Fluttershy peered from behind the corner. Despite how soft her voice was, it still echoed across the huge hall. The pegasus walked cautiously forward.
The building seemed to be a library of some sort, but incredibly big one, bigger even than the one in the Crystal Empire. It was all imposing, all white marble, with majestic statues at every door, all windows covered with stained glass mosaics, books lined along the walls. There was nopony there and worse, Fluttershy was quite sure she had gotten completely lost.
Opening another large door, she found herself in a staircase. It was just as imposing as the rest of the building. It also did strange things with perspective. For a moment she had a problem telling which stairs were going up. She stepped back into the previous hall and stopped to think.
“There’s nopony here to ask directions,” she thought aloud. “Perhaps if I come back to where I entered, I’ll find a way out… wait. How did I get here? I remember there was a fire… Oh, no!”
Fluttershy darted through the hall as a vague memory returned to her. Her friends were in danger! She ran back around the corner and kept running, crossing through door after door, trying frantically to find a way out.
She rammed into one door blocking her path and found herself in a staircase. This time she was clearly at the bottom of it, but the stairs split, leading up to different destinations. Still there was no visible way out.
With a soft sigh, Fluttershy slumped to the ground. She no longer remembered why she had been running, but the act exhausted her. She had tried so many doors, but none of them would lead outside. Perhaps if she followed the stairs up, some door would lead her to the roof… It briefly occurred to her to try smashing through the window, but even if she could bend the frame holding the stained glass, it just didn’t feel right.
“I just want to go home…” she said softly.
As if on cue, she heard the sound of birds singing in the distance.
Curiously, she picked herself up from the floor, her ears turning to follow the familiar sound. She almost ran in that direction, only for the singing to disappear into the echoes of her own hoofsteps. Standing still until she heard the voice again, she opened her wings, then flapped them as delicately as she could, lifting her hooves off the floor. She slowly followed her ears, taking turns through the halls until she noticed a door that she must have missed last time.
It was half-open and a thin trail of blue mist was snaking from the inside. When Fluttershy landed in front of the doorframe and peered in, she saw a narrow corridor, sunlight filtering through leaves in the distance on the other end.
Fluttershy’s eyes widened and so did her smile. “Wait… I know that voice!” She ran down the corridor and out into the wood right outside her cottage. Instantly half a dozen of colorful birds flocked around her, filling her ears with happy chirping.
Fluttershy beamed. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you all. I was beginning to think I’ll never find my way back home…”
“Ah, there you are, you weakling!”
There was a loud flapping of wings and the singing birds scattered, disappearing among the wood canopy. Fluttershy turned with a start, finding herself face to beak with Gilda.
“What are you doing here, hiding!?” shouted the gryphon. “Everyone’s already there, ready to go! So stop wasting my time and move your rump!”
“Bbbbbut, what?” stammered Fluttershy, trying to understand the situation. Gilda groaned and grabbed her by the mane, pointing her away from her house and indicating a path through the forest with her other claw.
“It’s this way, dweeb. Now move it!”
Folding her wings close to her body, Fluttershy trotted forward, the angry gryphon close behind her. She followed the path, trying to understand what was going on, but too scared to stop and ask Gilda about it.
The path winded through the forest before turning east. Fluttershy could not remember it, but as she continued walking, she had a nagging feeling that she had experienced some of it before. As the forest suddenly opened into a clearing, she saw Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity waiting for her. They were all wearing saddle bags, visibly prepared for a longer trip.
“Oh, there you are, darling,” said Rarity. “We’ve been waiting for ages. Let’s move out and get this problem solved as quickly as possible. Twilight is counting on us.”
“Why are you so stubborn about taking her along?” asked Gilda. “She’s afraid of her own shadow. She’ll only slow us down.”
“She’s good with animals,” said Applejack. “That and Twilight insisted. She said we might need her.”
“Well, have it your way,” said Gilda, looking down at Fluttershy. “I say she’ll just be a dragon snack.”
“A… dragon?” This was when something clicked in Fluttershy’s mind. She looked up over the girls to see a steep ascent towards a huge mountain, its top covered in a cloud of black smoke.
Fluttershy’s pupils shrank.
***
Pinkie Pie walked through the blue mist, her ears swivelling cautiously.
