. Any improvement seemed almost nonexistent. There were times when the pegasus’s breathing seemed to stop for a minute, only to resume another minute later. Those few times may have given the unicorn one too many heart attacks.
The gray pegasus hadn’t improved much. However, the wound was, astoundingly, almost fully healed. The once-large and deep gash across her side had since scabbed over and stopped bleeding, and it appeared that it was healing properly. Twilight was amazed that the Laurenum did its job of healing wounds so well… but the mare still wouldn’t wake up…
Seeds of worry began to take root in Twilight’s mind. Why wasn’t she waking up? What if it was too late? What if the pegasus had already lost too much blood? What if… she was in hemorrhagic shock? Was she… still going to die?! After all that she went through…!
N…no! Come on, wake up! WAKE UP!
Twilight nearly kicked the unconscious mare; she was that frustrated. It just wasn’t fair! Why did ponies have to die? Why?! Why did there have to be pain?! What kind of madness was going ON in this castle?! She let out a scream of aggravation, stomping the floor with her hooves.
After a moment of venting her emotions, all of the stress and anger she held bottled up worked their way out of her system. All that was left afterward was a feeling of quiet worthlessness. She hadn’t noticed the tears that had formed in her eyes and dripped to the floor.
“Why… why does all of this have to happen…? What did that horrible pony do to this place? What did he do to me?”
Twilight couldn’t say that she had any recollection of this Alack Zander. All she knew about him currently was what that note she wrote before losing her memory said. And it was those darned petals that made her forget, apparently. If she hadn’t forgotten, then maybe she’d know what she was supposed to do…
“…Ugh…”
The unicorn’s ears perked up. She craned her neck around to look at the unconscious mare… only to discover that she wasn’t as unconscious anymore. Twilight could hardly believe her eyes. The butter-yellow pegasus, with that flowing cyan mane, was shifting around.
Twilight was hovering over the mare the very next instant, and found, to sweet reprieve, that the pegasus was still alive. And, from the looks of it, was now regaining her senses. One of the mare’s eyelids slowly opened, revealing the blue-colored eyes hidden beneath. The eyeball trained itself on Twilight, who was absolutely jovial with relief. “You’re okay… You’re awake…”
A few seconds passed, with the pegasus quietly regarding the purple unicorn before her. And then she smiled.
“Th…thank you…”
With that simple expression of gratitude, her eye slid shut again… and she fell asleep, still smiling.
Twilight found herself, for the first time since waking up in this awful place, smiling as well. Not a simple relieved smile or a smile of amusement… a genuine, blissful smile.
She had just saved a pony’s life.
“So. She is still alive, then.”
The stallion who spoke those words, so coldly and concisely, glared down at the creature that stood before him. The equine-shaped thing, one that looked as if it was constructed out of the shadows themselves, gave its master a slow nod.
“And she wanders the castle halls as well… That should be impossible. I know what I did to her. …But, it changes nothing. You brought no harm to her?”
Another nod. The stallion sighed, partly of relief, and partly of uncertainty.
“Good. Even considering the… unusual circumstances, she could still prove useful… in due time.”
Turning around to face the stained glass window to his left, the unicorn stallion frowned. The depiction in the tall windowpane showed the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony, blasting the Spirit of Chaos, Discord, with pure magic. He was familiar with the occurrence. After all, he had attended the celebratory ceremony after that incident was dealt with, and the new window was revealed then. It was a more pleasant time…
“……” He turned his head to face the shadow servant. “Bring me the Bearer of Kindness. I have a task for her.”
The shadow blinked its solid white eyes once, and bowed once with acknowledgment. At once, the spectral entity vanished into the ether, gone before the stallion could bat an eye.
