Slender

by The Wizard of Words

Malice

“Send in the next party,” Luna instructed the lunar stallion by her throne’s side, earning a nod of understanding before trotting off. She let out low sigh as her mind wandered from the room she was trapped in.

Her court was meant for only the night, as it was her night to rule, but the ponies no longer came to her with concerns of the kingdom or questions of foreign affairs. Now her time was spent managing the affairs of ponies who could not sort out their own problems without an official decree. Problems within marriages, fitness of parents and their foals, occasionally the odd pony looking to spend the night out of the cold. Important to some, but undeniably mundane when stacked next to the nobles and their concerns over trade and commerce.

Still, it did some good this night. There was little need for her strain her memory for conditions of foreign lands, or recall her previous studies of tax laws and court orders. Tonight, she was doubtlessly being greeted with mundane tasks, but these tasks left her mind open to wander.

It would be many hours before she would be allowed to search again, Twilight and Rainbow doubtlessly by her side. The condition of the unicorn had worried her, but she was not the brash pegasus who would neglect her health. She would be fine by morning.

The idea of drifting into a scape of dreams briefly fluttered through her mind, dancing around the problems she had. It would be relaxing, possibly rewarding, but in the end distracting. She couldn’t abandon any of her subjects for any reason, certainly not for personal interest. No, until all was well in her kingdom again, she could not rest.

Her eyes looked up to the grand door at the far end of the hall, waiting for it to open for the next pony waiting for her court. Luna gambled with herself, betting on one hoof it would be a beggar asking for some bread and warm coat while waging on the other it would be a young couple asking for consent to marry. Either way, they would gently trot in once the lunar guard gave them permission. Then they would exchange pleasantries, exchange honors, then begin talking about the business at hand.

So Luna’s shock was understandable when the doors blew open with two ponies charging in.

Her breath caught in her throat for a moment, leaving a startled expression across her features. One of the ponies flew to her with an incredible speed, the other charging forward across the ground. Who they were was immediately recognizable.

“Rainbow Dash! Twilight Sparkle!” The lunar princess cried out in shock. She stood from her throne and trotted down the steps to meet the two. Luna was forced to stop as the two ponies barreled into her. For second time under a solar minute, she was shocked.

“What is the meaning of this?!” She cried out, caught between apprehension and genuine curiosity. She couldn’t say anything as after he eyes fell on the two. One had the oddest look of horror about her, one that Luna thought possible only from the faces of foals. The other… Rainbow Dash was crying. It was hard for her to breath at the sight.

Luna would die young at the rate her heart beats were skipping.

“W-We… It I-I-I…” Twilight Sparkle stammered uselessly, her jaw shaking horrifically. The princess was forced to swallow a ball in her throat at the sight. Something was more than just wrong to bring this unicorn to tears.

“We saw it. I saw it. Twice. It was there. Real.” Rainbow Dash spoke quickly, letting her words fly as fast as she could. Her breathing was almost as loud as her voice itself.

“What was there, Rainbow? Who?” Luna spoke as commandingly as she could, but even her own voice faltered at the sight of the two full grown mares literally cowering before her. The pony of her attention took several breaths at a quick pace, controlling herself as best she could. It still appeared to be little at all.

“The Slender Man.”

Luna’s confusion had yet to subside.

“You were… frightened by the stories?” The idea seemed absurd in her own thoughts, and the lunacy of it only increased as it rolled off her tongue. But the way by which both ponies froze at the accusation did not go unobserved.

She watched Twilight Sparkle shut her muzzle, sucking on her nothing as she attempted to right her breath. Her ribcage bent at the awkward pressure, but it succeeded in its purpose. The unicorn released a few more breaths before speaking, eyes still as wide as Luna’s moon.

“This… they were true,” Twilight began. She spoke on before the princess could say a word. “The stories, those… myths. I saw him. Dash saw him. We saw him.” Her terrified gaze only grew wet with the words she spoke.

“You… cannot… possibly mean?” Luna questioned, caught and confused.

“The Slender Man.” Dash spoke again. “In the forest. Where we were. He took Scootaloo. I couldn… couldn-n…” Every time the word formed on her lips, her stomach lurched in pain. Shaky breaths hinging on sobs left her trembling lips. It was difficult for Luna to name a more terrifying expression.

