Rarity was surprised at how fast the sun reappeared. “Was it really morning already?”

She leisurely got on her hooves and closed the curtains, denying any sunlight of shining into the room, for the purpose of sheltering Twilight from the bright light so she doesn’t get interrupted in her sleep. She desperately needed it.

With a last check on the sleeping unicorn, Rarity opened the door and left the room, as silently as possible. Letting out a sigh, she made her way downstairs into the entrance hall. Luckily, it wasn’t that much of a mess as she feared it to be. It seemed like Spike tried his best to keep this place from falling apart. Being careful not to damage any books on her way she headed towards the kitchen, intending to cook some breakfast. Once again she was fortunate that Spike actually took care of this whole place. She was able to find some eggs, spices and bread, and it all seemed to be not older than a day. Using her magic, she quickly finished a meal with those ingredients.

Putting everything on a tray she levitated it and made her way back into Twilight’s room. To her surprise, her friend was already awake. Lying in her bed with eyes wide open, she thoughtfully looked into the void.

“Oh, you’re awake. How did you sleep, my dear?” Rarity asked, putting the tray aside and releasing it from the grip of her magic.

“Thank you, Rarity; you’re a really good friend.” The purple unicorn replied, putting a smile on her face.

Blushing lightly, Rarity once again lifted the tray with the food and laid it next to Twilight.

A faint door knock caught the attention of the two unicorns, Rarity moved downstairs in order to answer the door, Twilight following closely behind her.

The entrance got surrounded by Twilight’s magic for a second before it opened, revealing an impatient and confused looking Luna.

“Twilight Sparkle, and the bearer of the element of Generosity, we have a huge problem.” Luna explained with an unsteady voice.

Twilight invited the princess inside with a gesture before continuing the conversation.

“Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony, has somehow escaped from his stone prison and took Celestia’s petrified body with him.”

A long silence pierced in, Twilight and Rarity both being too shocked to catch their breath and move their lips for the purpose of creating audible words.

When Twilight was finally able to gather her thoughts again and gain control over her body she dared to ask “Do you have any idea where she is?”

“No… the only thing he left was this riddle.” Luna replied and handed Rarity a sheet of paper.

My intentions are to avenge her betrayal,
Don’t bother trying to stop me; it will be to no avail
But if you are so eager to change the flow of events
I’ll give you advice, bring along your precious Elements.

“I am not sure… but I think the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters is a good spot to start looking for her,” Twilight suggested.

“I will go, you go call our friends,” Twilight commanded, lifting her saddlebags with her magic and making herself ready to depart.

“However your decision may be we must make haste.” Luna interrupted, she was eager to finally depart and find her sister.

Taking a moment to gather her thoughts and thinking of something to do, Twilight spoke up “Spike!”

“Princess Luna? What is she doing here Twilight? Did something happen?” Spike immediately bombarded the purple unicorn with question upon seeing the princess.

“It’s nothing to worry about Spike.” Twilight lied before continuing “But I need you to write a letter to our friends stating that they should head to the castle of the royal pony sisters as fast as possible and let Owlowiscious deliver them.”

“Uhm… Okay Twilight.” Spike said before he pulled out a quill and a scroll, doing as he was told to.

“Okay, that’s taken care of. Let’s go!” Twilight commanded and the three ponies made their way to the Everfree Forest.

Fluttershy lied in the bed made out of clouds, watching the undefined patterns which were created due to the sunlight shining through various holes in the cloud house. She could hear Dash silently snoring next to her, the warmth of the other pegasus’ body created a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure, like she has never felt before. Her life couldn’t be any better currently; the mare she was in love with loved her back. Fluttershy turned around, observing Dash in her sleep with her green eyes. She looks so peaceful during her sleep, Fluttershy thought.

Releasing herself carefully from Dash’s grip, the canary yellow pegasus flew outside.

“Oh it’s you Owlowiscious.” Fluttershy said when she saw the owl flying in front of her. He was carrying a little scroll with him, losing the knot on his feet; she picked up the scroll and read it.

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash Twilight wants you to go to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters as fast as possible.

Fluttershy panicked a little inside, but immediately forced herself to calm down. It’s nothing too serious, just calm down Shy.

Flying back inside, she moved next to Dash, shaking her slightly in order to wake her up.

The cyan pegasus dozily opened his eyes “Huh? What is it?” she asked, while being half asleep.

“Twilight wants us to go to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters in the Everfree Forest, now.” Fluttershy explained.

Letting out a sigh, Dash reluctantly started flapping her wings. Within a couple of minutes they were both ready and made her way to the mentioned location.

“What are you going to do now?” Celestia asked her voice lacked its usual strength entirely. She didn’t know where she was; it was dark and seemed to be an old kind of building. She may be able to escape on her own, but that was unlikely and the alicorn also lacked the will to.

“Whatever comes to my mind.” Discord answered, his tone wasn’t victorious as she thought it would be… it sounded glum.

“Even though you won’t believe me, I am sorry for what I did. I didn’t really think about what I did, I just did it. I was mad and driven by emotions.”

“Oh don’t give me that, the moment you find yourself in a sticky situation you are suddenly sorry?”

“No… I have been feeling like this long before I turned into stone. I even considered releasing you just to tell you.”

