I looked back to the pegasus who’d been chatting my ear off, but he was nowhere to be seen. Loyalty was certainly not his chosen Element, then. I huffed and got up to follow behind the unnerving mare.
She led me through a few of the interconnected chambers, far past where I’d normally go. There were fewer and fewer ponies in each subsequent space. Instead of rugs and cushions, spare ceremonial materials were stacked in neat rows, then a few older robes gathering dust, and finally a few rooms that were completely empty of anything. The smell of iron and copper filled the air, and the lights dimmed to the point where I could barely make out my guide against the rougher-hewn walls.
“So,” I said, my breath catching in my throat. “Where are we going?”
No answer.
“Did you need me for something? Because my duties as Prophet usually require me to have some sort of idea about what’s going on.”
Silence, save for her soft hoofsteps. I stumbled over a bit of uneven ground and barely caught myself before I face planted into the ground. Then, I could smell it. A sharp tang of something I couldn’t identify the source of, and that scared me more.
Fear. Somepony, or rather, someponies had been very afraid around here. And it wasn’t just me.
We rounded another corner, and the mare who led the way gestured me towards a curtained-off section of the room.
“In here,” she said, before pulling the cloth back. After trudging through a maze of dim rooms, the blinding light seared into my still-healing eyes. I bit back a whine as I threw a hoof over my eyelids and blinked a few times to adjust.
Despite the sharp scent of fear that was pervasive in this room, I couldn’t see any immediate causes for concern. There was a plush, well-loved armchair in the center of the room, with a matching hoofstool at the base of it. Some lamps buzzed dully above me, illuminating the otherwise-dull room, and the pony waiting within. Even if I hadn’t immediately recognized her sitting in the chair, as relaxed as ever, there was no way I’d mistake her voice.
“Thanks for bringing her in here, Maud,” chirped High Priestess Pinkie Pie, and her voice was loud and cheery as ever. “Wait outside so that she doesn’t get lost on her way back, okie dokie?”
Maud gave a hum of agreement and closed the curtain again, leaving me alone with the High Priestess.
“So,” she began, picking at the worn fabric of the chair with the tip of her hoof. “I hope you’re feeling a lot better. I was worried you’d wake up all confused. Redheart said that sometimes, when a pony hits their head real hard, or goes through a lot of trauma, they forget things. Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
I nodded dumbly, not quite sure if I was expected to sit down or remain standing, or if I had permission to speak.
Pinkie smiled warmly at me. “Oh good. I’d hate to find out that you got your head all busted. I bet you remember all the details, huh? Did you have bad dreams? Wake up frightened?”
I nodded again, a bit more nervously. I wasn’t completely certain about where she was taking this, and I was hoping it was just a friendly checkup. In the room that smelled like ponies wetting themselves with terror. Yeah.
“I’m so sorry you woke up scared!” She found a loose thread and pulled it out, before letting it flutter to the floor. “That’s an awful place to be, it really is. I’ve been there. I helped bandage you up!”
“You did,” I said, and she nodded as though relieved. She was smiling at me, but some part of my brain refused to let me smile back. “Thank you.”
“Do you remember what I said to you after that?” She asked. Her hoof stilled against the fabric of the cushion.
I swallowed nervously. Her smile dropped, and my heart skipped a beat. She didn’t look nearly so friendly without a smile.
“Tell me what I said,” she said casually, with an edge to her voice that I hadn’t heard before.
I could hear my heart pounding in my head, throbbing in time to a growing headache. “You told me not to tell anypony about how we’re on- er, what I saw.”
She nodded, and pursed her lips together. “Good, good. You’re good at remembering.” Suddenly, she jerked forward, and I felt my legs tense up like they were about to run, though I had no clue where I’d run to. “You’re just not very good at listening, Twilight.”
“I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to speak to anypony about anything,” I said, stalling for time as I racked my brain for something that might have helped me in this situation.
Pinkie laughed, but it wasn’t her usual lighthearted laugh. It had a sort of coldness that made me shudder despite myself. “But you didn’t say just anything, did you? You tried to tell ponies about what you saw.”
I thought back to everything I said and everypony I’d talked to. Was it the Priestess that had told her? Or maybe it was that earth pony? Either of them could have said something. Or maybe it was somepony else. Any of the Acolytes could’ve heard me talking and sent a messenger to her. Maybe she was just guessing, or… or maybe she just knew me that well.
“I have an awful lot of friends, you know,” Pinkie said, her voice suddenly sounding much more cheerful. Like we were having lunch together, instead of sitting in a creepy room far behind the Church. “They talk, as friends do, and they tell me everything I need to know. Now, I know you don’t wanna keep everything super-duperificly silent, and I know it’s hard, it’s oh so very berry hard, to keep a secret. But I told you to keep it, and I trusted you.”
Her gaze solidified into something completely foreign to the pink pony I’d come to know. She looked cruel, hardened into somepony the peacekeepers would’ve locked up regularly. Somepony that’d earned the fear that lingered in these rooms. But then she blinked, and her eyes were back to her usual light and friendly stare.
“Don’t break that trust again, okie-doke? Tell you what, why don’t you take a weensy little break in your room for a while? I’ll have somepony bring you food, and you can get back to getting better! And I’m gonna get some ponies looking into what to do about the whole moon-issue. Just let your Big Boss Pinkie take care of it all, and let me know if our Goddess says anything, alrightie?”
She flashed me a winsome smile, which would’ve been a lot more reassuring if I weren’t in the Church equivalent of a dungeon, and cleared her throat. “Maud? You can take Twilight back to the main bits of the Church. She’s gonna be quiet now. After all,” she laughed. “Friends are only friends if you can trust them, and I know Twilight wants to be my friend, too!”
I jumped slightly as I felt a hoof on my shoulder, firmly tugging my robe back towards the curtain. It felt good to turn from Pinkie’s happy visage, as though I was finally getting permission to look away. My eyes strained to see as I felt her lead me back through the chambers, towards the gentle glow of the Church and the oblivious ponies within.
“Go back to your room,” said Maud curtly, once we were at the edge of the room. “I’ll tell Ditzy Do to bring you some food.”
I turned around to say something, maybe thank her for not letting me get lost in there, I wasn’t sure, but she was already gone. I was alone with my thoughts once again, but more than that, for the first time in as long as I could remember I felt alone, truly alone, in all of what was left of ponykind.
Sweet Goddess, I thought as I watched the Acolytes chatter amongst themselves. None of them were obviously watching me, but I couldn’t be sure. What in Sunlight’s name do I do now?