Monsters! First born knew there were monsters out here!
With a whinny she charged forward, ice spitting at her horseshoes, and shoved herself in front of Second Born. Her legs were shaking, so she forced them to stop. She was the eldest here, and elders needed to be brave. Even if the seapony in front of her did have razor snaggle-teeth and probably was slimy and smelled horrible.
“Hi!” the creature squeaked again, its fangs flashing like pearls in the light of the lantern.
Speaking of– the lantern! First gave another whinny and brandished the lantern in front of her and her sister, the moss inside slapping against the glass and the fireflies buzzing to life with flashes of gold. But that didn’t help; it just glittered off of the seapony’s scales and seared First’s eyes.
Then there was silence. Just the gurgle of the rolling black water, the tink of ice crashing against ice. First, growling and rubbing her eyes, pushed Second further behind her, but…
“H-Hello…” her idiot sister whispered. The sound was almost drowned in the sea, but the monster clearly heard it. It thrashed in the water, spraying up a mist of droplets. It slithered its way up to the ice shelf, plopped its shiny forelegs onto the surface. First was sure this was it, the monster was going to shove its way up onto the abyss of darkness and gobble them up one by one!
Instead its slitted eyes were blown out as they met the lantern’s glow, and it made another noise. A laugh? But monsters didn’t laugh.
“Do you wanna play?” it said. Its voice was oily. Wobbly. Kinda funny, actually.
The thing reared its wavy tail out of the ocean something like a snake breaching the waves, and balanced upon a pair of fire-red tailfins was… a sphere. It was opalescent, shone like a jewel, but it bounced when the monster slapped it onto the frozen earth.
First blinked dumbly as the sphere rolled closer, a tiny rumbling noise as it bumped over chips of ice. Second pressed against her withers, her breath hot against First’s cheek, her eyes and mouth wide.
When it met her hoof, First Born squeaked. She wiggled her fireleg on instinct at the foreign touch grazing her thick shoes, and the sphere went flying back with a funny reverberating noise that itched her ears. It slapped the dark sheet of ocean, then bubbles foamed around it and sucked it into the void.
“Yay!” the monster said. It sank its tail back after the sphere, and then the thing came splashing up from the depths and onto the ice shelf once again. It bounced into the air a few times, then squeaked to a stop at the edge of the lantern’s light, at the precipice of absolute dark.
Second Born jumped after it.
“Wait!” First shrieked. What was Second thinking?! Mare and the other Ponies would be furious if they learned that she endangered herself, endangered a valued part of the whole. A-And they would get mad at First, even though it wasn’t her fault!
Second Born laughed and kicked at the sphere. It landed in the water, and the seapony went to fetch it.
But… wait… this didn’t seem too bad, did it?
The sphere plopped up onto the icy shore once more, and Second scooped the weird thing into her forelegs, splattering her thick furs and probably chilling herself to the bone. That– That was potentially damaging essential survival items that all the Ponies of the herd shared!
But Second was smiling. Second Born, who always was a huge crybaby and was too scared to sleep alone and who always took things so personally.
And… and the ocean trip had been so boring so far, and it was just more chores, and First Born was stiff and achey and Mare had left them all alone and. And that looked… fun.
The next time the sphere rocketed to the surface, it landed at First Born’s hooves.
Two sets of eyes seared into her.
“Are you gonna throw the ball back?” the mons– seapony asked.
So, with a smile, First Born gingerly placed the lantern to the ice. Then she bucked the “ball” with all her might.
And that was how she would make her very first friend.
It was Rainbow Dash who eventually got them moving again.
Everycreature stood huddled at the edge of the bog, their eyes glazed and staring vacantly over the mountains looming ahead. Fluttershy had finally stopped softly weeping, and instead shivered like a withering leaf as she leaned bodily over Pinkie Pie, who occasionally shot her what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, one that crawled over her face like a dead slug. Rarity, her mascara stained deep into trenches cut down her cheeks, tittered quietly to herself and pawed limply at the mud caked into her fetlocks. Applejack said nothing to any of them, refused to look at any of them, just spat into the shrubby grass and flicked her tail. Spike sat on Twilight’s withers in his familiar spot, and dug his dirty claws into her crest as if she was the only thing keeping him from drowning. Maybe she was.
And ever since she heard the news about the Frozen South, Rainbow had been even more on edge than usual. Flying tight circles, snapping at the feathers of her wings with an audible crack of wind, trotting in place until she dug clods from the earth. Now she soared over the treetops, a rainbow blur hovering above the sickly-looking branches, and her silhouette cut a bleeding shadow across the puny sun and moon. She whipped around, her hair flailing in the high altitudes, and even from here Twilight could tell she was squinting and grinding her teeth.