“Rarity?” she called.
There was no answer.
“Applejack!” she called louder. “Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy!”
“Twilight!”
Pinkie Pie stopped, struck by a sudden realisation. “That’s right. Twilight. I was looking for Twilight. Before I lost all the others. That’s weird…”
She looked around, then under her own hooves, carefully examining what turned out to be grass. It was green, positively vibrant with life. There were sounds of singing birds and music playing in the distance, the sun was shining, making the waters of a river glitter like gemstones…
Pinkie Pie blinked. The mist had all but cleared, revealing a lush landscape, a maze of water and green grass, with sparse trees giving it an appearance of an orchard or perhaps a garden. There were rainbows everywhere. Here and there small clouds were hanging at ground level. One of them smiled and Pinkie instinctively returned the smile before realising what she’d just witnessed.
“I’ve never seen a cloud smile! What are youuu?” she asked the cloud, her enthusiasm draining into sudden suspicion. Her body was vibrating a little as if her Pinkie Sense was trying to give her too many contradicting signals at once. It was only then that she noticed the music. It was not very loud, but omnipresent now that she knew it was there. It reminded her of a circus, but there was something jarring in it, something off, like off-key buzzing that made the hair on her withers stand on end.
The cloud kept staring at her with the same, content smile, its black eyes boring into her.
“Sooomething’s not right here,” whispered Pinkie to nopony in particular. Moving away from the cloud, she pulled out a pair of binoculars and started looking around. She skulked from tree to tree, peering from behind the trunks to look around. For a time there was nothing, except more smiling clouds. Then she caught movement in the distance, something that was definitely equine in shape.
“Finally somepony I can ask directions here,” she said, putting away the binoculars and pronking in that direction. As she closed in though, she realised that she hadn’t been entirely right in her assessment, starting with her sense of scale.
The three unicorns were huge, well over three times her height, their bodies a light shade of purple, limbs thick in a way that seemed to suggest both ‘marshmallow’ and ‘muscle’ at once, their neon blue manes and tails swishing around as they moved.
They turned as they heard her approach, smiles on their muzzles. Pinkie Pie ground to a halt, the greeting frozen on her lips.
Their teeth were sharp like a shark’s.
The unicorns looked at each other and their smiles stretched wide. Pinkie backpedaled for a moment before turning around and dashing through the meadow.
“OnsecondthoughtIthinkIllasksomeponyelse!”
Heavy hooves rumbled behind her, but she easily outpaced them, zipping between trees, ducking under clouds and at one point jumping several lengths of her body over a stream. As she was running, she passed several other creatures. She didn’t slow down to see anything beyond sharp teeth and eyes full of malice. Her original pursuers were long lost, but she kept attracting new attention, the chase continuing until suddenly there was nopony to chase.
The unicorns looked around, then at each other. Finally they shrugged and turned, returning back where they had started. A pack of sharp-toothed teddy bears followed suit. Pinkie Pie kept skulking forward, snarling angrily until she was sure she was left alone. Only then did she drop the act, take a deep breath and look around to reorient herself.
“Now… where was I?”
Her ears perked up when she saw something between a pair of clouds, a wisp of blue mist. Smiling she pronked in that direction.
“Don’t you worry,” she said with a smile. “I’ll find you.”
The path through the mist led inexplicably onto a mountain trail. Pinkie looked up towards a jagged top, then down over a ledge. She saw Ponyville in the distance far below.
“Hey, I’m home!” she said.
Then a winged shadow fell upon her. “Hey, Pinkie, hurry up, will you?” called a familiar voice from above.
“Dashie?”
Pinkie Pie looked up. Indeed, it was Rainbow Dash, flying above a mountain trail some distance up the slope. A line of familiar ponies were climbing the mountain there.
“Dashie! I was just looking for you!” shouted Pinkie Pie, running up the trail. Soon she reached the place where she could turn around and continue climbing, catching up with the group. “Where have you all been?”
The other ponies turned to look upon her. They were all wearing saddle bags and by the look of it they had spent some time hiking already. There was Applejack, currently busy pushing Fluttershy up the trail. In front of her there was Rarity, Rainbow Dash who followed the group while hanging in the air, and leading the group was Octavia. She shook her head at Pinkie’s question.
