//------------------------------//
// Hugs 
// Story: White Sun 
// by The Psychopath 
//------------------------------//

"She appears to be sleeping," one of the guards in front of Twilight's room told Shining.

The stallion nodded and gestured to Cadance to approach. She rolled her eyes in response.

"Honestly, Shining. I can handle myself, especially if it's Twilight," the alicorn grieved.

"We don't know what she's capable of anymore." Shining pointed down. "She's summoned some kind of near-unstoppable undead beast that tears through everything it encounters." He approached Cadance to 'whisper-yell' in her ear. "It's doing it now! It keeps burning through the unicorns trying to hold it down."

The alicorn pushed Shining's face away with a hoof and gestured to the guard to move out of the way. "And I have the power of the Crystal Heart plus my own power." She smiled smugly at her husband. "I can deal with both of them if it really comes to that."

Shining huffed angrily. "Fine. Let's just go in and see what's up."

Cadance entered Twilight's room, her nerves on edge, followed by her husband who felt the same. They peered around the corner to see Twilight lying down in the bed breathing slowly but surely and drooling on her pillow. They both tensed up when they saw her cheeks stained with tears. They were unsure what to think in this situation. She clearly hadn't attempted to get out of the room. There was no damage to any of the furniture, she wasn't hiding in wait to ambush somepony, and she certainly wasn't actively trying to break the seal on her horn, unless she could control her magic even when asleep. The two rulers became further perplexed.

Shining slowly approached his sister and gently started shaking her awake. "Twilight. Twilight wake up," he coo'd.

"N-no. Studied too long. Tired," the unicorn mumbled.

"Twilight, this isn't the dream world."

The mare opened her eyes with difficulty and eventually sat upright, her whole body cracking and snapping from the sudden relief it was given after so long.

"Hm?" the mare wondered while rubbing her eyes.

The relief immediately fled when Twilight realized what was happening. She looked around for an escape and found it behind a pink mass her panicked and tired mind had yet to register. The mare made a break for it, jumping off of Shining and making for the door, but she found herself stopped by a surprisingly strong foreleg.

"You're not leaving this room, Twilight," Cadance stated firmly.

"Huh? Cadance?" Twilight wondered aloud.

Realizing who it was, the unicorn let herself get pushed away and found herself getting crushed under the glares of her former babysitter and big brother. After letting the awkwardness infest the air, Shining Armor stepped forth.

"So. Twilight," he started. "What in Hades have you been doing?!" he shouted. "What happened?! Where were you? I thought you had been killed with Celestia!" He dragged his hooves across his face. "I was worried sick about you. Mom and dad even had panic attacks after what happened and only clung to the hope that you had somehow managed to survive the riots in Canterlot."

Twilight twiddled her hooves nervously. "I, uh...didn't want to see you," she muttered.

"What?! Why not?!"

The unicorn looked up at her brother trying his best to understand the weird mind Twilight had. "Because I'm trying to bring Celestia back."

Shining cracked his neck and walked towards Cadance before turning back around. "You can't just bring Celestia back as your thrall, Twilight."

Twilight was appalled by what she just heard. "I wouldn't ever do that!" she yelled angrily. "I want to bring her back because those foals stole her from us because of their unjust anger!"

"Then tell us what happened," Cadance said as she moved forward. "What happened to you and what pushed you into necromancy?"

Twilight took a deep breath and started explaining everything to her 'only' family. She explained the horror she felt when she saw Celestia be decapitated from the observatory after hearing loud noises outside. The two listened very carefully and intently, trying to piece together everything the mare said with what they knew. Twilight shared how all the non-ponies in the capital ferried her out of there, keeping her hidden from the angry ponies, letting the two piece together that the unicorn might have developed a seething hatred for her own kind. Their suspicions were further developed when Twilight explained how she tried to keep to herself in remote villages but everypony there always recognized her and called the guards.

She continued with her going to a city near the border instead of the ports to Equestria's southwest where they expected her to go to flee the continent. Twilight's tale of surviving in the wild and discovering the undercity after trying her luck with a 'shady looking diamond dog' and breaking a taboo to learn necromancy and revive Celestia brought the two great discomfort. Hearing Twilight speak of her pillaging morgues and cemeteries to further her knowledge of bodies as well as studying surgical tomes of varying ages caused the two to become further despondent. The unicorn was showing an unusual level of excitement with how she raised everypony and they helped her out with her own issues.

"She's talking like they were properly alive," Shining whispered to Cadance.

"I know. I think her brain melted from being alone and running for so long," the alicorn respondent between clenched teeth.

As Twilight continued, sharing her discoveries and the excitement each evolution in her craft brought her, her audience realized something: There was no mention of any major events in recent Equestrian history.

"Twilight," Shining interrupted her gently. "What did you do when the changelings invaded Equestria?" he asked.

Twilight tilted her head. "The what did what?"

The stallion's eye twitched and Cadance's brow furrowed. "The changelings. They attempted to take over Equestria," he continued. "I'm certain they had some agents up here." Shining's eyes shot open when the mare shrugged. "Wh-They emerged with their queen to take over Canterlot and subdue ponykind!"

"And how were they stopped?" Twilight asked.

"The Elements of Harmony and the increased contingent of soldiers the Council recruited after deposing my Aunt," Cadance stated. "From what we learned, they had the soldiers spread around Canterlot to watch for something."

