“A Tale of Two Sisters…” Twilight rotated the ancient looking text slowly, as near to her snout as she dared, trying to take in every last detail. It was old and worn of course, all the books within eyesight were. It had sat on the shelf wedged between a manual for dangerous flora and a guide to lesser transmogrify, simultaneously innocuous and the most intriguing thing in the world. The faded leather of its spine held no text but the surprisingly preserved cover depicted two unicorns with crossed horns set above a breathtakingly intricate crown stamped with six jewels. An expert piece of calligraphy at the bottom, gave Twilight it’s title.
Without even needing to touch it, the thing had her on edge. After all, not just any old book could maintain its own spell after so long, let alone one powerful enough to ensnare a mage as well versed as Twilight.
It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to notice in hindsight but eventually the steel trap that was her mind began to piece together the clues. The unshakable drive to carry on, the renewed sense of interest and, most importantly, a predetermined destination that she had seemingly plucked from thin air. The tell tale signs of a strong compulsion spell. Twilight silently thanked Celestia for having lectured her on said spells some weeks before, not wanting to think about what would happen if she hadn’t been able to recognise the signs.
After shaking off the shackles of the compulsion, she realised had a bigger problem on her hooves, one that couldn’t be blamed on any external stimuli. Burning curiosity. Was some pony playing a trick on her? Was it some sort of bizarre security system that diverted attention away from the more dangerous text? She had to know and, with a sinking feeling in her stomach she mentally prepared herself for the ire of the Princess she was sure to be on the receiving end of later. So on she stalked through the dry, lifeless expanse of the only library she knew of to be off limits, justifying her trespassing as something that wouldn’t take too long anyway. She’d find the source of this eerie spell and be off before the sun went down. Easy-peasy. In fact if she was lucky, the Princess might never know! Her head sagged, knowing full well that she would tell her mentor every word, unprompted regardless of what happened.
It wasn’t that hard to find it. All she had to do was relinquish some control of her mind to the will of the spell. In many ways it was not so different from the tracking spell of the library, if somewhat more sinister. Either way, Twilight was confident in her ability to maintain her own mental faculties without handing over the reins completely. The ambient magic of the surrounding books had complicated things a little but whatever the source of the spell was, it was more than strong enough to cut through the background noise.
Almost inevitably, the magical source had turned out to be a book.
She sounded the title of the book out once more, racking her brain for information. She knew what the title referred to of course, most scholars did. Almost a millennia ago, Princess Celestia ruled alongside her sister Luna until the Nightmare Moon incident brought about the downfall of younger Alicorn. What was perplexing to the young filly was the specific wording.
“Two Sisters…” Twilight mumbled again. She had seen that name before, she was sure of it. She just couldn’t quite put her hoof on where. Almost ubiquitously referred to as the Sun and the Moon respectively, very few academic texts used the phrase ‘Two Sisters’ to describe Celestia and Luna, something Twilight had always found strange. After some pestering, the Princess simply told her that the term was outdated and left it at that. Twilight didn’t push the matter after that.
After some time, she reluctantly filed the thought away for later and instead focused on what was in front of her. The next logical step was, of course, to open the thing but even her inquisitive nature couldn’t mask her nervousness. Well, you’ve come this far, you may as well finish it she thought to herself.
Steeling her resolve, she snapped open to the first page before her cautiousness could get the better of her and immediately yelped in surprise when the aged text took on a life of its own. It lept from her the embrace of her magic yet still hung in the air as if supported and slowly, very slowly, began to unravel itself. The tight lace that bound the spine slithered from its confines like a lethargic serpent and spooled in suspension, separate from the rest while numerous yellowed pages spread themselves before Twilight in a seemingly random fashion. To her disappointment (and some degree of relief) the dried text upon the pages was written in a language she had never seen before. She was mesmerized by the display, the sheer fascination of it all completely overshadowing any apprehension she had felt, replacing it with a desire to know the secrets of the book. Eventually, the contents of the tome gathered into a rough circle, and coalesced into an uneven, solid accumulation of paper that glowed ever so slightly in the dull light of the sconces.
