For a moment Nosey could only stare up at the stallion on top of her, too shocked to move.
Silhouette was someone she remembered quite well from her time in Vanhoover. A member of the Royal Guard with an ice-cold heart, he’d attempted to drag Lex in front of the princesses while he’d been performing a ritual to turn Aria into a pony, despite being told that any disruption had the potential to be catastrophic. Only the timely intervention of the Night Mare’s Knights had stopped him.
Later that same evening, he’d prostrated himself at the side of Princess Luna – his goddess, he’d called her – while Nosey and Feathercap had exchanged information with the younger of the Royal Sisters. Which, Nosey realized with a sinking feeling, was most likely how he’d found out where she lived. He was right there when I told Luna that I work for the Canterlot Chronicle. That alone would have made it clear that this was her city of residence.
From there, it wouldn’t have been hard for him to figure out her address. She’d spent a long time trying to cultivate a name for herself as a reporter, and part of that included letting ponies know where to find her in case they had any interesting news to share. She knew a lot of reporters would set up a post office box for written communications and pick a favorite spot – often a restaurant or a particular seat at a theater – for face-to-face meetings. But those all cost bits, and Nosey was a girl on a budget, so she hadn’t seen a problem with using her home. After all, notwithstanding major events like an invasion of changelings or a huge magic-eating centaur, Canterlot was one of the safest cities in all of Equestria. Who would be crazy enough to commit crimes right under the nose of the princesses and their guards?
Silhouette, apparently.
“I know what you’re thinking,” grunted the stallion in question as he held her down, his hoof still pressed over her muzzle. “I should be dead, right? Buried in a shallow grave somewhere after your hero murdered me?” Snarling, he leaned down, until his face was inches away from hers. “Too bad for you that Princess Cadance brought me back. Too bad for you, and too bad for Lex Legis.”
When Silhouette had tackled her, Nosey had been too shocked to respond, unable to reconcile something like this happening in her home. But that shock was gone now, and in its place was a rising panic, which drove her to action. Letting out a muffled scream, she jerked her head to the side, trying to dislodge his hoof. Nor was the rest of her still, as she began thrashing to try and throw Silhouette off of her. Her horn lit up, wrapping him in a glowing aura-
His free hoof, the one that hadn’t been pressed against her face, swung down then, and her head rang from the force of the blow. The pain was enough to make her go limp, and she dimly registered the taste of blood in her mouth. Her head lolled to the side, and for a moment she couldn’t figure out why everything was blurry now, needing a second to figure out that her glasses had been knocked off her face.
Above her, Silhouette wasn’t even breathing hard after the all-too-brief struggle. “Try that again,” he growled, “and I promise you, I won’t stop after just one punch, do you understand?”
When Nosey didn’t reply, still dazed from impact, Silhouette reached out and put his hoof under her chin, making her turn her face toward him. “Do you understand?” His voice was dark with the promise of what would happen if she didn’t say yes.
“Y-yes,” she murmured, already feeling herself starting to shake. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. She’d come back to Canterlot because she wanted her life to go back to normal, but this…first her job, and now her apartment; her time in Vanhoover had followed her home.
“Good. Now get up.” Getting off of her, Silhouette roughly pulled her to her hooves. “If you scream, or run, or use magic, I’ll beat you until you can’t do any of those things. Do you understand?”
Knowing that a response was expected, Nosey nodded, mumbling a vague affirmative. She could already feel herself starting to shake even worse, the tremors running through her entire body. Although she knew it wasn’t nearly as bad, she couldn’t help but think back to when she’d been possessed by Xiriel. Why does this keep happening to me?
Silhouette didn’t reply for a moment, staring at her in the dim moonlight as though deciding whether her lackluster answered warranted another punch or not. The uncertainty was enough to make Nosey’s tension skyrocket, but it only lasted a second before he nodded. “Good. Now, walk slowly toward the bathroom. I’ll be right behind you the entire way.”
Despite herself, Nosey couldn’t stop a question from passing her lips. “Why? Wh-what’s in the bathroom?”
He cuffed her then, his hoof striking her across her ear. It was nowhere near as hard as the previous punch, but it still made her cower, her heart leaping into her throat at the sudden display of violence. “Walk slowly toward the bathroom,” he repeated menacingly. “Now.”
Swallowing, she did as he said, marching the fourteen familiar steps to the room in question. But unlike all the other times she’d done so, the distance seemed to take forever to cross, wondering with each step if she’d be able to take another one without him hurting her again. By the time she reached the tiny bathroom – barely having enough room for the sink, tub, and toilet – she was breathing hard enough that she felt like she’d run a marathon.
“Now,” began Silhouette once they’d reached their destination, “lie down in the bathtub on your back, legs extended upward.”