“We were climbing the mountain? Don’t you remember?”
Pinkie Pie scratched her head. “We were…” She tried to remember, but her memories were kind of fuzzy and something didn’t quite fit. “It’s about the dragon, isn’t it?”
Rainbow Dash groaned. “Yes, it’s about the dragon.” She pointed her hoof up at a black cloud of smoke covering the top of the mountain. “We have to save Twilight from him. You said you could make him laugh.”
“I did?” Pinkie stared at Dash in confusion. The others shot her annoyed glances.
“Ok, let me check my party supplies.” She dove with her muzzle into her saddle bags. “Streamers… balls… wrapping paper… a ladder… an accordion…” she poked her head out, turning towards Rarity. “Say, do you have any glitter? Dragons like shiny things.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You mean you don’t have it on you? I guess I could find a little bit for you… wait, darling, you aren’t thinking of making yourself gold head to toe? I’m afraid I don’t have nearly enough.”
They reached a wider shelf that gave a panoramic view of the western side of the mountain. Applejack could finally stop pushing Fluttershy, and could catch up with the rest of the girls. “We’re almost there. Now, do we have a plan?”
“Well,” started Octavia. “I’m going to play for the dragon and hope he is impressed. Then you can get Twilight out.”
“Wait,” said Pinkie Pie. “Didn’t you say I was supposed to make him laugh? Or do we take turns trying? And where’s your cello anyway?”
Octavia scowled. “My cello is already there. Rainbow carried it up there for me. And no, we aren’t going to take turns. I just prepared plan b in case you fail.”
“Hey!” said Pinkie, landing just in front of Octavia’s face. “I never fail at making ponies smile. I can make that dragon laugh too.”
Octavia put her front hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder and very slowly pushed her away. “Well, I’ve never seen anything funny from you. The last time we met, all you did was ruin my concert.”
“Your concert?” asked Pinkie in surprise.
Octavia’s eyes widened. “You mean you don’t even remember? It was at the Grand Galloping Gala. I was there with my band playing on stage. And then you appeared. You made me play pony pokey to Canterlot nobles!” she hissed suddenly.
Pinkie Pie chuckled. “Oh, right, that was fun.”
Octavia’s eyes narrowed and she walked closer, forcing Pinkie to step back. “Fun? That was your idea of fun? That’s how you want to make the dragon laugh? Did you ever stop to think what it could do to me? To my career?”
“And you stage-dove into mah cake,” added Applejack.
“In my dress,” added Rarity. “After all the work I put into it.”
“It was an accident!” said Pinkie. “I didn’t know the cake would be there!”
“You didn’t know?” asked Octavia “Or did you just not think of the consequences?”
“Yea,” said Rainbow Dash. “And what about that time when you sang that horrible song in Appleloosa? The whole town got wrecked!”
“Heeeey” said Pinkie, pouting. “I did my best there. I didn’t know the buffaloes would be such a tough crowd. I’d never hurt anypony on purpose.”
“Like when ya jabbered on for hours and hours when I wouldn’t tell you about tha rodeo?” asked Applejack.
“Like when you dressed up as Mare-do-well to rain on my parade?” said Rainbow Dash.
“We all did that,” answered Pinkie.
“So, it’s our fault now?” asked Rarity. “What about that… dreadful dress you made me make for you? It almost ruined my business. And after all the work I had put into making you look good...”
Pinkie’s ears drooped. “I already said I was sorry for that.”
“And then you pushed her out of the speeding cart and got you both stranded in Dodge Junction,” said Octavia. “Did you apologise for that one too? What’s the point of saying you’re sorry if you keep hurting everypony over and over again? What about that song you made about Zecora? Or all the things you did to Cranky? Did you think everypony would just forget?”
Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack formed a semi-circle around Pinkie Pie, each nodding her head each time Octavia listed a new thing. Pinkie found herself stepping back towards the edge of the cliff.
“Of course you didn’t forget,” she said. “But I did so much to make you smile, every day. I may be silly sometimes, but I always take care of my friends.”
