The night sky, such as it was, was a terrible disappointment.
Windfall didn't say anything, but she closely watched Twilight observe the stars as they appeared.
Twilight, for her part, had her notebook open with her pencil poised above it. As the sky dimmed, her pencil lowered, until she shut the book and put it away in her saddlebags without writing anything.
Windfall couldn't hold out any longer. "So…?"
Twilight frowned. "Don't those stars seem a bit… off to you?"
The pegasus didn't even glance up. She had seen those stars many times before. "I'm no expert, Princess. I spend most of my time looking down. Or at least I used to. The only thing I know about stars are that out in the desert you can see a whole bunch more than that. When the moon's up and full, or near big cities you'd see a lot less, if you saw any at all. So these are what? A medium ammount of stars? They tell you anything about where we are?"
"They're probably not stars at all."
"What?" Windfall finally looked up.
"They're all the same magnitude, and spread fairly evenly across the sky, exactly like real stars aren't." A stone rose in Twilight's levitation field and then rocketed upward. A couple of pony lengths below the rim of the opening, it rapidly decelerated, hung in the air for an unnaturally long time, and then fell back to the floor of the cavern with a dull thud. Twilight snorted. "I could probably crack that dome if I could reach it."
"Kumanina," Windfall growled, and dropped her head to her forelegs with a sigh of disgust.
"I can't disagree," Twilight said quietly. Well… only one more chance at an easy way out of this. It's a longshot, so I'm not going to mention it to Windfall in case it doesn't work. She's gloomy enough as it is. Twilight set about crafting a very particular spell matrix and in only a few minutes, she was asleep.
The paperwork in front of her was written in tiny crowded letters, and she squinted at them, trying to make sense of the important document. She lit her horn for extra light, but nothing seemed to change. She puzzled out a word or two, but then she lost the sense of the sentence and had to start over.
Wait a minute. Twilight increased the light spell significantly, but the room remaned dim. I can't seem to read and the light level won't change, which means something. She sat back on her haunches, lifted her forehooves up in front of her face, and tried to push the tip of one hoof through the frog of the other. Surprisingly, it worked.
Ah, I'm dreaming! She pulled her right hoof out of her left with a muffled pop, and looked around her.
She was in the main room of the old Golden Oaks Library. Odd. I thought this was destroyed… oh right, this is a dream. Too bad.
Something began to sparkle on the wall in front of her. It grew from a pinpoint to a symbol about as big around as her head—a silvery crescent moon. The magical glyph triggered the conscious intent without being forceful enough to awaken Twilight.
Luna! Luna! Can you hear me? I need you!
Something stirred in the darkness.
It wasn't Princess Luna.
A gigantic dark hoof descended and crushed the glowing moon sigil into nonexistence.
The walls of the library shook and the books cascaded from the shelves. Twilight scrambled to catch and replace them, but there always seemed to be more than she could manage.
Windfall looked over at Twilight as she twitched and muttered in her sleep. Her wings jerked and little glimmers of magic sparkled in the grooves of her horn. The pegasus reached out with one wing, hesitated for a moment, and then flicked the alicorn's nose with the tip of a primary feather.
Twilight awoke with a start. "Wha? I… uh…"
"You were having a nightmare, Princess."
"Oh. Right." Twilight didn't look very happy about escaping from her dream. "Thank you."
Windfall didn't reply. She put her head down again and closed her eyes.
Twilight muttered something in Zwahinney and did the same.
= = =
Luna stomped around her private rooms in frustration. She had tried every technique she could think of to reach Twilight through the Dream Realm, but hadn't caught the least hint of her presence. She thought of some of the forbidden books hidden beneath the Royal Archive. Perhaps one of them might hold the answer to—
"Do you know how many hours those poor peasant ponies put into weaving that rug?" Discord asked from far too close behind her. "You're going to wear it out!"
Luna whirled and lashed the draconequus across the face with her mane in a manner that could have been plausibly explained as accidental. "Ah! Discord, you surprised me!"
Discord gave her a half-grin. "Guilty conscious?"
Luna frowned. "Whatever should I be feeling guilty for?"
"Well, your complete and utter failure to rescue poor Twilight springs to mind."
"I have not stopped trying yet!" Luna practically snarled. "And I don't see you doing much to help!"
"Oh! You mean…" He lifted his eagle claw and pressed the thumb against one of the fingers. Luna waited expectantly, but Discord shrugged and put his claw down again. "Nopony's asked me to help."
"Surely, Fluttershy—"
"Oh no! You'd think so, wouldn't you? But she was so busy apologizing for accusing me of causing the whole mess in the first place, that I think she forgot. So maybe, if—"
"Please Discord," Luna said immediately. "I beseech you to return Twilight Sparkle to us! I, Princess of the Night, will bend my knee to you, Lord of Chaos, should you do this great deed for me, and all of Equestria!"
Discord beamed at her. "Well, that's a pleasant thought! Alrighty then!" He lifted his eagle claw again and snapped it loudly.
There was a bright flash just above him and a bowling ball dropped onto his head. It bounced off and hit the poor bedraggled carpet before rolling to a stop against a bookcase. Birds of several species flew in a tight circle around Discord's head, tweeting madly for a second before chasing each other out the chamber's window.
Discord blinked. "Well, that was unexpected."
"Please, Discord!" Luna said. "No pranks! I want Twilight back again. You may ask anything of me…"
But the draconequus wasn't listening. He levitated the bowling ball up and took a closer look at it. On one side was etched, "Stop it, Discord." He felt a little tingle of excitement run down his spine.