With a long, thoughtful sigh, the blue-coated stallion looked up at the huge chamber around him. What was once the princess’s throne room, the symbol of political power in Canterlot… was now all his. He almost granted himself a smirk at the thought. A simple pony like him, after all that he went through to get here…
…finally, his life would be restored. Once the Bearers and Elements were synchronized, and the preparations for the ritual complete… everything will be as it should have been, before it all went wrong. He would have back at long last what was so cruelly taken from him, his—
A sudden tremor interrupted his thoughts. He stumbled on his hooves for a moment as the floor shook underhoof, before finally regaining traction. The stallion turned to look out of a clear section of the window, just in time to witness a large section of a nearby tower break away from the castle… and fall down the almost vertical slope of Mt. Mare into the forested valley below.
The unicorn shook his head with quiet lament. The castle was deteriorating faster than he had imagined. It was such a beautiful structure, too… But these things were necessary. And with the preparations nearly complete, it wouldn’t matter what happened to the castle.
He smiled. Everything would soon be right again.
Twilight spent the next half-hour making sure the sleeping pegasus was kept comfortable. A few mild “earthquake” tremors happened again, along with distant sounds of something crumbling, but they were relatively minor. She wasn’t going to worry about that at the moment, though.
It wasn’t until another half an hour passed by that the pegasus mare woke up again. She still hadn’t much energy to try and get up, so the mare simply lay there as she was. Relieved to see she was still alright nevertheless, Twilight hoped to try and get to know the mare she just saved a little better. “Um… Hello. Are you feeling okay?”
“…I could be…better,” the pegasus replied, flipping a lock of her cyan-dyed mane out of her eyes. She coughed, and cast a withering look to the scabbed-over wound on her side. “For a while… I thought I was going to die in this Celestia-forsaken castle…”
“But you didn’t die.”
“Yeah… I guess I have you to thank for that, huh...”
Twilight smiled and shied away modestly. “It was nothing… I just couldn’t stand to see somepony hurt like that.”
“You’re too kind, really… Thank you so much…” The pegasus stopped for a moment, as if thinking about something. “…My name is Raindrops, by the way.”
“Oh? Why do they call you that?”
“Because…” Raindrops gestured towards a mark on her flank: a trio of blue water droplets. “…I’m one of the best weatherponies from Ponyville. Rain is my specialty.”
Ponyville…?
Upon hearing that name—the name of the only place she could remember living—Twilight snapped to attention. If this pegasus was from Ponyville, does that mean… “W-wait! You’re from Ponyville?”
“Um, yes?”
“So am I!”
Raindrops blinked with surprise. “Oh… That’s quite a coincidence.”
“Yeah, it is…I guess. Anyway, um…” Twilight remembered the names of her friends that the note specified. Raindrops may not have been one of them, but she might at least know something about her friends if she was from Ponyville too… “Do you know the names Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash? They’re my friends… I’m trying to find them.”
“…” The blue-maned pegasus looked at the floor, obviously upset about something. “I know Rainbow Dash well… Me and her are both weathermares, so we often run into each other while on duty… But…tonight, she…” Raindrops trailed off, and slowly shook her head.
Twilight looked at the pegasus with confusion. “Do you know if she’s here? Or if my other friends are?”
“Oh, they’re here alright,” Raindrops replied rather darkly, and gave a harsh cough. “The Gala this year was a bust, I’ll tell you that…”
“The… Gala…? Why? What…what happened?”
The butter-yellow pegasus gave Twilight the most incredulous look she could manage. “Are you serious? You… you don’t know what’s going on here?”
A moment of hesitation passed by before Twilight bit her lower lip and shook her head. She only knew that her friends were in danger, somepony was hatching a grisly plan, and that the princesses themselves were gone. But everything else besides that was a blur…
“Did you get hit on the head or something?” Raindrops inquired with a deadpan expression. “There’s been all kind of buckin’ horseapples flying around. The castle’s crumbling, the Grand Galloping Gala’s ruined for the second year in a row, and some crazy pony went and captured the Elements of Harmony themselves!” She shuddered. “Just think of what he’s done to them… To think, that he made her do this…”
Twilight’s gaze fell down to the remnants of the wound on the mare’s side, and frowned. She had to know what did this. “So, what happened to you? You were nearly on the brink of death! That wound on your side looked horrible! Just what even did that to you?!”