Twilight held her breath, not wanting to disturb the entrancing magic on display. After a few, long seconds of stillness, she took an unsteady step toward the once-book, hoof outstretched. Before she could make contact, the paper mass contracted in a manner eerily similar to a live creature, the rippling pulse of skin. Once the motion was complete, a new symbol adorned its surface, one that stood out with a pale iridescence and moved ever so slightly in a simple animation.
Two winged unicorns, identical in all but colour, crossed horns at the centre of the circle, one the bright white of a summer's day and the other the deep navy of a moonlit night. They circled each other, swaying too and fro in a perfect harmony that was wondrous to behold, balancing each other out like some grand celestial scale in a fluid dance that Twilight could not keep her eyes off of. Only belated did her enraptured brain recognise the tell tale tugging sensation behind the navel that heralded teleportation.
She tried her best to fight, casting every counterspell a student as young as she should know (and then several others beyond that) but it was all for naught.
Her world turned upside down as she was forced into the spell but that was mostly because she came out the other side 5 hooves off of the ground. The quick meet and greet with the floor knocked the wind out of Twilight but she was fortunate enough to land on a ratty, moth-eaten rug rather than the unforgiving stone that it covered. Not that that's much consolation given that I’m now hopelessly lost and potentially miles away from home but... y’know ... optimism she thought to herself as she dragged her dazed body to its hooves.
Okay Twilight, think. You have no idea what just happened OR where you are but it seems like it’s safe… at the moment. She rapidly blinked to get her eyes used to the oppressive dark, only to mentally facehoof once she remembered that she was, in fact, a unicorn. A shimmering glow emanated from the tip of her horn and she squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate on shedding some much needed light on the situation. The glow grew steadily, until the faintly magenta radiance revealed the room in its entirety. Once she opened her eyes again, she glanced around the space to get her bearings and almost lost her concentration immediately at the sight before her.
Thick, razor sharp shards of glass jutted out from the dozens of apertures that lined the carved stone walls on both sides, stained a multitude of colours by design but brown with age. The very top of the high, vaulted ceiling reached just beyond the range of Twilight's illumination but she estimated it to be at least 100 hooves tall and carved in such fine detail that she doubted she’d ever make out it’s intricacies even if she stared at it for hours. At one end, farthest from her, the largest set of double doors Twilight had ever seen sat resting, with one having its hinges sheared off enough that the weight of the thing must have brought it crashing down. Both of the carved doors had been reclaimed by nature, wrapped tightly in choking wines and rough leaves: in fact, the wilds had re-taken a lot of the floor too, with vibrant looking weeds sprouting from between the cracks of the ruined stone. All of these strange and interesting details that the room contained were wasted on Twilight however, for her attention was drawn solely by what she found mere inches from where she first lay.
Opposite the ruined entryway, up a few steps draped in once-fine red carpet, two thrones sat, mostly untouched by the chaos that surrounded them and seemingly unbothered by the long fingers of father time. The larger one, a solid mass of ivory carved with the relief of the sun, sat slightly further forward than its partner, catching and reflecting any light that was determined enough to make it through the shattered windows. The smaller seat was pitch black except for small flecks of luminescent white and seemed to be made from the deepest obsidian. It’s tall backing was etched with what looked like all of the phases of the moon. Belatedly, Twilight noticed that the same symbol from the book that had brought her to... wherever she was, also happened to be engraved upon the wall behind both seats of power.
And just like that, she connected the dots. “Of course it was so obvious!” she shouted, caution gone with the wind. “Whenever The phrase ‘Two sisters’ is used, it usually refers to the name of Celestia's old castle! That book must have been some sort of...of fixed teleport or something,” The egg-head had forgotten all about her current predicament in favour of theory craft. This probably would have continued for a while had it not been for one very important fact that washed over Twilight’s brain like an icy shower, snapping her back to reality. The location of the Castle of the Two Sisters had been lost to living memory: mostly because it was buried deep within the Everfree Forest.