“You have both been hexed.” She spoke matter-of-factly. “There is no other reason for-” She was stopped as blue wings flared in front of her.

“NO!”

The shuffling sound of her guards met her perked ears. She gave a passive motion of her forehoof, stopping them. Whatever the pegasus was to say, she would need to hear. Shaking with an emotion, fighting between terror or anger, Rainbow Dash shouted into the face of the dark alicorn princess.

“I saw him! He’s real! That wasn’t a hex, or… or a spell! That… monster was REAL!!” Luna kept donned a mask of neutrality as the pegasus screamed. Like dealing with a foal, she would encourage the behavior.

“Calm yourself, Rainbow Dash.” Her tone darkened with every word. “You do yourself no benefit in the manner by which you address me.” The words may have well have been the wind, because they flew over Dash like the air in her wings.

“You don’t get it!” Dash challenged with an outstretched hoof. “You didn’t see him! You didn’t feel it. You don’t know…” Her voice trailed off, dying as her breath gave out.

Her strength soon followed.

The terrified pegasus crumbled on the tile floor, the water held on the edges of her lids falling down her coat, staining the floor beneath her. Luna watched on, her mask cracking with every tear that fell.

“How cold it was.” The sudden entrance of Twilight’s voice earned a double take from the alicorn.

“Pardon?”

“What Dash was going to say,” the unicorn softly replied. “I… I-I saw it when Dash came to find me. Sh-She saw it, then… it must have followed her to me.” The shiver that traveled along the young mare was unmistakable.

“I just felt so cold.” Without waiting for her ruler to reply, Twilight trotted carefully to the fallen pegasus, lying down by her side. It was all the incentive Dash need to wrap herself close to the mare, tears turning from the floor to the other pony’s coat. Twilight wrapped her hoof around Dash’s neck.

Luna watched, and listened, with nothing short of bafflement.

She turned slowly across the tiled floor, eyes half lidded as she trotted forward. She had no destination, only the urge to suddenly move. Her mind was not far behind, moving at speeds that, if given form, would have been unviewable to the naked eye.

Neither Twilight nor Dash expressed the symptoms of a hexing, nor of any spell she had ever heard of. There existed no enchanted plant, no old artifact, nor any sickness that possibly eluded to what the to ponies had described. It was only logical for her to add Pipsqueak to the group as well, taking in the events of the day prior. But what did it mean?

It took Pip, a young colt, much longer to develop the symptoms he had. Twilight and Dash manifested this in a manner of hours? No, that wasn’t possible, not at least within her vision. She saw no foreign entities working within Twilight when she had healed the unicorn’s illness, nothing aside from what she already worked to purge. And, Luna had purged it.

Then what remained? Could there be a creature such as the two described, The Slender Man?

Her mane shook with her head at the idea. No, that wasn’t possible. He was a legend from back when she was only a foal. A story, a thing to frighten children. Nothing more.

Still, the presence of something… else, was not within her power to deny.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn raised her head at the name. “Rainbow Dash,” the pegasus followed suit. “I doubt with all of my being and powers that I possess that this monster is real. However, it is more than clear that something, of some nature haunts you. As it stand, I cannot allow either of you to leave this castle and be placed in harm’s way.”

“Come,” Her voice commanded the two as she motioned towards a hallway door. “Time may very well be of the essence.”

The ponies needed no other reasons to follow Luna.

“Where are we?” Twilight asked, allowing her curiosity to seep above her fear. “I’ve never seen this section of the castle before.”

“I’d be surprised if you had.” Luna answered easily.

Her horn flared as her eyes looked upwards, sparking the flames in another candle high above the trio. Dash and Twilight had stopped gazing at the affair. She had performed it no less than a dozen times during their trek through the untouched passage way.

“This place is… safe?” Dash asked without even a mask over her trembling voice. She moved closer to Twilight, who welcomed the contact.

“Not even a pony who grew up within these walls is aware of the chamber I am leading you towards.” An amused tone danced around her words, but neither the unicorn nor the pegasus found it a fond time to laugh. What they wouldn’t give to have Pinkie Pie close by now.

Their trot continued for a time, silent aside from the small flashes of magic Luna casts along the candle surfaces. The walls remained as undecorated in one section as it did any other. Not on picture frame or elegant statue graced the hall. Dash had a hard time thinking of reasons why that would be bad.