Once again Nosey found her curiosity briefly overpowering her fear, but this time she knew better than to give voice to her questions, wordlessly obeying her captor. Swallowing in silent terror, she watched – just barely able to see him in the gloom – as he went to the bathroom’s only window, grabbing several towels from the nearby rack and throwing them over the curtain rod. It was only after he’d covered it completely that he turned the bathroom light on. The sudden illumination hurt Nosey’s eyes, but she hoped that somepony would be passing by and notice a light coming on, that maybe they’d think something strange was happening and tell someone…
Then she realized that was exactly why Silhouette had hung the thick bath towels in front of the window: to eliminate any chance of that happening.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched him root through the cabinet under the sink, pulling out the spool of twine that her mother had given her when she’d moved into this apartment – “just in case the dryer in the basement goes and you need to hang your clothes out to dry,” she’d said – and cut a length off with the thin pair of scissors her dad had given her in case she’d wanted to save some money by cutting her own hair. For some reason the sight of him touching the things her parents had given her, despite her not having looked at them, much less thought about them, in years made her stomach churn, and she felt her eyes tearing up as he moved over to her.
If Silhouette noticed her discomfort, he didn’t show it. Instead he began to quickly tie her legs together, winding the thin rope around her limbs in smooth, practiced motions. Guard training, Nosey realized with a sinking feeling. He’s done this before.
It took only a few seconds for Silhouette to finish, turning away to look for something else, but Nosey didn’t need to test the ropes to know that there was no way she was getting out of them. He’d made sure to wind them around each of her legs multiple times, tying each one closely to the other three with no slack remaining, knotting and re-knotting them with the cords tight enough that even if she leaned up to work at them with her teeth, she doubted she’d have been able to undo them. He’d even tied her tail to the ropes in several places, winding the hairs in with several of the knots, unwilling to give her even the slightest chance of freeing herself.
That explains the bathtub. Lying on her back like this, with her legs having virtually no range of motion, the small tub was effectively a prison, preventing her from so much as crawling away. All he had to do was gag her now and she’d be completely incapable of doing anything…with one exception.
But when Silhouette turned back to her a moment later, Nosey knew he hadn’t forgotten her horn.
She couldn’t help but squeeze her eyes shut, her mind already racing with nightmarish scenarios about what he was going to do to her in order to stop her from using magic. Everypony knew that disabling a unicorn’s horn was the fastest way to render them helpless, since the numerous delicate muscles around the bone of the horn were what made fine magical control possible. Breaking the bone would make it virtually impossible to cast spells reliably. So would a severe burn. Or several deep cuts. Or-
A second later she felt a rubber band snap around the base of her horn.
The sensation was so unexpected that she gasped, jerking reflexively as her eyes flew open. But Silhouette didn’t seem to care, instead leaning in to twist the rubber band and loop it back over her horn, causing it to tighten. Then he did it a third time. Then a fourth.
It was that point that Nosey couldn’t hold back a groan of discomfort, the loop of rubber cutting off her circulation. Even so, a wave of relief swept over her; as dangerous as she knew it could be to restrict the flow of blood to her horn for a prolonged period of time, it was a far gentler way of stopping her from using magic than she’d been anticipating. No doubt another trick he’d picked up during his time in the Royal Guard, since she couldn’t imagine them deliberately injuring unicorns as a means of securing their magic. Celestia and Luna would never have allowed that.
Luna…the thought made her turn her attention back toward Silhouette, hoping that mentioning the pony he worshiped would let her get through to the violent stallion. “D-did Princess Luna send you? Because she wouldn’t want th-”
“Don’t you ever say her name to me!” hissed Silhouette, a look of absolute fury crossing his face as he leapt to his hooves so fast that he almost stumbled, his withered hind leg barely supporting him. It was his foreleg that concerned Nosey more however, winding up for another punch, causing her to whimper as she tensed and tried to curl up in anticipation of being hit again.
But after several seconds went by without being struck, Nosey dared to crack her eyes open, trembling with the thought that he was waiting for her to relax just so the ensuing blow would hurt more. When that didn’t happen, she opened them further, seeing Silhouette resting his forelegs on the sink, hanging his head as he took deep breaths, struggling with visible effort to calm down. Even then, he needed several seconds to accomplish that task.
When he finally turned to look at her again, Nosey felt her blood run cold. When she’d first met Silhouette back in Vanhoover, his gaze had been dispassionate in the extreme, seeing her and everypony else as nothing more than obstacles toward his goal of bringing Lex in. But now there was a wild look in his eyes, open wider than necessary as he seemed to struggle to focus on her. “Don’t you ever…ever…EVER talk about her to me, do you understand?! After what Lex Legis did…what he did to her…to my goddess…my majestic, beautiful Luna…!”
He couldn’t keep going, sinking to the floor as a sound like a muffled scream came from his throat, barely held in check as he began to rock back and forth quickly. Several pronounced tremors ran through him, as though he was holding back heavy sobs. The spectacle went on for almost a full minute, and it terrified Nosey more than anything that he’d done so far.
Finally, he seemed to regain a modicum of sanity, and he stood up again, panting. When he made eye contact with Nosey, he seemed more like his old self, but she could still see whatever madness had gripped him lurking there, ready to come flying out the next time he was provoked. That was enough for Nosey to be sure; however angry the princesses might have been over what Lex had done to Luna, there was no way they’d allow somepony this…this…irrational to work for them.
Whatever Silhouette was doing here, he was doing it on his own, unsanctioned.
“Now,” he began at last, “I have some questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you do, then once the sun comes up and there’s no chance of your dreams being detected, I’ll allow you to sleep. But if you don’t…” He let the threat hang in the air, unspoken.
Nosey nodded as quickly as she could.
“Good. Now tell me, when did you first meet Lex Legis?”