“I was… I was scared of how you might react; I was scared about what you would do to Equestria.” The princess of the sun explained with an unsteady voice

“Ah I get it. The crazy and wicked Draconequus would destroy the entire world.” Discord replied, his tone indicating his rising anger.

“Give me a break from your excuses. Besides I think some guests for you have arrived. I should bid them a warm welcome, like the evil villain I am, right?” with those words the Draconequus vanished.

Twilight, Luna and Rarity finally arrived at the castle; fortunately nothing delayed them on their way.

Gulping down her doubts, Twilight entered the castle. It had been two years already since they defeated Nightmare Moon, and not one of them even thought about going back to this place ever again. But yet, here they were.

“It’s… empty!” Twilight spoke up; she was at loss for words. This was the only place to come in question, where should they start looking for Celestia now?

“It seems like you found me, Bravo,” a dark voice called sarcastically, seconds later a strange creature appeared right in front of their eyes. Its body parts seemed to be from various animals, dragon, buffalo, goat, eagle and a lot more.

“Didn’t my old friend Luna tell you? I officially announce my sincerest gratitude to you and your friends, Twilight Sparkle” Discord stated and bowed down in front of Twilight, in order to annoy her.

“You were the ones who imprisoned Celestia and thereby weakened the might of the elements, which she created.”

“Why do you want to know? What do you want from her? I think you are handling the governing of Equestria quite well by yourself.”

“Oh, what’s the reason then? You want to betray her some more and break her heart completely?” Discord asked with a provoking voice.

“I want to tell her that I’m sorry… sorry for betraying her, sorry for using the elements against her, sorry for turning her into stone, sorry for not finding another way. And most importantly how much I miss her… please… just let me see her.” Twilight begged, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She is exactly like her, Discord thought. He wanted to defeat here right here, without her the Elements of Harmony would be useless and nothing would stand between his and achieving his goal, but why didn’t he?

“Very well.” Discord agreed, he didn’t know why he was doing it, he just wanted to.

Twilight couldn’t believe her ears; he was going to take her to Celestia just like that? It was probably a trap, but she had to take the risk, she had to see her teacher.

“But only you.” he said before snapping his fingers and disappearing with both himself and Twilight.

“No WAIT!” Rarity called out but it was too late, they were both gone
“Where are they?!”

“We can’t, we have no clue where they are. The only thing we can do is wait and hope that she will be fine on her own.”

The world around Twilight turned blurry for a brief second before she found herself in a dusty, light forsaken place.

“Celestia?” Twilight said, turning around to face the alicorn. She was not able to describe her happiness in this moment; it was her teacher, right in front of her, alive. She immediately ran next to her “I am so sorry princess; I don’t know what I was doing… I was driven by emotions and my body moved on its own. I know that I can never make up for what I did, but please believe me that I am infinitely sorry,” she apologized.

Celestia felt her how tears rolled down her cheeks at the sight of her student. “It’s okay Twilight, I know how you felt,” she assured her.

“Of course she does, she is very familiar with betrayal.” Discord interrupted their reunion.

A bright light filled the room and Twilight’s eyes instinctively blinked, once she opened them again, her surroundings were different. She was no longer in the dark and dusty place, also her teacher was absent.

“You are in the Everfree Forest, but the real question you should be asking is ‘When am I?’” Discord stated with a laugh,

“I mean that you are exactly 2037 years in the past.” The chimera explained, and started to walk northwards. “I will explain everything on the way, you should follow me. Alone you will be trapped in this year forever where nopony can see or hear you and eventually starve to death.”

Twilight had an uneasy feeling about this; she depended on Discord here, their enemy. He can do what he wants with her and she would be defenseless. But if he wanted to get rid of me he had plenty of opportunities. The lavender unicorn concluded that she was safe for now; nevertheless she should not keep her guard down. Discord’s way of handling things was way too confusing and chaotic; therefore it was unpredictable what he is aiming for.

“How about you stop worrying and just follow me? There is nothing you can do to prevent my actions anyway, if I wanted to kill you,” he stated and snapped his fingers, conjuring a sharp butcher knife and throwing it to Twilight. A second before it splintered her skull in half he stopped it and it disappeared “I would have done it now. I could even trap you in an eternal nightmare,” with those words being spoken everything around the purple unicorn turned black. Bit by bit sources of lights appeared, revealing the lifeless bodies of five certain ponies.

“No…way” Twilight gasped and headed towards the first spotlight. “Rarity? Are you alright? What happened?”

“Why would you do this to us… you were our friend” the white unicorn replied before her eyes turned blank.

Focus Twilight, this is just a dream created by Discord. Nothing in here is real. Even though Twilight knew this, she still felt a stinging pain deep down in her heart.

“And watch you slowly descending into madness just for the sake of it” Discord said as Twilight returned into the realm of reality.

“You made your point clear” Twilight replied and started trotting alongside her foe.

“Could you at least tell me where we are going?” Twilight asked with the tiniest bit of annoyance in her voice.

“We are going to visit Celestia, now keep your mouth shut for a second if you would be so kind. You will understand everything in due time” Discord replied casually.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes until they arrived at the destined destination. Their timing seemed to be perfect, just a moment later a small, white filly appeared. The filly had both a horn and wings, her mane was a bright pink and her cutie mark resembled the sun. No doubt, this alicorn was Celestia.

Deception

by tyion

Chapter 2