“Here we are.” Luna announced calmly. Rainbow and Twilight both gazed at the object at the end of their path.

A door. A simple, undecorated, uncured, door.

“What is it?” Dash asked without a moment’s hesitation. It took all the same amount of time for Luna to speak.

“Simply, it is a bunker to hide within. The resonance of sound carries through this hall and to this room, alerting any within of coming parties. It is plain, barren now, but it was necessary when this castle was constructed, or so my dearest sister has told me.”

Luna’s horn glowed a dark blue for barely a moment before the doors swung open.

A cold blast of air washed over the ponies’ coats, causing them to shiver. It almost seemed ironic to Twilight.

She was shivering from cold air when just a few moments before she shivered out of cold fear. In any other time, she might have made a comment on it. But, she, more than most ponies, knew the importance of priorities.

Lives were at stake.

“Please, follow us inward, quickly.” The princess spoke as she already began her trot forwards into the room.

Neither pony followed her, for a reason both knew.

The darkness.

The room Luna had ventured so fearlessly into was darker than the most unlit area of the Everfree Forest. Neither Dash nor Twilight could see a single detail in the bitch blackness. The cold air made Twilight shiver just now, but staring into the bottomless depths of the shadows nearly made her cower.

Luna’s form was quickly lost to both Dash and Twilight. Both looked into the room, hoping to catch the retreating form of their princess, hear the echo of her jeweled hooves click across the tile. But they neither heard nor saw either one.

“Uh, where did she go?” Dash questioned. It was something Twilight couldn’t answer, at least not in detail.

“I-I don’t know.” She looked down the hall they had come from.

She felt for her hooves at what she saw, or rather, what she couldn’t see. Light.

The lights from the candle flames were slowly disappearing. Twilight found the air around her poisonous, as her body refused to take a breath of it. It didn’t take long for Dash to notice the unicorn’s distracted stare, following Twilight’s gaze, only for her own curious eyes to begin to shake.

The lights fixtures hanging off the wall were beginning to lose the spark of magic that kept their flames alive. It was supposed to stay lit for the night eternal, cast by Princess Luna, a princess that should be just a few trots ahead of them, but now feeling further away than her own stars in the sky.

Twilight needed no more motivation to light her horn to the brightest she could manage, filling the halls with a sunny lavender hue. Shadows fled from the sight, diving once more into the far corners and cracks of the castle’s walls. Sighs of relief were audible from both mares.

“T-Thanks Twi’.” Dash spoke with a small hitch in her voice. Twilight was little different.

“No problem, no problem.” The unicorn muttered the response under breath. She saw nothing down the hallway now, lit only by her horn, flames extinguished by the absence of the caster’s presence. Twilight bit her lip, hard.

“Hey princess? Princess?!” Twilight stumbled slightly under Dash’s call. When she faced the pegasus, she saw the mare shouting into the room Luna had lost herself in. The unicorn turned her horn towards the room, aiming the illuminating magic towards the thick cover of shadows. The blackness left like a swift wind under her the magical aura.

It was rather barren of any furnishings, empty and hollow save for a few pillows against the far wall, collecting dust and grim. No windows were etched into the walls nor any pictures hanging from the stone. The room seemed entirely compromised of stone, tile, dust, and shadows. But there were two details about the room both of the ponies picked up almost immediately.

One, there were no other doors in the room.

Two, Princess Luna was nowhere in sight.

They stood there, frozen, staring at a dark empty room at the end of a long hallway, lit solely by the unicorn’s magical will. No sound met their perked ears, nothing but shaking breaths and clattering hooves on tiled floor.

“W-Wha…” Dash’s attempt to speak was a complete failure, but even she did better than Twilight. The lavender mare was unable to speak at all. Her mind was buzzing with a million and one thoughts, not a single one something she enjoyed imagining.

Trapped. That’s all she felt.

“P-Princess Luna? Your majesty?” Twilight’s voice shook as she spoke into the room, fearful of raising her voice. No response came to her ears the same as no movement came to her eyes. Something draped itself over her back, and it was only the warm sensation of the object against her shivering body that kept her from screaming.