"For me..." Twilight whined.

Cadance had to physically restrain her eye muscles to prevent said organs from rolling. "You don't know that." She pursed her lips when Twilight glared at her 'knowingly'. "Regardless, yes. There were a lot of guards stationed around the city in outposts and guardhouses. Queen Chrysalis' information must have been outdated somehow because she didn't expect the immense amount of guards around the city." She hummed pensively. "With Celestia still around I'm certain that she would have been expelled far faster than the weeks of warfare that followed their emergence. Ponies all around Equestria were armed to the teeth and ready to defend themselves."

"But where were you two?" Twilight asked.

The two rulers looked away. "I was in exile," Cadance lamented. She rubbed her foreleg but smiled when Shining pressed his head against hers. "But your brother refused to leave my side the whole time." 

Shining scratched his head in confusion. "That we know more than you is concerning," the stallion grunted. "Do you know how we became the Emperor and Empress of the Crystal Empire?"

Twilight shrugged. "I was told the Empire came out of nowhere with some baggage and six mares came in with a pink alicorn and former guard captain and chucked that baggage into the ocean." She paused. "I put two-and-two together for the last two descriptions." The unicorn ribbed her brother. "I always knew you two would be together," she mused.

The stallion rubbed his side, frowning. "Yes, well, that doesn't really explain how you were caught here."

"I was looking into the Terrestrial Nebula," Twilight explained. "I wanted to figure out how to restore a body if it's been frozen," she continued. "I was told the Nebula has a lot of bodies hidden inside."

Shining smacked his lips several times. "Is that where the undead dragon came from?"

"Undead dragon?" Twilight wondered. Her eyes brightened. "Oh, you found Spike?!" she shouted in excitement. She stood up on her hind legs and put her hooves onto her brother's shoulders. "Where is he?" the mare asked. "He gets antsy if I'm not around."

Twilight standing up further demonstrated the emaciation her body had somehow endured from her years of isolation and neglect. Her stomach, while not completely concave, was starting to fall inwards, and her ribs were starting to poke out from her fur.

Horrified, Shining pushed Twilight off of him aggressively. "You named it?!" Shining shouted.

"Well, yeah," Twilight said matter-of-factly. "He's my apprentice and he's pretty young." She chuckled silently. "He's a silly dragon."

"Your silly dragon killed two guards and critically injured seven others!" Shining bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Shining--" Cadance attempted to intervene.

The moment Shining pronounced those words, Twilight's comfort and amused look immediately dissolved into horror as she paled further and further. To the alicorn's eyes, she was beginning to resemble the ghosts she could summon.

"B-but...I told him not to kill anyone. He was never supposed to do that!" Twilight shouted. "H-h-h-he d-d-d-d..." The mare's body started shaking violently and she grabbed herself in the process. "K-k-killed s-s-s-somep-p-p-pony?! I-I told him n-not to. Wh-why?!"

Shining's rage immediately quelled. He was taken aback by his sister's extremely averse reaction to knowing she had killed and severely wounded so many. "Twilight, haven't you killed before?" The mare didn't register anything that Shining had said. Instead, her body decided to completely shut down, making her pass out onto the floor. "Twilight!" the stallion screamed.

"It's okay!" Cadance said. "She just passed out." The mare tapped the carpeted floor with a hoof and briefly stretched her wings. "That was an unexpected reaction."

Shining lifted his sister with his magic and placed her back in bed. "No pony can put on an act that extreme, even the most psychopathic," he continued. "I'm shocked. I thought for sure she would have regularly started killing ponies to get 'fresh test subjects' or 'supplies' he said."

Dumbfounded, the alicorn spoke. "Then she was being serious about only ever working on the already dead?" Cadance said. "At least now we know what happened with that undead dragon and why it's so hyper-aggressive."

Shining stared at his sister resting in bed and held back a small grin from finally seeing her and the relief that came with it. "Assuming what she said is true, that means that it struck the sergeant because he was in the way and not because Twilight ordered it to harm all of them." He paced about, pensive. "So it was trying to free her and escape."

"Then all of this could have been prevented if the guards let the dragon reach the wagon?" Cadance wondered.

"That's too easy a solution," Shining said. "They couldn't have known, and they're not supposed to let escape those that practice forbidden magics. They're forbidden for a reason."

"Regardless, that thing is actively trying to reach Twilight," Cadance said. "What if we show Twilight to it?"

"It doesn't have a mind!" Shining said with exacerbation. "It's just given a list of instructions to follow. If it's standard instruction is to stay next to Twilight, then it's going to try and stay next to her as much as possible. Getting in its way is only going to make things worse." He dragged his hoof through his mane. "We need to figure out how to break the spell keeping it active and what to do with Twilight." The stallion sighed. "I don't want to have to execute my sister. I just got her back."

Cadance rubbed the slumbering mare's back while listening to her husband. "I know, sweetie. I don't want to do it either, but we can't let her go free. She'll be hunted by everypony, and then she'll be forced to run away again, and this time we'll likely never be able to find her," the mare lamented.

"I'm going out to reassure the troops and our 'audience'," Shining said. "I don't want anypony to try what happened in Canterlot."

Cadance heard whimpering when the door closed and readlized the sound was coming from Twilight. Whatever was happening in her mind was causing her a lot of anguish.