Then, with a snap of air, she shot down and thudded to the crag below with a sharp clack. Her ears were tight to the sides of her head, still.
“Alright,” she rasped, “There’s a town up ahead, just like Twi said. We should make it there before too long if everypony would get a move on.”
Rarity tutted at her, tapping at her side with a hoof. “Come now, Rainbow, be gentle. We must be given time to grieve.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head, rustling at Spike’s head-spines with her mane. As much as she wanted to side with Rarity, as much as she wanted to pull Fluttershy into a tight hug, time just wasn’t a luxury they had anymore. “No, Rainbow Dash is right. We have a lot of ground to cover, girls. Come on. Maybe the townsfolk will have a place to rest.”
With a flap of her petite wings, she motioned forward with a hoof and started a brisk trot across the rocks. Behind her, five sets of hoofsteps clicking sharp against the stone sounded out – and so did a snort from Applejack, a harsh whisper spat below her breath. Still, she followed, and Twilight took that as a victory.
Eventually the crag underhoof shifted, transformed from a random kaleidoscope of rock and sickly grass to a more even, structured path, with the weeds culled carefully away. The cobbles were slightly softer to the touch of Twilight’s frog, and the rock was smooth, dimpled and scarred by endless impacts. When she leaned down, careful not to jostle a napping Spike (he was just a baby dragon, and needed it after today), she saw the telltale indentations in the shape of horseshoes, accompanied by thinner hoof-falls not unlike those of the deerfolk, as well as thin trenches dug over the years by passing carts. Another road.
She and the girls cantered down that road for Celestia-knows how long. The sun and moon, hanging in broken shards in the heavens, did nothing to help them gauge time. All Twilight knew is that she and the girls were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she really, really hoped that this next village would be as welcoming as the deerfolk were after the rescuing of their crops.
So it was with trepidation and a little bit of hope that Twilight crested another rocky hill, and she whinnied with relief when she saw the rickety ends of a fence of some sort. Beyond the thin wooden barrier, colored the sickly white of the bog trees, there was a tiny smattering of houses. Cut from stone, roofed with thatching caked with baked mud, a few hovels stood lonely atop the hillside. From a distance Twilight gazed over the dusty grounds, and could see a hoof-full of ponies and some other ungulate – perhaps an antelope? It was hard to tell from so far away – wandering through.
And– Twilight snorted. Her tail twitched. This was it? With a grunt she fished Hazel’s map from her saddlebags with a zap of levitation, and smashed it to her muzzle. The map clearly stated there was another village here, and to its credit it was drawn much smaller than Hartton but– really? And Twilight had always thought Ponyville was small.
Still, it was a town. That had to be good, right? Maybe they could find a safe place to clean up and rest before their next leg of the journey to the Frozen South. Not to mention that her friends, all mumbling and whinnying quietly behind her, were in need of some time to themselves, in a place that wasn’t wet and muddy and cold. So Twilight fought off everything – the weary ache settling in her bones, the pain in her chest, the thought of the world covered in dark magic – and slapped a smile on her face. She turned to the girls and–
Rainbow Dash flashed past her. The air whipped her mane back with a snap, slapping Spike so hard he flailed awake. One of her wings, splayed open as she zoomed by, clipped her hard in the side, catching her own little wing and wrenching it back in a way it definitely wasn’t supposed to bend.
“Come on,” Rainbow growled. “We’ve already wasted so much time.”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity snapped, taking a step forward and flicking at the pegasus’ tail with a twinge of telekinesis. Beside her, even Fluttershy hissed out a breathy tut at her.
But Twilight just sighed and placed a hoof to Rarity’s withers.
“No, Rarity, it’s…” she was going to say ‘okay’ but, well… it wasn’t okay! They were all struggling, and it wasn’t fair of Rainbow to act like that. And her tiny wing really did sting now, darn it! But Twilight gritted her teeth, breathed deep through the heat in her chest. It just wasn’t worth it, to fight amongst themselves. They didn’t have the time for it, and Twilight honestly didn't have the heart for it right now. “Fine. We’ll all feel better after we get some time to rest.”
Hopefully.
Rarity whinnied, and brushed back her mane over her mascara-stained face. “If you insist, Twilight. Though I still don’t think she should be behaving so brutishly.”
With that mostly settled, Twilight took a moment to brush her wing (the one that wasn’t currently throbbing) over Spike, the iridescent feathers fluffing gently over his head-spines until his breathing evened and he lulled again into his dragon-nap. Then they set forward, their hooves carrying them past the fence and through a small wooden archway that swayed with a creak in the cool breeze.