"Well, well, well… This is interesting!" He raised his claw and snapped it again.
A second black ball dropped from above him, but this time he dodged slightly to the side and caught it in his lion paw.
On the side of it was written, "I said, stop it!"
"Another bowling ball?" Discord snorted with disdain. "How repetitive!" He turned to Luna. "Shall we see if I can fill up this room with bowling balls?"
Luna frowned at the object still in Discord's paw. "This 'bowling' is a modern sport I am not familiar with. What necessitates the sparkling bit of cord there?"
It was Discord's turn to frown in puzzlement and he spun the ball a half turn. There was a half inch of burning fuse sticking out of the dark sphere.
It wasn't a bowling ball, after all.
Alarmed by Discord's sudden change of expression, Luna teleported away an instant before the bomb blew the top of her private tower to pieces.
Each separate fragment of Discord's shredded body laughed the whole way down to the river meadow at the base of the mountain.
= = =
In the morning, Twilight and Windfall resumed their mapping together. The work went a little slower than the previous day because Twilight also carefully wrote down which already marked tunnels they encountered, and what other tunnels they connected to.
She was also keeping an eye out for any signs of other ponies.
They came back to the big cavern a couple of times and, on the second return, Windfall suggested they stop to eat. She put her head down and started to graze without waiting for an answer from Twilight.
Twilight briefly considered using her levitation field to cut and eat the grass, but decided that putting her muzzle down was more companionable, if less sanitary.
After their meal, Twilight pushed a little earth pony magical encouragement into the sparse soil and gathered up her things. "No challenges so far today," she said, as casually as she could.
Windfall snorted. "Sometimes you go days between them. Sometimes you get three in a day. No point in trying to anticipate them."
The maze shifted again a little while later. They were in a marked tunnel at the time, and when they reached the end of it, they found a small, rocky clearing. There was no visible plant life, but a small brook ran through the middle.
"Hmn… no other exits," Twilight said, and made a mark near the tunnel. "Do most small spaces like this usually have only one way in or out?"
Windfall had shown more interest than usual in the room and had clambered over the rocks to peer into the crystal clear water of the stream. "Uh… yeah, I guess. Mostly." She seemed distracted, and when Twilight moved to join here she waved her back. "Hang on."
Twilight watched in fascination as the pegasus leaned low over the water and stretched her wings forward, making a nearly complete circle of cover over her own head. Windfall remained motionless for a couple of minutes and then violently thrust her head down into the water with a splash. Her wings snapped shut and she whipped her head up and to the side, spitting out something long and silvery onto the gravel.
"A fish?" Twilight stared at the flopping, gasping trout.
"Yep!" Windfall grinned at her. "I recognized this place. That stream is full of them! Hang on, I'll get another one!"
"What in Equestria for?" Twilight asked without thinking.
Windfall froze and looked at her like she had grown a second head.
Twilight caught up. "To eat?"
Windfall laughed. "Well, I'm not gonna shove 'em up my kuma, Princess! I'm guessing you weren't a pegasus before you got all nobilitated, right?"
"There were griffins and hippogryphs at the school. I've tasted fish before," Twilight said, blushing slightly from embarrassment. She forbore to mention that she had been born into an old noble family.
"Yeah, all nicely cooked and buried under a thick sauce I bet. Now, step back, be quiet, and let me catch my dinner."
Twilight watched the process with interest. She could have easily scooped up any number of fish in her magic, but Windfall showed every sign of enjoying herself, so she kept silent and waited.
It wasn't long before a second trout flew through the air directly toward her face. She caught it in her magic and set it down next to the first one. I get the feeling that Windfall deliberately aimed for me, Twilight thought. If that silly, dripping smile on her face is any indication. "Now what?"
"We clean 'em!" Windfall said, gleefully. "The scales on these little ones are tiny and soft, so we don't need to scrape them off. Just fillet and snack 'em up! Gotta find a halfway sharp rock first, though."
Twilight silently floated her penknife out of her bag, unfolded it, and passed it over to Windfall. "You do the first one, and then I'll give it a try."
"That's the spirit, Princess!"
It was utterly disgusting, and Twilight felt her gorge rise a couple of times while watching the process. When it was her turn, she offered silent, heartfelt thanks to the fates that she didn't have to hold the knife in her mouth.
She managed it. Hers was nowhere near the neat job Windfall had done, and wasn't finished as quickly, even with the advantage of magic, but it was a passable job.
Windfall had slurped down half of her fish before she realized that Twilight was walking away. "Hey! Where are you going?"
Twilight didn't look back. "I'm going to wash off my knife. I don't want my quills to stink of fish."
Windfall shrugged and finished her meal.
When Twilight came back she was carrying a large, flat stone she had washed in the brook. It was just exactly the right size to lay her fish fillets on, which she proceeded to do.
Windfall stared. "What in Tartarus are you doing? Don't tell me you're so prissy that you..." She trailed off as Twilight's horn glowed and the stone began to radiate heat. Within moments, the fish was sizzling.
"You… wait… you…" Windfall sputtered. "Why didn't you tell me you could do that? I ate my sun-forsaken fish raw!"
Twilight flipped her nicely cooking fillets over and gave Windfall the most innocent look she could manage. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you preferred it that way!"
Windfall shut her mouth and stared at Twilight through narrowed eyes. "Ha," she said, very, very slowly. "Ha."
= = =
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