Book 3: Equestria Abides
Chapter 6
“Where is everypony?” Twilight wondered out loud as she looked around the entrance hall. Most of the supplies were still scattered around the room in various states of organization, but there were no ponies to be seen. She turned to Apollo, but he looked just as clueless as she was.
“Oh, there you are!” Splints's voice called out from the stairwell doors in the back of the room. “Here I spend an hour searching for you in that ratty old basement and you turn up at the front door... I hope you're proud of yourself.”
Apollo ignored the mare's barbs and instead asked, “Where'd the others go?”
“They went up to bed, dummy. It's getting late, and they found some very nice bedrooms on the fourth floor... bedrooms that I'm not in, because I'm busy looking in the basement for our fearless leader and his floozy. How'd you two get out in the courtyard anyway? Some kind of secret passage?”
“Floozy!?!” Twilight recoiled, “Hey, I'll have you know–”
Apollo cut her off by just placing a hoof on her chest, whispering, “Don't worry, she always talks like that, even if it is a little worse than normal this time.” To Splints he just said, “We flew,” reveling in the confounded look he got in return.
“Well, you already missed dinner,” Splints replied, “And now that I found you I'm going to bed, too... You should do the same,” She gave them an odd look, “Or go back to flying in and out of basements, I don't care.” With that she turned around and headed briskly up the spiraling stairway.
* * *
Twilight opened the door to her room, careful to keep it quiet and not wake Sunny Daze, who was sleeping in the other bed, closest to the narrow window. Luckily, she and Apollo had found Quartermaster on the third floor, and he was much more helpful than Splints had been, giving them some leftovers from dinner – still just trail rations – and pointed them to the rooms that had been picked out for them.
The room was mainly bare stone, very little in the way of decoration or furniture. What should she expect from a long-abandoned castle, though? She decided that she should just be grateful that beds remained, even if they didn't have any sheets or blankets. She crept around, careful to not wake Sunny, exploring the room, which turned out to actually be a suite of rooms. These rooms must have been for important guests back when the castle was still used. She found four rooms connected, though with most of the furniture gone, only the water closet was obvious in its purpose, with its pipes coming down from above. They led all the way back to the cistern Twilight had discovered earlier, no doubt.
She returned to the bedroom, settling down on her own bed and looking over at Sunny. The little filly was sleeping soundly, but still had the scowl on her face she had been wearing ever since she got lost... It really wasn't like her... With a sudden spark of suspicion, Twilight decided to do an unveiling spell. She targeted it on Sunny, and prepared the little bit of power the spell required... only to be deterred by the suddenly intensified pounding in her head. No, it wouldn't be a good idea to try any magic right now. Still... She knew she would have to do something... something wasn't right with Sunny.
* * *
Sunny Daze woke up slowly, finding herself still in the pitch black room. “Trigger?” She called out quietly, “Are you there?”
She felt movement against her back as he replied, “Yep, but they've got us stuck now.”
“Stuck?” She asked, confused, but quickly found out what he meant when she tried to stand. All four of her legs were stuck to the ground with some kind of glue or something, and she could feel that she and Trigger were stuck together back to back as well.
With nothing better to do, she stopped struggling and returned to her sitting position. “Well, any other ideas?”
“Um... a miracle?” Trigger suggested.
“Right.” Sunny sighed. She hung her head low; she missed the others already, she was hungry and thirsty, and she missed the sunlight badly. “We just need a miracle. That's all.” She fought back tears as her hope dwindled. She wouldn't be seen like that in front of Trigger. She could hold out.
* * *