As soon as Twilight’s horseshoes struck the road within the tiny town, echoing in the quiet with a muted ‘clop’, all the townsfolk milling about turned to look in their direction. Close up the place was even less impressive, just a cluttered mass of hovels with a few ponies and – actually, they appeared to be a type of goat – trotting around with shaggy coats and mud-encrusted hooves. The nearest goat, tall and gangly and much skinnier than those Twilight had met in the past, audibly bleated in shock as the seven of them shuffled in; its eyes went wide and black as pitch, the horizontal irises blowing out in absolute terror. Twilight thought for a second that they might faint, but instead the creature just stood cowering, shivering harder than even Fluttershy was. Speaking of Fluttershy, the goat seemed to be staring at her, before flicking their eyes to Rainbow Dash, then at Twilight herself, then back. Looking around, many of the other ponies and goats were in the same position, crouched into shivering balls on the ground or brandishing their giant horns like daggers glittering in the twilight.
Well, this was a bad start. These creatures were even more wary of them than the deerfolk were. With a whinny, Twilight galloped forward with a strained smile and gently flared her horn to life – maybe she could cast her translation spell before everycreature completely freaked out?
Around them, the entirety of the little village erupted into gasps and bleats, but Twilight didn't waste any time. She raised her glimmering horn, adjusted the spell to encompass everycreature in a certain radius, put on her most winning smile (usually reserved for the Grand Galloping Gala), and–
–Twilight’s world erupted into pain. A sharp crack rang out, then a lance of fire tore down her horn and rattled in her skull. Her whole body blew back as the spell she was preparing fizzled and sparked in a quick burst of wild magic that singed at her mane, and her teeth clacked together so hard it ached her jaw.
More noise fired across the village, a jumbled mess of sound, but it just rang in Twilight’s ears as she gasped into her chest, flicked at her ears to clear the static biting her forehead. What in the hay was that?! It felt like a failed spell, almost, or backlash from attempting to use too much magic from one’s reserve– but that didn’t make any sense! She could feel the magic thrumming below her skin, practically bubbling up out of her veins, she was filled with so much of it, and she had cast that spell without incident just recently. What in the hoof could have–
Twilight blinked. Vaguely, she was aware of Spike babbling in her ear and her friends pressing up against her on every side.
There was a bloody pebble at her hoof.
Warily, she wiped at her forehead. A thin trickle of red smeared into her fetlocks. She looked up from the dirt, and the first thing she saw was another stone hurtling towards her face. She grabbed it in her telekinesis on pure instinct, then just held it there, trembling in a cloud of magenta. She looked past it. An earth pony was scraping his hoof at the cobbles, digging around a smaller rock to try to dislodge it.
They… they threw a rock at her!
“What in tarnation?!”
“What in the hay was that?!”
“Simply barbaric!”
“She didn’t even do anything to you, you meanies!”
Her friends all crowded around her, pressing close and shoving her back. Fluttershy cooed at her, gently dabbing at her bloody horn with the wispy touch of her wing. But even as they advanced, so did the ponies and goats. Through the mass of bodies overtaking her vision, Twilight saw more of the townsfolk clopping at the ground, chipping harshly at the stone below with their hard hooves. The goats’ horns bobbed dangerously. Rainbow Dash zipped forward, gnashing her teeth, her hooves reeling in the air as if she was ready to start a boxing match. So of course in response Applejack snatched her tail in her teeth and tried to wrench her back into line, but Rainbow wouldn’t have it; she whipped one of her wings back and smacked Applejack in the snout until her jaw went slack and the hairs fell out between her teeth. Then she reared back at the closest goat like was going to buck him in the snout and–
“Girls!”
The shield spell, again, went up without her really even thinking about it. Pure instinct. Nothing but the bubble itself and the stinging of her new horn wound to tell her she’d cast it at all. Rainbow Dash’s horseshoes smacked into the curve of the orb of magic with a meaty thud, and the impact of it rattled back all the way into Twilight’s teeth.
They all turned to her. Again. All of them looking at her, waiting for her to tell them what to do. And the goats glared at her like they wanted to wear her horn strung up on a necklace.
This– she snorted – this was absolutely ridiculous! This is not how this was supposed to go! Any of it! It– it was all–
“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie started, taking a trembling step towards her, and Twilight realized that her face was hot and wet.
More than that, though, her horn sizzled. Magenta blasts of pure uncontrolled chaotic magic spewed from the intertwined bone. Beams like lightning crackled from the tip, spraying off in a fountain of color and noise. The light of it burned her eyes. With a gasp, her chest clenching, Twilight yanked back on the leylines as hard as she could, clamping down with a breath – but they fought back, squirming between her grasp like sand through a sieve. It felt like eels beneath her flesh, and Twilight… Twilight didn’t know what to do. She– she hadn’t lost control like this since Magic Kindergarten.
Pinkie Pie tried to touch her, but Twilight just smacked her hoof away. It was too dangerous right now for any of them to get close.
