//------------------------------// // Chapter 16: Confessions In the Dark // Story: Life in Another Pony's Hooves // by HonorBound //------------------------------// Once I regained my senses, I opened my eyes. Glancing about, I noticed Twilight was on the other side of a spacious cavern with her horn glowing to provide herself light. It looked to me like she was scouting out the area. Moving my sore limbs under myself with a groan, I proceeded to stand up, albeit a little wobbly. The grunt that left my lips echoed across the cavern, alerting Twilight that I had regained consciousness. “Good! You’re awake. Are you alright to walk?” she asked in a whisper. “Yeah, I think I’m fine.” I groaned out an answer. “What happened?” “Shhshhshh.” She shushed me in a panic. “We fell into an old Diamond Dog tunnel. It looks like it was built too close to the surface, so when we stepped onto it, the ceiling collapsed under our weight. Sadly, the hole we fell through was filled up, so I can’t tell how far we actually fell from the surface.” “So?” I responded with a whisper. “Can’t we just teleport up? It’s not like we need to see where we’re going to do that.” “I’ve been trying, but something is preventing me from scrying for a location.” “Hence, the whispering.” I concluded with a theory in mind. “Alright, so, it was a trap?” “I don’t know. Maybe? Everything seems to point in that direction, but… where are the Diamond Dogs?” “Don’t know. Can’t we just dig our way out before they come looking for us?” “Without knowing how much earth is above us, it could cause the cavern to collapse. I’m not sure how stable the structure is, so we should continue to whisper to prevent any cave-ins from happening.” Seeing her logic, I realized the flaw in my theory. However, something definitely didn’t feel right about this place. “Well, we shouldn’t stay here.” I stated. “If we don’t know how far down we are, then we can’t count on the others to dig us out either.” “That’s what I was thinking. I was able to find two tunnels that branch off in this direction.” she explained as she escorted me to where she indicated. Not far from where I had woken up, but far enough to be obscured in shadow, were the two pathways. The one on the left continued on straight ahead, however the right path curved to the right as it progressed. “Any idea which path we should take?” I inquired. “Let me see.” she said absentmindedly as she removed her bags from her back. Placing them at her side, she proceeded to dig through them for something. In the process, Twilight inadvertently began to shake her rump in my direction. The movements of her tail swooshing back and forth drew my attention, and before I knew what I was doing, I was ogling her. Sunshine, sunshine. Ladybugs awake… Wait... Oh, Hell! I’m staring at her ass! To try to preserve some form of modesty, I began to examine the walls fervently, going out of my way to not look anywhere near Twilight. I thought that I would pop a blood vessel with how hot my face felt. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What was I thinking! She could have seen me doing that. Damn it Twilight! Why do you have to be so accidentally sexy? Thank God her tail blocked the important bits from view… In my intent analyzing of the walls I noticed that something was missing from them. Hey… If these are Dimend Dog tunnels, then… where are the gems? My train of thought was interrupted with Twilight’s own discovery. “That’s interesting.” she stated. “What is it?” I asked. The blush on my cheeks fading with my growing curiosity as I made my way next to the mare. In front of her, all neatly organized in their place, was a map, a ruler, a triangle, and both types of a compass. Twilight pointed her hoof at the one compass that would normally be pointing north. “It’s just that… It shouldn’t be doing that.” True to her observation, the needle of the direction finding tool was spinning around uncontrolled. “The walls must have loadstones in them.” she concluded out loud. “You mean like, magnets?” “The unprocessed form of a magnet, yes.” she concurred. “Without a heading, we might as well just pick a tunnel at random for all the good it’ll do us.” Twilight grumbled. Trying to stay positive in the situation we found ourselves in, I decided to try to make lite of it. “Well… in that case, we should take this one then.” I stated with a motion of my hoof to the path leading to the right. “And what makes that way better than the other?” “Because, it’s the right path. Duh.” I answered her with a stupid grin on my face. Twilight just stared at me for a few seconds in the wake of the bad joke that I had just made. “That…” she finally said. “That