The Everfree Forest. The Great Unknown. The last wild place left in Equestria. Home to beasts and bandits alike and most definitely NOT a place meant for young fillies. Yeh, that Everfree. Twilight deflated like a pink and purple balloon, thoroughly drained of all excitement from her discovery.
From the corner of her eye, something long, crooked and, above all, creepy shifted in the shadows that made up the land beyond the (formerly) great stained glass windows, sending Twilight into a leap she wouldn't have even thought herself capable of. Once she remade contact with the ground she skittered away from the offending silhouette and pointed her horn at the window to at least be able to see her would-be assailant. She was almost glad nopony else was there to witness this however, considering that it was only a tree branch.
“Come on Sparkle, it’s just wood, get a hold of yourself,” she half-whispered, taking tentative steps toward the window and letting out a nervous chuckle when the guilty tree came into full view from her spell's illumination. Yep, just a regular old tree branch, connected to a regular old tree, nothing scary about that, no siree. She took several more steps forward and stood in the window frame, mindful of ancient glass shards. She was surprised to find that the forest floor was only a short hop from the throne room's window and, not wanting to accidentally slip, teleported herself to firmer footing. The wild grass beneath her hooves felt rough compared to the manicured lawns of canterlot but Twilight found a strange comfort in it, despite her nervous disposition.
The outside air was cool despite the season, but it was hardly fresh. All manner of overpowering smells vied for domination of her senses and most were not pleasant. Overhead, the thick canopy kept any trace of her mentor's comforting sunlight from reaching Twilight, even so close to the castle walls the gnarled branches were interwoven in such a way that not very much at all could pass through. The strange, frankly quite alarming, calls of the local fauna filled the air and set her on edge enough that she decided to dim the level of light she was producing for fear of disturbing something less than friendly. The underbrush was as dense as she expected but its weird and wonderful flora certainly had its own ethereal sense of chaotic beauty: a far cry from the neatly organised beds of the Royal gardens. She scanned the various plants with interest and made a mental note to research some of the more intriguing ones in the future. At the far reaches of her vision, unsettling masses of shadow moved restlessly, darting this way and that in sluggish attempts to escape the mild light generated by Twilight's spell which just about managed to highlight the outline of vaguely wolven shaped creatures languidly emerging from the- wait, what?
The young unicorn blinked rapidly to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating and, upon realisation that she was unfortunately not, began to chant under her breath a string of words that would no doubt catch her a firm scolding had any of her teachers been around to hear it.
Rotting muzzles manifested in the gloom, teaming with feral looking chips of wood hanging in the shadows, each just below a set of sickly green eyes, swirling with barely contained malice. More solid looking hunks of wood atop their heads gave the faint impression of horns and a single leaf sat upon both brows. The bodies, twisting heaps of fetid lumbar, moved with the sinuous grace of powerful muscle despite their fractured appearance: all four ferocious looking legs tipped with intertwining roots sharpened into needle-like points. The putrid stench of a hundred dead trees, mixed with Celestia knew what else permeated the space, rolling off of the creatures in waves, spewing out from their ferocious maws and choking the air enough to make Twilight's eyes water, something that made it even harder to keep them in sight incase they pounced. All six of the foul looking faces fixed Twilight with the stare of a predator and she didn’t have to think very hard to figure out that she was the prey.
The wooden wolves padded towards her slowly, deliberately, trying to get into her blind spots as pack hunters are wont to do but Twilight knew their game, she’d studied the common tactics of hunting mammals before and she wasn’t going to give them a chance to surround her. First, a distraction: she cranked the brightness of her horn to a blinding degree, too quick for the wolves to adjust and snuffed it out altogether a split second later. In the darkness she could hear their yelps of surprise. Not giving herself a moment to hesitate, Twilight squinted her eyes in concentration and teleported directly behind the pack, who for their part were still trying to acclimatise to make shift flashbang that their prey had set off. Blind teleportation was always dangerous of course, but Twilight had made sure to set herself a target before putting her plan in motion, as such she re-entered reality in a safe location: a tiny clearing a few meters away from the rearmost wolf. The next step of her plan was simple: run like tartarus.