“Hush. All of you just– just stop it! We’re going. Now!”
With a strangled grunt, Twilight wrangled at the magic pouring from her, desperate to shove it into some sort of positive source; all that raw, untamed energy needed somewhere to go. So in an instant she built the matrices, stacked them properly, and fed the pure chaos into what she hoped was the right direction.
She and her friends disappeared with a ‘pop’.
Nopony said a word. Their horseshoes scraped against the crag with an awful scuffing noise as they dragged their hooves up another incline. Fluttershy coughed the words “hop, skip, and a jump” under her breath as she climbed, her wings tucked shivering to her sides, but other than that all was tense and quiet.
Twilight brought up a front hoof and swept at the sweat beading in her singed forelocks, then winced against the sweet sting as she brushed her aching horn. With a heave, an audible grunt and a crack in her knee-joints, she hauled herself up the rockface and stumbled, exhausted, onto the plateau where they intended to make their camp for the night. For a given value of ‘night’, of course.
And, of course, something new and horrible had to be waiting for them there, too, or her name wouldn’t be Twilight Sparkle.
Her friends spilled out onto the outcropping, and were met with thundering skies. Clouds, heavy and gray as stone, plump with wild thunderstorms, churned overhead here. What light trickled through that great puffy blanket was sickly and yellowed, tingling with magic and ozone that lay sticky on your coat. The pale candleglow, flickering in the breeze like dying fireflies, cast gaunt, deep shadows over the rock, and just barely illuminated where they stood inside of a giant stone valley. Like a gravel bowl, with lethal shards jutting out from the ground at awkward angles, mangled teeth in a monster’s jaw. Already humidity and dew and the trickle of sprinkles began to coagulate into pools in the cracks all around them, the water flat and sharp.
Twilight was surprised that Fluttershy didn’t faint on the spot. Then again, she, as well as the rest of her friends, were probably more focused on the strangers among them.
Yellow-white lightning tore a cloud in two, and in the flash that encapsulated the entire swollen bowl, Twilight saw that some of the rock-teeth were more than just featureless mounds of stone. They were ponies! At that revelation Twilight’s weary mind chugged up to a mile a minute, flashing through different implications and possibilities: crystal ponies! No, these were clearly inanimate. Ponies caught in a horrible curse that turned their flesh to stone, just like when she stared into the eyes of a Cockatrice! No, these ponies didn’t look shocked or confused enough for that. And finally she was struck with a memory: her, sipping tea that was so warm and sweet with just the right bitter tang, sniffing in its herbescent aroma with a sigh as Princess Celestia chattered on about the history of one of the great heroes depicted in the Canterlot Statue Garden.
And that’s what these were, or at least appeared to be. Depictions of heroes, pegasi with wings splayed so that every vein of every masterfully-crafted stone feather caught the glare of electricity.
The thing is, right beside them…
“Diamond Dogs?” Rarity said, looking up at a stone carving of one (bulky and coated with fur, every strand of the hair cut into relief, its neck adorned with a collar that was inlet with real sapphires and rubies which glittered off fractal pings of scattered light). “Well, I can’t say it’s the muse that I would have chosen myself, but the work is absolutely gorgeous. Just look at the cut on those gems!”
“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie giggled, bouncing up to a shadowed Dog in the dark. “Look at this one. So life-like!”
She brought up a hoof, booped it on the nose with a snort and a giggle– then the statue let out a snort and a giggle. As the stone bowl around them stewed into crawling darkness, the shadowy Diamond Dog reared back from Pinkie Pie’s touch. It wiggled its black nose, gleaming like obsidian, and swatted at Pinkie with a massive club paw.
Twilight gasped. Immediately, her fur buzzing on end, she leapt forward with her horn crackling. But the meaty paw, capped with razor claws, just ruffled through Pinkie’s mane as if it were nothing but cotton candy. Beside her, Fluttershy trotted forward and placed a hoof to her withers. Her feathers brushed over Twilight’s horn just like earlier when she was first injured, snuffing it softly.
“No!” she squeaked. She jabbed her hoof into the dark, towards Pinkie and the dog. “Wait. Look.”
Gasping for air, Twilight jerked her head to where Fluttershy was pointing: the Diamond Dog’s rear end. Its stubby tail wagged back and forth, whipping so hard that it slung misty rainwater all over the place. And now that Twilight took a second to notice, its orange tongue was lolling out while it panted with absolute glee, like Winona when Applejack scratched that spot on her belly just right.
“I no statue, pony!” the Dog barked, its voice harsh and trill. “I am friend!”
