"Twilight? Is that really you?" Applejack asked.
The purple unicorn kept her back to her five closest friends and continued to stare at the stone wall barely more than a foot away from her face. Above her the words 'Life is Pain' were scrawled on the stonework. Unseen by the other ponies, Twilight opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it again without making a sound.
"Twilight? Consarn it girl, look at me!" Applejack snapped at the silent unicorn.
"Maybe she can't hear us." Pinkie Pie suggested. "Hey Twilight, are you deaf now?"
"How is she supposed to answer that if she's deaf?" Asked Rainbow Dash as she hovered over the heads of the other ponies.
"Oooh, good point." said Pinkie Pie. "I should ask her in braille."
"I..." Twilight croaked out, her voice cracking from disuse.
"Yes darling, what is it?" Rarity coaxed.
"I think..." Twilight placed a hoof on one of the stones in the wall in front of her. "I think I will call you Stanley. Stanley the Stone."
The other five ponies greeted this announcement with silence. Rainbow Dash was the first to break it.
"Well I guess this settles it. Twilight's gone nuts. All that magic snapped her brain and now she's completely cuckoo." The brash pegasus stated.
"That doesn't explain anything!" Pinkie Pie protested. "Ponies call me crazy all the time, but I never killed anypony!"
Twilight flinched at the statement but continued to address the wall. "Do you know what a phylactery is Stanley?"
"Pinkie, look at her. She's talking to a wall!" Rainbow Dash replied.
"So? Even if she is crazy, Twilight would never hurt anypony. She certainly wouldn't kill her brother, or Princess Cadence, or... or..." Pinkie Pie trailed off, losing her train of thought amongst a tangle of unpleasant memories.
"A phylactery, also known as a soul jar, is an enchanted object that contains the soul of a living or otherwise extant creature." Twilight continued, with a slight quaver in her voice.
"She... she just wouldn't." Pinkie finished lamely.
"She did." Applejack stated bluntly.
"Phylacteries have many uses. Although most of them involve very dark magics." Twilight continued.
"And you would know all about dark magic wouldn't you?" Applejack growled. Twilight's right ear twitched, but she did not react in any other way.
"Did you know that the Elements of Harmony are phylacteries, Stanley?" Twilight asked.
"Say what?" Applejack said in surprise.
"Unbelievable isn't it? Our souls were removed and we didn't even realize it. Although if you know dark magic, the signs were obvious." Twilight continued.
"That... that's crazy. You're crazy Twilight." Rainbow Dash asserted. "There's... there's no way something took my soul. She's crazy, right?" Rainbow Dash looked to her other friends for reassurance.
"Of course, nopony knew dark magic, so nopony knew what had happened. Well, ekhurk- " Twilight cut herself off mid-word. She raised a hoof to her throat and made a small choking noise.
"Twilight!" Fluttershy cried out, and ran to the distressed unicorn. The others called out after her, but before they could intervene, she was at the side of her gasping friend.
Twilight clenched her eyes shut, took a couple of deep breaths and continued her lecture. "As I said before, Stanley, phylacteries have many uses. One of them is that if you get hold of somepony else's phylactery, or if you create a phylactery and seal another ponies soul inside it, you can control them. All of the normal defenses against mind control and possession... they just don't work when you have their soul in your hooves."
Twilight shivered. Fluttershy saw tears leaking from Twilight's closed eyes. "You can make them do horrible, terrible things." She said in a voice that was quiet and desperate.
"Oh Twilight..." Fluttershy attempted to put a comforting wing around the weeping unicorn, but Twilight shrugged it off.
"You... you can also forbid them from doing things. For example, you can tell them not to talk to their friends. Or you could make sure that they don't tell ponies, or other people, about phylacteries." Twilight gave a shaky, crooked smile. "But you aren't a person are you Stanley? So you don't count."
There was a moment of silence before Twilight continued. "You could also order them to kill any other pony they saw, or put them in a room and order them to stay there. And if you are really paranoid, you might even order them not to kill themselves."
"Uh... that's..." Applejack began.
"That's just horrible!" Rarity burst out. "Oh you poor thing! Who could have done this to you?"
"They... I... I can't..." Twilight stuttered. "You could also forbid a controlled pony from saying anything about you."
The ponies were all silent a moment before Rainbow Dash spoke up. "So just to be clear, what Twilight is saying is that somepony stole the Element of Magic and is using it to control her?"
"Sure seems that way, sugarcube." Applejack responded.
"Makes sense to me!" Pinkie chirped brightly.
"Ah just don't know if Ah believe it." Applejack added.
"What?" Exclaimed Rainbow Dash in surprise.
"Well you heard her. She said that the Elements of Harmony took our souls. Does that seem likely to you?" Applejack responded.
"Well, what's your alternative?" Rainbow Dash countered. "You think she just woke up one morning and said to herself 'Today seems like a nice day to kill the princesses'?"
"Yeah, Twilight wouldn't do that." Pinkie Pie interjected. "Not without scheduling it three months in advance. And I checked her calendar."
"Ah guess you're right." Applejack said slowly.
"Ok, so... what do we do to fix it?" Asked the sky blue pegasus.
Nopony answered. Silently, the five friends looked to the miserable purple unicorn.
"I'm sorry Stanley." Twilight finally spoke. "I don't know how to fix this."