Everything grew silent, the ponies stopping in their tracks and the wind at the mountain dying down. The sky grew dark, night falling as quickly as if somepony extinguished the sun. After a moment Pinkie couldn’t see anything around her but the silhouettes of the standing mares, the only spot of light left behind them, pointing down at Fluttershy. The yellow pegasus had kept silent until now, standing in the back row. Now she was standing straight with her wings folded, staring at Pinkie Pie with weird intensity.
“You replaced me with a bucket of turnips,” she said softly.
***
Deep in the tower, Obsidian stirred. Turning away from the Amaranthine Flower, he left the room and walked out and up the stairs. After talking a couple more turns he ended out outside.
It wasn’t so much a courtyard as the ground floor of a building that was no longer there, a central tower that used to be the core of the whole structure, now turned into a gravity-defying mess of shattered walls and tangled staircases connecting the four still standing smaller towers that surrounded it. The stone floor was strewn with rubble and nearly invisible under a layer of fine white dust.
Obsidian walked slowly across the floor, towards the spot where the main entrance to the tower used to be. Now it was just two stumps of an arch reaching into the air, the top part having collapsed when the keystone was torn out. It had been like this for many centuries. The only new element was a body of a purple unicorn collapsed on the ground in the entrance.
After a moment of scanning the unicorn with his eyes, Obsidian focused his mind and poured power into her. As she twitched slightly, he brought his staff over her body, ready to strike. Then he waited for her to open her eyes. When it didn’t happen, he prodded her with the staff.
“Rise,” he said, his raspy voice filled with impatience.
Twilight Sparkle stirred, looking around her with half-focused eyes. She tried to get up and barely managed to, her legs terribly wobbly. Obsidian stepped back, his face a mask of cold calculation, the staff levitating at his side.
“Tell me who you are and how did you get here,” he said.
“I… I’m Twilight Sparkle…” Twilight managed to say. “I don’t know how I got here. I don’t even know where I am. And who are you? And how are you doing this?” she continued, suddenly regaining focus at the sight of Obsidian’s levitating staff.
Obsidian looked down on her. “I am Obsidian. You’re in the Tower of Lost Thought. Which is strange, since the spell that stranded it in Dissonance wasn’t supposed to let anypony in or out. Not even the Elements of Harmony.”
To that, Twilight’s ears perked up. “I am an Element of Harmony!” she said. “I bear the element of Magic!”
“Oh, you are the Element of Magic. In that case, why are you here at all?”
Twilight looked around, blinking at the sight of the gravity and geometry-defying mess above her head. “I told you, I don’t even know where I am. You said it’s the Tower of Lost Thought and it is placed in Dissonance. But I’ve never heard of either of those. What is this place?”
Obsidian stared at Twilight for a moment, blinking. “Follow me,” he said, turning away from her and walking towards the entrance to the nearest tower.
Twilight Sparkle sighed and followed him, keeping close behind him until the side of her head suddenly collided with the base of a wooden stairway, her skull exploding with pain as it finally registered the impact that knocked her off her hooves and sent her flying.
Obsidian turned around with a snarl, his staff swinging around in the air, ready to strike another blow.
Twilight just whimpered on the ground, unable to get up, her vision swimming. Obsidian walked closer, staring down at her from underneath his dishevelled mane, an angry grimace on his muzzle. The air crackled around him and for a moment Twilight could see faint blue light outlining a pattern of runes on his coat that matched the ones on his staff.
“You, the Element of Magic, the most powerful wizard in the world,” he growled.
“You’ve just been beaten with a stick. You don’t know how you’ve come here. You don’t know where you are, or what Dissonance is…”
He loomed over her, stomping a hoof next to her head. Twilight could see his teeth, unsettlingly sharp and inequine, with long canines, bared as if he was about to bite her.
“YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I AM!” he shouted in a voice that reverberated across the ruins, causing Twilight’s head to explode with pain again.
Obsidian closed his eyes and the aura around him subsided. He was still breathing heavily. “This… it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he croaked. “After so long… somepony finally here and it’s this!?”
He then poked Twilight with his staff.
“Ok, then… Let’s try to act rationally. Get up and tell me what you... think you know.”
He was answered by a weak groan. He rolled his eyes before looking down at Twilight. A moment later his staff struck down, embedding itself in stone right in front of her eyes.
“You’re supposed to know magic. Focus, put yourself together and get up,” he barked.
“Souls don’t get concussed.”