Twilight heaved out a sigh. Tension oozed from her muscles, and another wild spell unwound from her horn. As the magic, rolling under her skin like a flopping fish, roiled around inside her, she had to think back on every lesson Zecora had ever taught her about control. And, she thought, shame burning hot in her gut, this was humiliating! Not to mention unbecoming of a– of an alicorn. A princess. After everything she learned about friendship, all the lessons, and now she was set to zap anycreature that looked at her ponyfriends wrong!
But at her side, Rarity shuddered at the glistening of the Diamond Dog’s teeth too, and Twilight supposed she couldn’t blame her. Not after what happened last time.
“Well I am Pinkie Pie, and I am friend too!” Pinkie Pie chirped. Her hair poofed up just a bit more, curling like crazy at the edges, and when she smiled it was so bright.
Twilight couldn’t help but grin as Pinkie Pie bounced all around the Diamond Dog blabbering all kinds of questions too fast for it to comprehend, let alone answer. After everything that happened today it was nice to see a friendly face, somecreature that wasn’t automatically terrified or throwing rocks at them all. Even if it was a Diamond Dog.
“Yes! Good!” the Diamond Dog yapped. “I am Fifi!”
And… wait just one hoof-clopping second. Twilight hadn’t cast a spell when she just flared her horn, she was sure of it; it was all untamed magic, given no shape or definition, just raw emotion and energy. Meaning, she definitely hadn’t cast a translation spell onto anycreature - let alone anydog. Yet here… Fifi… was, speaking a respectable, if choppy, version of their Equestrian language. Twilight’s brains churned in her skull. With them being sent back to an approximation of Equestria’s past, that raised a lot of questions linguistically speaking. After all, she had just barely related the deerfolk’s speech to that of an ancient text she’d once studied, and that was just an educated guess. For the Diamond Dogs of all things to speak a more modern vernacular…
“Heeyyy. Equus to egghead,” Rainbow Dash drawled.
In response, Twilight made what was surely a very intelligent-sounding noise, and blinked back to reality to see a blur of cyan hooves being waggled in her face. Also, Spike had jumped off her back at some point and was now brandishing his claws between Fifi and Rarity, though neither seemed to rather notice. Also also, her friends had cluttered together in a clump, a group huddle lacking Pinkie, and were whispering amongst themselves without her. She should probably remedy that.
She scooted in beside Rainbow with a sheepish squee, just in time to dodge yet another loogie and wad of straw shot from Applejack’s snout.
“Am I the only one here with any lick of sense? Them Diamond Dogs tried to truss you up and make you a gem-mule!”
Rarity nodded along, humming vacantly, as her horn dazzled to a diamond sheen. Droplets of rainwater were caught suspended in the sapphire light as if trapped on a spider’s web, then splashed delicately to the smears of mascara still clinging to Rarity’s muzzle. Once the stain had dulled to a hazy gray that you had to squint to really see, Rarity nodded in assent, then shuffled to turn to Applejack, her lips set into a prim line.
“Correct,” Rarity said, quite harshly. “There once was a group of Diamond Dogs who behaved absolutely abhorrently to my friends and I. But of course, anypony with a ‘lick of sense’ would see that Fifi is not one of those same Diamond Dogs, and that we’re in dire need of a place to sleep. Also, it’s raining.”
Applejack laughed. It was not a happy or a friendly laugh. “Not yet it ain’t, you uppity–”
She was quickly silenced by the torrential downpour that broke open the clouds in a rip of static, unloaded over her head like an overturned bucket of water, filled the brim of her stetson to a boil, then flipped that same hat sodden over her eyes.
Well, maybe she was soaked and everything was horrible, Twilight conceded, but at least the rain had stopped those two from arguing before they could start. And it eliminated her need to overthink her overtired brain to dust. Rarity was right. It was raining, and they needed sleep. So, diplomacy with the strangely friendly Dog it was, then.
“Oh! Ooooh! You guys, I made a new friend! A Diamond Dog friend, and I’ve never had a dog as a friend before, unless you count Winona, which, you know, I do, but it’s still a little different you know? Anyway, she says we can stay the night with her Pack if we want!”
Or… maybe one of her amazing friends actually had that covered this time. Twilight couldn’t help but smile, even through the sheets of freezing water slapping down on her back.
“That would be…” she started, her lungs tired and aching from the climb and from everything else, “... that would be just great, Fifi.”
So she willingly led herself and her friends into the den of a pack of carnivores.
It wasn’t the worst mistake she would ever make.
The first Diamond Dog tunnels they’d been in hadn’t exactly been inspiring. Damp, dank, musty mazes dug by paw, lit only by the light of Twilight’s copied gem-finding spell. This time Twilight honestly expected more of the same, just somewhere dry and cool to sleep at best. This, these tunnels… well, it didn’t take her rudimentary knowledge of architecture or Rarity’s babbling about gemstone varieties to be impressed.