Her eyes turned to see Dash holding her close, pink eyes glowing under her own horn’s light. But those pink confident eyes looked about as joyful as a foal being told he was useless. From the still in the air, Twilight could hear the pegasus gulp.

“Do… do you think…” Her voice shook with her breath, shivering like her body. The wing across the unicorn flexed hard, pulling their coats tighter together. Twilight didn’t protest. “H-He’s in there…”

Twilight wrapped her foreleg around Dash’s neck at the thought.

“N-No. Imp-possible.” She tried to smile with the words, an exercise her studies had shown historically capable of boosting moral. It didn’t work. “I-It’s probably a teledim-m-mensional gateway. A-A-A quick escape from anything… from it.”

“Ah, yeah! Totally!” Thank Celestia’s sun for the pegasus’s confidence. It felt like the warmest object available to her for miles. “The Princess is just waiting for us in… whatever you called it.” And now Twilight was giggling again. Laughing. That was supposed to be Pinkie’s job.

“Right, of course, so let’s go.” Twilight spoke with as much confidence as her voice could gather, but she stepped forward with a leg that shook worse than a blanket in the wind. From the silence beside her, Dash wasn’t doing much better.

“Left-right, right-left, left-right, right left.” Dash was muttering to herself, attempting to teach herself to walk again. The unicorn felt the pink eyes of her friend look over at her, and she turned to meet her gaze.

Without a question, Dash let her wing drape over the unicorn, pulling her close.

Twilight did nothing to neither argue nor chase away the gesture.

The walked forward into the room together, leaning upon one another for strength. Moving through the creeping darkness, kept away only by the shallow light of Twilight, the small amount of comfort the contact against one another gave felt like the strength of the sun. With shivering breaths, they both walked forwards, deeper and deeper into the room.

The doors passed their sides as the four grey stone walls began to encompass them. Twilight felt the strands of a cobweb grab at her hoof, but she paid it no mind, focusing only on two things. The spell from her horn and the wing on her back. Dash was giving her strength, and she was giving some back. Together, this strength was all that mattered.

SLAM!Click.

All that strength left in an instant.

Nothing, no force of magic or otherwise, could have silenced the terrified screams from Twilight and Rainbow.

Both pegasus and unicorn knew the moment the sound vibrated through the darkened room what had happened. It was a cold truth, a horrid truth, but it was a truth that was no less obvious than the existence of life itself.

The door behind them had been shut.

Twilight’s horn flickered and died.

“Whoa! No way!” Twilight heard more than saw Dash fly backwards into the door, ramming the wooden object with all her strength. It didn’t budge in the slightest.

“Open up open up open up open up open up open up open up OPEN UP OPEN UP!!”

“Dash!” Twilight called with a shrill voice of her own, reaching for the pegasus that beat on the door so furiously. The mare fought like a rabid cat in her hooves. “Dash calm down! Please! Please!”

Some word she had spoken must have reached the pegasus. Her wing moved with less force, but had yet to still. She turned quickly in Twilight’s grasp, a motion that the unicorn thought was an attempt to escape. Such thinking was dashed the moment she felt the strong shivering hooves wrap around her neck, pulling her close like a comforting blanket to a young lost foal.

“What’s going on? What’s going on?” Dash’s voice had yet to lower, clambering with a terrified tone. “Where did the light go? Where did the princess go? What happened? Twi’? Twilight?”

“I’m here.” Twilight spoke with as much strength as her voice could muster. Fluttershy would have easily outdone her. “I-I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t Dash. That wasn’t Twilight.

The voice came from beyond the door.

“Princess!” Twilight cried. She, as gingerly as she could, released Dash and moved to the door, putting her hooves against the wood. “Princess! We’re trapped! I-I don’t know what happened.”

“I locked in you both.”

Whatever hope Twilight had slipped away.

“W-what!?” Dash screamed with fury. “Why?!”

“Because, he bade me to.” Twilight knew who he was. Rainbow knew exactly who he was.

“W-When!? How?! Why, Why, WHY?” Twilight shouted in place of the pegasus, who’s fearful gaze roamed the confines of the room, searching for a shape she prayed to the unraised sun she would not find.

“I have known about it for quite some time.” Dash and Twilight stopped their hammering as the voice of the princess worked through the doubtlessly enchanted wood. “It works under the guise of night, my night. Like the wolves of timber or beasts of stars, it lurks only in my realm.”