Okay so the last step wasn’t the most elegant of ideas but Twilight's fear-addled brain couldn’t really come up with any alternatives to sprinting through an unknown, dangerous forest, running the serious possibility of coming across something even more deadly than what was already chasing her. At the very least, she’d had the sense to reactivate her light spell so that she wasn’t running totally in the dark. It may have painted a target on her back but Twilight reasoned that her pursuers could likely hunt blind anyway, and that being able to see where was running was far more preferable than stacking over some errant root she couldn't see and potentially breaking her neck.
Over vine and underbrush she ran, without a clear direction in mind. She didn’t want to risk another teleport with such momentum, lest she accidentally send herself hurtling off of a cliff or landing directly in front of a tree. So she ran as if tartarus were hot on her heels which, for all intents and purposes, it was. She didn’t dare turn around to look, but the dreadful baying of the pack followed her wherever she went meaning that the wolves hadn’t given up the chase. Through the haze of terror, Twilight’s ears managed to pick up the sound of a creature yelping: in fear or pain she couldn’t tell, but either way she was mostly certain that it hadn’t come from her own mouth. Mostly. She kept up her pace regardless, deciding that some poor creature in the vast woods crying out wasn’t relevant to saving her own fur. She nearly cringed at her own callousness.
She ran until she reached a large cleaning containing a shallow looking pool of water, ruddy and uninviting. What did look inviting however, was the towering tree trunk dotted with low hanging branches that shadowed the pond. The ululation of wolf howls was much further away now and Twilight was so thankful that she didn’t stop to think about how she had managed to out run them. If she could teleport herself to one of the more accessible branches, she might just be able to scramble her way to the top and hide! The dense upper parts would surely hold her weight long enough for her predators to lose interest and then she could climb down and…well she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Right now survival was most important.
Taking hastened steps around the water and toward the tree, Twilight was almost giddy with relief. Only to be plunged into a pit of despair when she heard the brush behind her rustle violently and the grating growl of a wooden wolf. Three of the nightmarish creatures darted into the clearing and gave Twilight a hungry glare. As before, she kept her eyes on them as best she could, unwilling to give them even a slight opportunity to attack. She hadn’t completely abandoned her plan either, and so moved backward as slowly as she dared toward her possible safe haven. It was at this point that Twilight noticed something strange.
Before, the wooden creatures had locked onto her with an unyielding gaze that was no doubt designed to paralyse her with fear. Now they seemed to barely give her a once over every few seconds before swiveling their heads in all the directions, scanning the tree line of the clearing with wary looks. If Twilight didn’t know any better, it looked as if the wolves were being hunted themselves. When only three of her pursuers had burst into the clearing Twilight had assumed that the others were close behind or hiding in the brush waiting for a chance to strike but now she wasn’t so sure. Fear of whatever thing could harm such horrible creatures clawed its way up Twilight’s spine and she began to panic. From the edge of her vision she could see curls of steam hiss from the surface of the water.
Without so much as warning a flash of green erupted from within the trees. It shot into the clearing with ruthless accuracy and engulfed the wolf nearest to Twilight like a blinding emerald firework, reducing the yowling creature to ash in a matter of seconds. The late wolves contemporaries jumped into action, facing the source of the fire with defensive stances and warning growls. In response, the wannabe pyromaniac prowled into view with a frightening tranquility and Twilight felt her heart stop.
Shimmering scales of dark purple formed the majority of its lithe form, except for its pale green underbelly which convulsed with the effort of reigning in its flames and delivering a low, bone rattling growl of its own. The verdant spikes that ran the length of its body which were rather soft looking, all things considered, but the way that they were pinned back along with the light frills on the sides of its head, suggested that it was certainly not in the mood to be stroked or petted. Its eyes, slitted and reptilian, were every bit as sharp as its lethal looking claws and burned with an intensity that rivaled the flames from its maw. Deep emerald flames spilled from between its serrated fangs in flickers and spurts, threatening to burst forth in a cascade of flame that would consume everything like that rather unfortunate wolf.It was surprisingly small, stalking along the ground on all fours just a little larger than as Twilight, and perhaps a shade longer thanks to the muscular tail that it sported, but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in taut athletic looking muscle that shunted beneath its scales in dangerous fluidity: it was certainly no runt. Twilight had seen such a creature before through her studies but this one had stepped from the pages of her textbooks and into her reality with impeccable timing. She couldn’t believe her poor luck, first a pack of hungry walking trees had tried to run her down and now she’d come face to face with an honest-to-goodness dragon.