The walls around them, instead of imposing and suffocating, were cavernous and spacious, smoothed and painted in welcoming neutral tones. Reinforced with stone and wood, stained with detailed murals and portraits of Diamond Dogs of the past. Paw prints big and small littered the spaces between. Fire crackles warmly from gem-encrusted sconces spaced evenly down the long corridors, flaring out twinkling rays to the cool, cobbled floors below.
Then the halls opened up further, casting visitors into a huge valley not unlike the surface. And just like that stone bowl above, this grand arched hall was packed with statues – only these pieces made those pumice pegasi look puny! Huge intricate undertakings of stonework; the girls gawked at them, Spike licking his lips at the shimmering facets, as they clopped noisily after Fifi’s paws. Twilight especially was intrigued, because the longer her gaze lingered, the more this appeared to be pony history.
First: a cloud studded with diamonds, strung together with ribbons of stone and glass work. Atop it, spires of obsidian surrounded by statuettes of pegasi. Following the cloud were gorgeous busts of some sort of pegasus figureheads, their mings wriggling with captured magical light trapped within crystalline veins. Then, the same cloud , torn in two in an abstract cluster of gleaming gemstones. The same pegasi, their wings replaced with dull slabs of unrefined rock. Life-size statues of pegasi prostrating to a giant Dog, who was clad in probably the most complex ornamental armor Twilight had ever seen (and that was saying something; Prince Blueblood’s father was infamous for his overly-studded saddle that practically blinded everypony who looked his way in court).
And hanging from the domed ceiling, an absolutely humongous chandelier. Swaying pegasi draped from it. But… something was off. These pony statues, like the others, were simply beautiful. Graceful. But not proud, like most depictions of ancient pegasi. Something about the set of their simplified faces, the angle of their wings and legs…
“They’re falling,” Fluttershy breathed in her ear. “A-All of them.”
And Fluttershy was right. The statues’ legs were splayed out, kicking in vain. The artist had captured the wind grazing upwards through every feather as their wings flopped uselessly. The ponies weren’t screaming, their faces were completely blank, but somehow that was almost worse.
Beside her, Rainbow Dash shuddered once from tail to tip. Twilight’s own wings tingled, and when she nervously flapped them, those tiny falling pegasi jingled in their glass typhoon.
“Friends?” Fifif asked. Ahead of them she had stopped at a huge stone archway. Emblazoned into the stone were the words “The King of Diamonds”.
Twilight gulped. You know what, suddenly this didn’t seem like such a great idea. True, fifi hadn’t done anything to harm them and there was nothing wrong with the place. This was just a record of their history, nothing nefarious. But it just brought up too many questions that Twilight couldn’t focus on right now. Plus she just… had a bad feeling. Call it her Twilight Sense.
Still, Pinkie Pie giggled and bounced after fifi, and Twilight resigned herself to the fact that she was probably just being paranoid after a bad few days. She shifted Spike on her withers from where he had groggily slumped over, then followed the girls and Fifi through the darkened cavern. For one moment they were plunged into the pitch black, and the darkness reeked of Dog.Light, crystalline and twinkling, cut a glassy line through that blackness. Twilight was met with yet another huge chamber, and the King.
The girls all gasped. Spike jolted awake with a snort. Twilight’s tail snapped down between her legs as an instinctual whinny shot out of her throat. He, the Diamond Dog King, he was…
“Magnificent…” Rarity whispered.
A giant pit, a sinkhole of epic proportions, tore through the center of the rocky chamber. Within it, resting comfortably on his haunches, the King of Diamonds sat. No, “sat” was too banal of a verb. He radiated.
He was huge. Bigger than the Hydra of the Bogg, than the snoring dragon they’d driven off from Ponyville. His skin gleamed, cold and icy and glimmering. He was no longer just flesh and muscle, if he had ever been, now instead with his whole body crystallized like the ponies of the Crystal Empire. And inside that glassy carapace, wild magic crackled. Lightning and balefire, hot and volatile, pulsed across the hollow of his ribcage.The energy of it prickled Twilight’s pinfeathers. And as for the rest of his blood and other mortal remains – the frog. He was like the glass frog that Fluttershy had been so enamored with. Twilight watched his heart lurch.
The King looked down. Turned his giant carnivore eyes on them. His claws were thick as trees.
Twilight panicked. Her stomach rolled, her whole pelt went hot.She darted her eyes around to all of her friends. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed as she was. Sweet Celestia, what should she do? A shield? Would that read as a show of disrespect and set him off? She could teleport them all out of there again except – argh! – she hadn’t been paying enough attention to the layout of the tunnels. She could bury them all down here, suffocate them all in a rock. The locals around here hadn’t exactly been friendly either! What if–
Rarity dipped into a bow with a smooth smile. Fluttershy collapsed into one beside her with a squeak. One by one the other girls did the same, breathless, Her mind racing, her knees knocking, Twilight took position.