“Then… that means you can destroy it?” Dash felt Twilight give her an odd look even in the thick shadows. It was a stupid question and she knew. There wasn’t a single thing that even hinted towards that possibility. She could feel the princess shake her head beyond the object that separated then.

“No, Rainbow Dash, I cannot.” It was the answer they both expected, but that did not stop their hopes from dropping from the low podiums they set them on. “He is a thing beyond my magic, beyond what either my sister or I are now or ever will be capable of.” Silence fell. Surrounded in a blanket of shadows, bristling the fur of both ponies, Twilight memorized every word the Princess of the Night had said. She analyzed every word, clause, and sentence she spoke. And there was something that was undeniably setting her off.

“P-Princess?” Her voice shook with tears. “You… Y-You can sense… others…” Twilight’s breath shook as she drew in a heavy breath from the cold dead air. “W-Where is… it…” It couldn’t be called anything else but a thing.

“Near.” There were no such words that could carry any greater terror.

“Wait! No, no no no no!” Dash rammed against the door again, doing as much good as it had before. Twilight was rigid as the stone that surrounded them.

“I am sorry, truly sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry, she sounded distracted. Twilight noted the tone, shutting her eyes to keep away the reminder of where she was. It didn’t work. Nothing was working. “Please believe me Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, I wished for nothing of this to occur, but...” Her voice trailed off and Dash readied herself to scream again. “But I cannot allow him to succeed. Ponies cannot know the terror that is that... thing."

“What are you talking about?!” Dash let out the force of air. “You’re gonna sacrifice us to some… monster just because it’s easy?!”

“Nothing of this action is simple nor easy!” The voice of Luna roared past the door, silencing the furious Dash and earning the attention of the motionless Twilight. “I have worked for hundreds of years before my banishment and every day afterwards trying to ward off the horror that is this thing. But there exists no fruit of Equestria nor gift of the alicorns that can appease it. In the end, I can only bargain with it. I, and I alone.”

“No…” Twilight muttered the word so weakly. She felt cold hooves slowly encircle her, pulling away her hope like a ripe fruit from a dying tree.

“Only I can make sense of the method by which he speaks.” The princess continued to speak in tone Twilight though held as much life as the door that separated them. “A monster with no lips to move or eyes to direct. A thing that uses only the workings of the mind. What others perceive a promises and hope, I see for twisted reality it truly wishes to orchestrate.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Twilight’s trembled on the edge of a knife. It was a miracle she could speak at all.

“Monsters do not speak with words of any tongue, they call to one another with colors and patterns. Slender… He knows the workings of the mind of every living creature. He allows the most horrendous of images to be draped in the brightest of colors. Only I can reflect the light and see the truth of his desires. The swirling red, the endless black, and the linings of grey.”

“Wait, you…” Dash trailed off, eyes scanning the darkened floor of the room, barely visible beneath her hooves. Something in the princess’s speech seemed too familiar. She’d heard those words before, or something close to it at least. But where?

‘He talks like the princess! I can see things in my head whenever he looks at me.’ Speaking through the mind… the mind didn’t just show words, it showed images, it showed memories.

SLAM! “You tricked Scootaloo!” Dash shouted as she pounded on the door with all the strength her hooves had.

SLAM! “You forced her into the woods!”

SLAM! “You made her find that monster!”

SLAM! “You! It’s all your fault!”

Hot breath came from the pegasus in heavy pants, forehooves still pushing against the wooden door. For all of her force, of body and words, not a dent had appeared across the surface. Twilight watched with growing dread, already starting at levels beyond enjoyable.

“I did nothing to the young Scootaloo.”

“Liar!” Dash screeched like griffon. “She knew you could talk to him, she told me that right before that thing took her away!”

“And it is one more life I must carry the memory of now. But Rainbow Dash,” Dash bit her tongue to keep from yelling. “At no point did I try and force Scootaloo to do anything. She had already found the monster before I first met her. I only spoke to her when it told me of the young orange trail it wished to cover in black.” Twilight listened with rapt attention. “It had already found her because she was a lonely soul, no different than I.”