Twilight thanked Celestia for small blessings that the scaly menace seemed to be focused entirely on her original attackers rather than her, for the moment at least, but she was so shell-shocked by it’s appearance that she’d forgotten all about her original plan of action. Instead she stood transfixed, watching through wide, frightened eyes as the two hunters circled each other.
It happened so fast that Twilight could barely keep track of it. The wolves made the first move, leaping in unison toward the dragon, mouths agape trying to latch onto the scaly throat but falling short thanks to the dragon's lightning reflexes. It coiled its body like a snake, reeling in its exposed neck to just out of range of gnashing wooden teeth and let fly with a bite of its own in retaliation. The first wolf to land didn’t even have a chance to howl as the dragon clamped down upon the rotten bundle of wood that connected shoulder to neck and tore it to splinters in one feral yank. The glowing green of its eyes faded into nothingness, swirling into mist as the body crumpled. The remaining wolf took the open created by its companions' demise with pitiless efficiency by biting down hard on the dragon's forearm and violently shaking its head back and forth. An ear-drum bursting roar resounded throughout the clearing as the dragon fought hard to dislodge his foe, thrashing the wolf with his free claw even as his scales began to dent under the pressure of wooden teeth. After several seconds of this the dragon had had enough and so he lifted the wolf in its entirety in an impressive display of brute strength and staggered over to a nearby tree where it slammed the wolf into the trunk without hesitation, finally loosening the vice grip around its arm. The wolf fell to the ground and did not rise again.
It was almost silent in the clearing, only the pained panting of the dragon breaking the peace every few seconds as it caught its breath. Twilight couldn’t move, frozen in place by the display of brutality and by the fear of being noticed so she watched on, rendered mute and immobile. The dragon sniffed the air as if searching and pawed at the remains of the wolf, scattering its lumbar around the bases of the surrounding trees. Twilight couldn’t help but whimper when the great beast snapped his head in her direction and bore a hole through her frame with his penetrating scowl.
A million thoughts raced through Twilight's head as the dragon stalked toward her, searching desperately for a way out. Her ‘blink up into the tree and hide’ plan didn’t feel so sure fire, not now that a dragon was her hunter, as she was sure those long claws could scale any tree. She decided that the best tricks often worked twice and so resigned herself to another short teleport behind her assailant and a long sprint through the unknowing, scrambling for a way to safety. Twilight groaned. She didn’t have to think too much about the terrible futility of her plan though: the dragon was gearing itself up to pounce.
It launched itself towards her, fangs and claws flashing menacingly in the charging light of Twilight's teleport. She’d have to get the timing just right otherwise the creature wouldn’t be sufficiently stunned by her disappearance and she would lose precious seconds in the chase, it was hooves away now and she could see the sparking green of its internal lighter jolting within its mouth. NOW she screamed internally but she hesitated. At the last moment she noticed that the piercing reptilian eyes were not focused on her directly, but rather just past her shoulder. The dragon sailed right over her head, landing atop a fourth member of the pack, one that had apparently snuck up behind Twilight and was waiting for a moment to strike. Lost in her fear of the dragon, she hadn’t even noticed. The wolf virtually exploded under the weight of the armoured mass of dragon, who stomped the ground several times, perhaps warding off any other potential enemies lurking amongst the trees.
Standing amongst the wooden bones of its kill, the dragon turned to face Twilight once more, its mouth stretched into a grim line filled with far too many teeth as it opened its jaw and...offered Twilight a friendly inquisitive smile “Hi! My name's Spike! What's yours?”