“Y-Your Majesty–” Twilight started.
Pinkie Pie hopped up and squeezed Fifi into a side-hug. “Hiya! I am Pinkie and I am friend!”
Twilight just couldn’t help it – she barked out a raspy laugh. Right now she wasn’t sure if she should thank or curse the universe for the enigma that was Pinkie Pie.
The King laughed too. It was an earthquake of sound.
He grinned, his mouth full of stalactites. “Apologize for surprise. But you are guests. No fear, here.”
He sounded so genuine and his posture was so gentle that Twilight forced herself to relax, her muscles to unwind from knots. Again, here she was viewing all potential future friends as enemies instead. Just because somepony– er, somecreature – looked scary didn’t mean they were bad. Zecora had taught her that. So she fluffed her feathers, cleared her throat and put on her best diplomatic smile once again.
Rarity beat her to the punch. She clopped forward, her eyes clear and glittering, her breath slight. “My oh my! Forgive me if this is overstepping, your Majesty, but you are simply stunning! I can tell you’ve put much effort into maintaining your natural sparkle.”
The King hummed, a shuddering thing, and his cavernous smile grew. His maw creaked open to respond, but before he could Applejack stomped ahead. Her smile was thin.
“Yeah, your Highness, you sure are, uh, shiny and all. And we really do appreciate the hospitality, believe me. But my friends and I are awful tired, and our friend Fifi here said something about a dry place to sleep. That’s all we’re after, then we’ll be out of your fur lickety split.”
Rarity gasped.
Rainbow Dash shook the rainwater out of her mane then grumbled, “Yeah, can we, like, skip to the important bit?”
Rarity gasped even louder. Both she and Twilight winced at their friends’ usual display of uncouthness.
The ground thundered. The entire cavern shuddered with rhythmic thuds – a steady boom, boom, boom of an invisible drum, sprinkling down jagged shards from the vaulted ceiling. Impacts shook up Twilight’s hooves, nearly toppling her over. She spread out wobbling legs to fight the imbalance, and had to stop Pinkie from splatting onto her face with a quick flick of levitation. Gritting her teeth, she shot her eyes up to the King’s fangs. Was it all over? Had that made him angry?
But then she realized that Fluttershy, flapping above her, was… squee-ing? And smiling.
“Awww,” she cooed. “Look at him.”
Twilight followed her gaze and realized that, just like Fifi had been, the King was… wagging his tail. The humongous trunk of crystal smacked against the sides of the pit, rattling vibrations up the crater.
“Yes, yes, friends,” he laughed. “Pack offers boon to all valued guests. Please, step forward.”
Eventually her teeth stopped chattering and her skull stopped rattling long enough for Twilight to share a look with her friends. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie shot her crooked toothy grins, while Rarity only had eyes for the gemstone King. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were glowering like usual, but still they looked to her. And Spike, digging his claws into her spine, just shrugged.
As one, Twilight and her friends stepped before the King of Diamonds.
The rune flared to life.
Too late, Twilight noticed it. Dug into the ground by Diamond Dog nails, studded at the corners of the matrices with magic-imbued crystals, lost under a thick layer of dust and loose pebbles. A rune, circular, intricate, right under their hooves! Twilight’s frog made contact with the trench in the earth at the same time it erupted into ghostly purple fire. The ethereal flames billowed up around them, prickled like static across their flesh and then–
Twilight’s soul was ripped out. At least, that’s what it felt like.
At first all she could feel was the pain. The emotional anguish. Then the flashes came. Like the screens in the Cosmic Library, cold and hard and ripping across her mindsight without mercy. Her, seeing her friends with the wrong Cutie Marks, the wrong destinies, and struggling with all the hope she had to make it right. Casting the spell with Celestia as the alicorn fought against the Rot, waking up in this new world, meeting the deerfolk, learning– learning that everything had been torn away from her without warning. Everything. Everypony.
But for some reason, what stuck with her the most was the sting of that thrown rock as it met her horn.
All of it, all the memories, churned in her head like some boiling enchanted brew. When it finally eased, when the fire was doused, she was left only with hollowness. She panted against the rock, her hot breath puffing back up against her face. Sweat crawled through her mane, clammy and stringy. She bared her teeth with a nicker and shakily looked up in desperate search of the girls.
Fluttershy whimpered in a crumpled ball ahead of her, scraps of purple plumes clinging like ash to her fur. Pinkie Pie crawled on hoof and knee to jer, scooping her up in a soft cuddle, glaring daggers at Fifi; the Dog was still standing, but barely, a grimace on her muzzle. Applejack was standing too, shuddering, hoisting Rarity to her hooves. Rainbow Dash was already snapping her wings, reared up like a bucking bronco. And poor Spike, he had crashed off her back and was huddled beside her now, his little wings crinkled up beneath his scales. With a grunt, Twilight gently unfolded one of her own wings, blanketed it over him.