Dash growled at the door, the fire of hatred burning in her eyes, even through the darkness of the room. Her hooves scratched against the door as she dragged them down, head pushing against the frame when all four legs reached the floor. Twilight was a different story. Her body was still, aside from the shaking, no urge or desire to move within her. Only one part of her was mobile now.

The unicorn’s mind was racing.

The Princess was working against them. She was, by all intentions, sacrificing them for this monster, like some barbaric ritual of medieval scripture. Her lavender irises darted to and fro in the darkness, looking for nothing as her mind searched desperately for a way to justify all of this. The Slender Man was real. Luna was its… what?

Servant? No, Luna hated the thing. Slave? She was bound by now laws or chains to work for the monster. Follower? She only acknowledged the creature’s existence, the Princess of the Night saw nothing holy in it. There had to be something… but what?

It hit Twilight like an anvil.

“Princess!” Twilight cried the title with a shriek, her eyes wider than her jaw could open. “Don’t you see! It’s manipulated you! You’re a proxy!” Her forelegs were against the door, pushing the immovable object with the strength of desperation.

“I am nothing of the sort, Twilight Sparkle.” The voice may have been muffled past the magic, stone, and wood, but it was as clear as the tearful eyes of Dash.

“You are!” Twilight screamed in return. “You’re being tricked! Manipulated! Influenced! Please, please realize that! You don’t have to work for it, you don’t!” Her breathing was loud and deep, throat growing soar from the shouting she knew she so desperately had to do. She tried to lower her respiration, to quiet the volume of the air she took in and let out. Neither she nor Dash could risk missing Luna’s return.

Only silenced returned through the sealed doors.

No sound of clopping hooves or of even quiet mumbling permeated the objects separating the dark princess from the trapped ponies. In that brief period of time, Twilight’s last light hope began to fade away, believing the princess would not speak again, merely wait for their demise. Dash’s feathers bristled as her coat stood on end, every muscle in her body and neuron in her head telling her to scream, charge, and fly fast enough to break past the door keeping them trapped.

Then Luna spoke.

“We… no… I am sorry, my little ponies. But as the bell tolls and raven crows, your time is at an end.” The dread in both The Element of everlasting Loyalty and all-powerful Magic grew ever larger. “You will be remembered.”

The sound of clicking hooves echoed past the wooden door. Stillness in the air soon followed.

“No!”

Dash cried as she slammed door with all the force she could muster. It didn’t budge. “No!” She cried again as she slammed into it once more. Not even a dent.

“Stand back Dash!” The pegasus looked towards Twilight for only a second before moving away quickly with a beat of her wings. The room was lit with a violet hue as her magic impacted the wood. It sounded like lightening traveled through the room, ready to scorch any object it touched. If she were of calmer mind, Rainbow may have jumped. She was too scared to show any more fear. The magic washed against the objects like ocean’s water upon a rock.

Terror overtook the two when they saw the pair of doors standing perfect straight, locked, and still on their hinges. Not even ashes were left where Twilight’s spell had impacted. The doors were in perfect condition.

“This isn’t possible!” Dash screamed as she rammed the wood again. “Why can’t we get out!? What’s happening!?” Her voice grew higher and higher with every word that she spoke. In a sounder mind, Dash may have felt herself crying. In a better light, Twilight may have seen the tears.

“The princess… probably enchanted the doors.” She let the sentence hang in the dark air. “She planned for this… she really was ready for this.” Dash heard the unicorn’s rump hit the floor. “We can’t get out.”

“No way!” Dash screeched as she heard the words, pushing her hooves to her ears like spiders had just tried to crawl into her brain. “That’s not true. That’s a lie! We-We can get out of anything! I’m Rainbow Dash, the Fastest Pegasus in Equstria a-and you’re Twilight Sparkle, the freaking student of Celestia for pony’s sake!”

“Wait…” Dash spoke is tone far calmer than the manic tone she had just moments before. “That’s it!” She flew in front of Twilight, their heads lightly knocking as she misjudged the distance. The darkness really was bad.

“What is it, Rainbow?” She already sounded so defeated. No way. Dash wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Teleport!” She screamed as she grabbed the mare with her hooves. “Teleport us out of here! I know you can do! You do it like a hundred times a day!” She shook the lavender mare almost violently.

“C’mon! Try! Try!!” The tears had yet to stop.