“…” Raindrops let her eyes wander to the staircase, and she visibly started to shake. For the first time since waking up, the pegasus looked extremely afraid of something.
Starting to catch a hint of dread in the pit of her stomach again, Twilight pressed the question again. And all Raindrops did in reply was say two words that cut into the unicorn’s heart like a dagger:
“Rainbow Dash.”
Twilight wasn’t sure if she could accept it, or if her sanity would even allow her to accept it. If what Raindrops had told her was true, then one of her supposed best friends… was now nothing but a… a… She couldn’t even find the right way to express it. How could one express it?
She knew nothing about what Rainbow Dash was like (or even of her basic appearance), but that was an obvious side-effect of having a severe lack of memory. The unicorn found herself cursing her past self more and more for making her forget all this important information.
Thankfully, Raindrops was kind enough to fill her in on a few key details about what the “bad occurrence” was. Apparently, Raindrops had come to this castle for an annual event called the “Grand Galloping Gala”. She’d attended last year as well. Twilight recalled the first flashback she had, after she’d come into the Entrance Hall, and could reasonably deduce that she and her friends had also come here because of such an event.
“I used to be wearing a nice little dress,” Raindrops lamented, sighing. “But I had to ditch it and leave it behind before that… thing started to k…” She shivered. “…You get what I mean. The Gala started out fine… until it all went to Tartarus, of course. Anyway, I spent a lot of time hiding… almost two days, and well… just a little while ago, I was discovered. Those monsters… they weren’t taking prisoners. I can’t believe I managed to get away with just a mortal injury… If I wasn’t a pegasus, then…”
The poor pegasus did not want to discuss it much more thoroughly than that however, and started ignoring Twilight’s ceaseless torrent of questions (much to the unicorn’s vexation).
After regaining enough energy to move of her own accord, Raindrops promptly informed Twilight that they should both leave the castle as soon as possible. The unicorn pointed out the wall of flesh blocking the gate, but directed the pegasus to the outer corridor that she first awoke in. Within minutes, the two had gone back through the hall Twilight first passed through, and into the outside hallway that ran along the edge of the castle. The large, open windows were more than wide enough for a pony to jump out (for Raindrops, it would be sweet freedom; for Twilight, it would be suicide (which is kind of the same thing)).
“Are you… sure you want to… stay here?” Raindrops asked, looking back towards Twilight. “There is a lot of scary stuff going on in there. Hay, I barely managed to get out of the Gala chambers alive after that Zander pony showed up and made a mess of things.”
“I’m very sure,” the unicorn informed her curtly. “My friends are still here. And that ‘Zander pony’ is somepony I need to stop. This madness can’t go on…” She thought back to the fleshy substance on the door, the thing that cornered her in the closet, and then to when she saw Raindrops shambling down the staircase with a horrid-looking wound…
“…” Raindrops stared at Twilight with beguiled curiosity. What was it about that pony that reminded her of somepony else…? It had been bugging her for so long… That messy and ragged-looking coat and mane made it hard to recognize her well, though… “…Alright then, but it’s your funeral.”
Pegasi are well-known for their skills in aerial maneuvering and acrobatics. Raindrops, while not quite as fast as the other weathermares, could still fly quite well. Even though her wound hadn’t completely healed, and still stung a bit, she was a tough mare. She easily managed to extend her wings, leap from the wide, glassless windowsill, and take off into the night sky.
Twilight couldn’t help but smile again as the pony gradually faded into the distance, giving a final wave goodbye. At least one pony made it out alive tonight, she thought. The crushing notion soon made itself known that others weren’t so lucky. Even so, there just might be time to save at least some of them. Her friends included, in a best case scenario.
But the possibility was all-too-real that she herself might not make it through the night. To her knowledge, there were now two monsters trotting around this castle.
And one of them was one of her best friends.
A single tear slid off her muzzle and mingled with a puddle of water on the floor. And I don’t even remember her anymore… Sighing with despair, Twilight picked the Dragonfire Lantern she had set down back up and lit it. As there was nothing more for her here, she made her way back into the dark corridor towards the Entrance Hall.