“What was that?” one of her friends panted. She couldn’t tell which one; her ears were still ringing.
She licked her lips and tasted rust. She must have bit them when she tensed. “A-A mind-reading spell. A really – ugh – potent one.”
Twilight brushed her feathers over Spike’s spines one more time, then turned her glare up to the Diamond King. Her horn crackled. Her stomach was swooping.
“I apologize for that,” a voice said, another voice that sounded like her father’s, but the inflection was so different it took her a moment to realize it was still the King, even with the stalactites rattling. “But it is a rite I require of all who enter my domain.”
Applejack spat. It twinkled with purple dust. “And I reckon lyin’ is some sort of ‘rite’, then?”
The King cocked his head like a puppy. “I assume you refer to my changed diction. As for that, I’m sure my valued subject will explain more as she leads you to the residential tunnels. I was not lying about offering my Pack’s aid.”
Before she could stop her, Applejack let out a harsh whinny, “Yeah, har-de-har, some ‘hospitality’, pokin’ around in our brains without warnin’.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie squeaked. She kept pouting towards Fifi, who wrung her paws with her tail drooped between her legs. “That wasn’t very nice. You didn’t even ask. It’s like making us spill secrets!”
The King ground his teeth. It sounded like an avalanche. “I realize the upsetting nature of the spell I cast. I now also recognize that you have been through much in your time here. To be treated so poorly by those you showed only friendship! And so I offer you peace, and a place to rest, should it still be welcome.”
“And if it isn’t still welcome?” Rarity asked tartly, eyebrow raised.
“The Pack does not keep prisoners. You are free to leave whenever you wish. A guide will be provided to show you to the exterior of our mountain.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. As Twilight turned to her she could practically feel the heat radiate off her. She was snarling, her teeth bared, her tail flicking, her hooves scraping at the packed dirt. Every feather was splayed, twitching.
“Good!” she growled. She snapped her head over, mane whipping, to glare at Twilight. “Come on, let’s get out of here already!”
The girls all snorted their assent, their pelts twitching. But before anypony could move or say anything further, Fifi padded forward. Her ears were drawn back, eyes wide. Even the jangle of her bejeweled collar managed to sound remorseful.
“Wait friends, please,” she whined. Her yellow eyes were only for Pinkie. ‘I’m sorry, and so is my King! But you must understand, if we didn’t conceal our knowledge, or place those runes–
“Then you might actually have to show some trust?” Applejack barked. She tossed her mane, then gave Fifi a dismissive wave. “Forget her, girls. Now come ‘round. I want to talk to y’all, and I’d rather not have too many flies on the barn wall, if you catch my meanin’.”
Everypony gathered in a clump around Applejack. Except…
“Twilight” Spike asked, patting her gently on the snout.
In return, Twilight sighed. The magic ravaged in her chest and stomach and horn, still. A part of her, some distant part, wanted to be furious. Mostly though she just felt numb. And tired. Especially because she had a feeling she already knew what Applejack was going to say.
She shook her pelt, and hobbled her creaky knees to Applejack. “Coming, girls.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t waste any time. “What the hay is there to talk about? They read our minds. That’s just creepy!”
“Yes, a violation of privacy, to be sure,” Rarity hummed.
Applejack heaved a sigh. “I know that. I ain’t too happy about it either. But consarnit, look at us. Look at Twilight.”
Twilight looked at her hooves. She said nothing. The shame burned.
“We’re hurtin’ for a place to hunker down, and that’s fact. Anyhow, the harm’s already been done.”
“If I may interject,” the King began. Fluttershy squealed and ducked deep into Pinkie’s side. “I now know of your hardships… and your noble quest. My apology is true, as is my wish to bring you reprieve. Please, my guests, allow me to show you my sincerity.”
For a long time, nopony said anything. They didn’t even look to Twilight for guidance, which…
Her feathers twitched. She curled and uncurled the aching muscles in her little wings. After a moment, Pinkie Pie nudged at her with a flank.
“I believe them. I think Fifi really is super duper sorry.”
More silence. Twilight’s gut screamed at her, but what choice did they have? It was this or go back out into the cold, rainy unknown. Her horn stung from its fresh wound.
Twilight sighed again. Turned to the King of Diamonds.
“It’s settled, then. Your Highness, we accept your offer.”
Fifi yipped out a squeaky bark, her tail whipping like crazy. The King smiled his cavernous grin.
“Then welcome, my little ponies, to the Pack.”