“I can’t Rainbow.” She spoke so simply, eyes looking upwards. Dead eyes. She was giving up already. “The princess placed a spatial barrier over this room. We couldn’t leave if we tried, and… we have tried.”

“N-No.” Dash whimpered. “T-Twi stop it. You… Y-You’re wrong, alright?” She tried to smile. She really did. But she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry Rainbow.” Her defeated voice sound pitiful now, like a foal hearing her mother had passed away. “I-I’m s-so sor-r-ry.”

Dash didn’t speak anymore. She couldn’t. Her jaw was trembling to hard, her teeth clattering against each other as the horrendous truth began to consume her. The once light tears fell like rain. The once strong hooves turned weak. Her once rigid wings drooped.

And her once confident words vanished beneath the mournful sobs.

She grabbed Twilight with all the strength she had, holding the mare as close as she could. She buried her head into the unicorn’s shoulder, weeping like a broken soul into the coat of the greatest friend she had ever had. Her hooves clinging with the little strength she had left.

Rainbow Dash screamed and cried into the coat of Twilight Sparkle. There was no longer any reason to hold back.

She felt the lavender mare return her embrace, burying her head beneath the nook of her neck and wings. She felt the cold tears seep into her coat. She felt the warm breath of the unicorn’s cries. She heard nothing but their muffled voices screaming in protest to the horror that was coming.

“I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!” Every rasping cry tore through Dash’s throat with the same force she felt her heart rending. Twilight cried into her wordlessly.

They cried on one another for what felt like hours, their last hours, their last moments. They were together. For every moment that passed around the two, their legs held one another harder. For every second longer they continued to cry, their tails curled tighter, and for every near cry Twilight gave, Dash hugged her wings around them harder.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. She was supposed to be a Wonderbolt, a star, the shining symbol of loyalty to all of Equestria. Twilight would be the unicorn every foal dreamed to be, dedicated and strong in mind and soul. They weren’t supposed to be cowering in the shadows, waiting for a monster they could barely fathom to catch them, captured by a princess they trusted with their lives, knowing that they would not be the first, knowing they would not be the last.

“I-I-I’m-m-m…” Dash tried to speak through her sobs, the pacing of her breaths making it impossible.

“Sh-h-sh.” Even the shushing from Twilight was given over her shaking breath. Dash felt the unicorn’s hooves rub her back, circling the muscles beneath her wings, comforting the distraught mare as if she mattered more than herself. “I-It… I-It’s okay.” She whispered. “W-We’ll b-be okay. W-We’re b-better than Luna, th-than Scootaloo.” Rainbow didn’t say a word. “Th-They gave up. W-We won’t. We’re not alone.”

It was one of the worst lies Dash had ever heard.

She believed it with all of her heart.

They continued to hold one another, refusing to let go even as their sobs slowly drained away, throats too soar and lungs too drained to mourn for their lives any longer.

Dash let her chin rise to rest on the unicorn’s shoulder. She let took only the smallest comfort in the mare so close to her, refusing as much as herself to let go. She let her wet and tired eyes look into the darkness of the room with the blind and useless hope of seeing a way out.

Instead, she saw what she dreaded most.

Limbs thinner than a sapling’s branch were visible, just visible, through the darkness of the light’s absence. She drew in a shaky breath as she followed the appendages upwards. The black cloth flowed upwards, meeting at a point near the ceiling. From there, it grew across the stone above their head, a torso is what she wanted to call it.

But then she saw black lines moving in the shadows. Dark vines and obscure streaks. Tentacles, she knew what they were. But still she traveled higher. Her head lifted itself from Twilight’s shoulder as she followed the malformed darkness. Her eyes landed on the prize she wished she never had.

A head with out a face, hanging over them like the moon against a starless night.

She wished beyond hope to see a twisted smile, to see a crooked grin, to even see Princess Luna’s dark muzzle grow from the solid white of the monster’s formless head. But no prayer or wish was answered.

Her grip on Twilight grew stronger.

She returned her head to the mare’s shoulder, hiding her eyes into the coat of the unicorn. Dash took in shaking breaths, her body shivering even within the warm embrace of Twilight Sparkle. The mare returned it with equal strength.

“I love you, Twilight.” Dash whispered the name for what she knew would be the last time.

“I love you too, Rainbow.”