Twilight woke up and looked around her. She was in a densely packed forest with evergreen trees going hundreds of feet up into the sky. She could hear the chirping of birds and the scurrying of small animals in the underbrush.
Twilight was laying in some sort of liquid. 'It must of rained,' Twilight thought to herself as she continued taking in her surrounding.
Twilight tried to sit up but stopped with a scream of pain. Her left cutiemark hurt and stung with blistering pain as she tried to move.
She layed back down, it was the only way it didn't hurt. She pulled off her cloak, setting it down right next to her.
Twilight then turned to her side with a grunt of pain. Her eyes beginning to fill with tears as her cutiemark continued to burn with pain. She looked at it and gasped as she saw what was there, or should I say what wasn't.
Where her cutiemark was supposed to be there was only a blackened, bloody hole. She could see her blooded bone underneath and her charred flesh above. Blood poured out of the wound even now.
Twilight realized what the liquid she was laying in was.
She tried to scream but nothing came out. She tried to move but couldn't. She tried to do all of these things and more but was to shocked and horrified to do anything but let the tears fall down her face.
Finally after staring at herself for a good five minutes, Twilight got to work. She used her magic to pull out a first aid kit she had brought along just for an instant such as this. She then pulled out some disinfectant and applied it onto her wound. She got out a bandage and wrapped her cutiemark with it. She then got out a bottle of painkillers and took the recommended dose of two pills. Twilight layed back down, crying in pain. At least she stopped the bleeding.
As Twilight laid down in her own blood she grimaced in pain as a small groan escaped her mouth. She stood up with a cry of agony as her side screamed out to her to stop. But she couldn't, she had to go before the ones who did this to her got here and finished the job.
She slowly turned around and looked at the puddle of blood. It was a lot of blood, almost too much.
Twilight began to cry even harder. Massive wales of pain and sorrow came out of Twilight's mouth. 'My cutiemark mark is gone, gone forever. One of the last things keeping me, me.' Her tears of sadness turned into ones of hatred 'They did this to me. They have scarred both my mind and body and for that I will make them pay!' She slowly calmed down and as the last of the tears fell she thought 'At least I have the other one.'
Twilight grabbed her cloak from where she threw it and examined it. The back of it where it had been laying in the blood was a dark red color. The rest of it thankfully was it's normal black. 'I hope I can get this out. I don't want to go around wearing a cloak covered in my own blood,' she frowned as she thought 'At least it's better than someone else's.'
She pulled out her map from her bags and examined it. She took a quick look around herself and thought of the night before and how she got there. She roughly estimated her position and smiled as she did so. She was about a mile from a stream if her calculations were correct.
She looked down at her saddlebags. She sighed as she held her saddlebags above her back. 'This is going to hurt,' she then slowly lowered the bags onto her back as she prepared herself for the pain to come.
As soon as they touched her back she yelped in pain, but she kept going with it. As she firmly buckled her saddlebags to herself she let out a sigh of relief. She was breathing heavily, her face grimacing in pain but she smiled because she knew the worst of it was over. She could feel the painkillers kicking in and numbing the pain already.
Twilight took a couple of steps forward, grimacing in pain. It hurt but it was bearable. She took out her compass and turned northeast towards the stream.
She walked for about 30 minutes towards the stream. She maybe got her location off by a little bit, just maybe.
She finally got to the stream and looked into it. She gasped as she looked at herself. Twilight was completely covered in her own blood. Her coat was not its normal lavender but a dark red. Only her limbs and belly were their normal color.
She took off her saddlebags with a groan. She then walked into the stream, sighing contentedly as she did so. She layed down, washing the blood and filth off of her body. The water easing the pain in her gash as it moved by.
She sighed with a small grin on her face. 'This is the first time I've felt clean in days,' Twilight thought with a laugh 'This reminds me of when I use to take baths with Spike. I raised that dragon from egg, to hatching, to baby dragon, to where he is now. I wish he was here.' The grin turned into a frown as Twilight thought of the life she once had and would never get back. 'I wish I could turn back time and relive that, just once,' a single tear fell from Twilight's eye 'Just once.'
Twilight walked into a clearing, her once again black cloak flapping in the wind around her. Twilight looked up at the mountain above her. It was a shorter mountain, ended just below the clouds. The mountain was a part of a much larger mountain range that stretched the entire length of the continent from east to west, separating the frozen wastes of the north from the warm, fertile grasslands and forests of the south.
Totenberg Mountaint was not a very special mountain as far as a mountain goes. It was only about 100 meters taller than the mountains surrounding it and didn't even make the top 100 tallest mountains in Equestria. Just by looking at it you wouldn't think it was very important.
Lore and history wise though it was a completely different story. In fact it probably was the most important mountain in all of Equestrian history. It was home of the last known vampire. He lived at the very top of the mountain in a fortress called Dragon's Gate.
When the Equestrian Civil War began he was one of the first to side with Nightmare Moon. He gave her everything from new magic, to food, to armor and weapons. But as the civil war progressed Nightmare Moon was losing territory left and right until she was backed into a corner, and that corner was Dragon's Gate.
The Lunar military fought their last stand on that mountain. When Celestia stormed the castle she killed the vampire and fought with her sister in an epic final showdown between the two sisters. Nightmare Moon eventually was defeated and was banished to the moon for a thousand years.
She shook her head as she began to walk towards the mountain. Her ears perked up as she heard the sound of a twig breaking behind her. She stopped and turned around, looking at the forest. "Show yourself!" She yelled into the forest. As the figure did as she commanded she gasped. Her eyes widening and barely believing what she saw before her own eyes.
Spike picked up his last article of clothing and shoved it into his backpack. He then took the zipper in his hand and with a satisfying "Zziiipppp" he closed the backpack up and flung it on his back.
Spike sighed as he stood up. He walked over to his desk and re-read the letters given to Twilight. He already has read them almost ten times now but he just wanted to read them one last time. He knew where Twilight was headed, Totenberg Mountaint.
He then picked them up and threw them into the fireplace. He watched as they burned and shriveled up into nothing but ash.
He then walked out of his room and into Twilight's. It was empty, has been ever since The Princess made Twilight leave two days ago.
Spike looked on with sadness and determination "I will find you Twilight, and I will follow you to the very ends of the world. No matter what that bitch of a princess thinks. I know you're good and I know you need a friend. No matter what you are doing or what you've done I will follow you. I love you."
Spike started to cry as he walked out into the street, away from his life and the friends he has made, and started on his journey to find Twilight, his family. 'I love you Twilight,' Spike thought as he walked north out of Ponyville and into the unknown 'And I will find you and make sure you are safe.’