has to be the worst pun that I’ve ever heard.” “Not as bad as some of the pony and horse puns that are in this universe. I mean… ‘Windigo’. It’s a horse made of wind. Come on.” I reasoned playfully with her. Twilight gave me a curious look before softly shaking her head, as if to shake away a nagging suspicion. “Well…” she started. “It’s as good of a path as any, I suppose.” Packing her bags once more, she placed them on her back, and we proceeded down the curving pathway to the right. As we walked, the events that occurred above ground made their way to my mind. The realization that Twilight had claimed that I was her coltfriend caused me to slow my pace. Noticing my sluggish behavior, the mare turned to me and asked, “What’s wrong?” “Why did you do it?” I inquired. She tilted her head slightly. “Do what?” “You told your brother that I was your coltfriend. You didn’t have to do that. So… Why did you?” Twilight blushed, and her eyes drifted down to the left to avoid eye contact with me. “Oh. That. I.. I was just trying to keep my brother from hurting you. He can be a little over protective of me sometimes.” She explained. Meeting my eyes again she continued. “I.. I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean… It’s not like somepony like you would want a know-it-all librarian like me for a marefriend.” “Hey, hey. None of that now. You are perfect just the way you are, and…” Well… out with it. Now’s as good a time as any. “…and d..don’t assume th..that I wouldn’t want you for my ma..marefriend.” I finished with a stutter in my words. Her reaction was immediate. Twilight’s body stiffened up completely, and her eyes were glued to mine in shock. I did much the same thing, mirroring her completely. The cave was utterly silent, except for our breathing, which was beginning to pick up as both of us began our own individual panic attacks. I did it! I told her… and now she’s so repulsed with me that she’s gone rigid. What was I thinking? Of course she’s not interested in me. Why would she be? We only actually met a couple of days ago. Now I’ve gone and ruined my chances, and she’ll end up kicking me out of the library because she doesn’t want to see me again. Or worse, she’ll sick Shining Armor on me. Though at this point I’d probably welcome the pounding he’s going to give me, and… Why is she looking at me like that? While my breathing had continued to escalate, Twilight’s had actually calmed down to normal levels. She was now looking at me in confusion, thought the blush on her cheeks was still there. “Is that how I look like to other’s when I panic?” she asked herself. My breathing began to slow down because of my inability to understand her question and its relevance to my confession with her. “Huh?” I answered once I was able to. “What? Oh! Nothing. I… um… Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?” “Um… Uh… That depends. What do you think that I’m asking you?” The blushing in her cheeks had increased at that moment, and I know that my own had to be as bright as Big Mac’s hide when he gets sunburn. “I..It sounds to me, l..like you would like to be my c..coltfriend.” she stammered out. “Well…” I started but my throat had all of a sudden become obstructed by something, and I found speaking very difficult. Clearing it as best I could, I continued. “I... I suppose that I do. W..Would you want to… um… go on a d..date with me?” Twilight’s eyes left mine for a moment, finding her hooves far more interesting to her as she scuffed them on the stone floor of the cave. “I.. I’ve never had a pony ask me to be their marefriend before.” she explained. “Nor have I ever had an interest to have a coltfriend…” Damn it! She’s going to turn me down. I should have stuck with my instincts and went with the good friend route until she got to know me enough to be comfortable to consider me as a… “… until now that is.” she finished. Wait… What? The purple mare looked up to me with her beautiful eyes. A few tears were threatening to leave their confines, but she was smiling up at me. All I could do was gawk at her in disbelief. “You were so nice to me at your welcome party that I developed what is referred to as ‘butterflies’ in my stomach. I only realized what those symptoms meant while we were dancing. Because I’ve never been too sociable, I didn’t know the first thing about flirting, let alone dating, which is why I needed to go study it so suddenly. When you and Spike came into my room, I was half way into a relationship help guide.” “So, does that mean you…” I started to ask, but was unable to finish because I needed all of my concentration to stifle my growing enthusiasm. “I suppose it does.” she answered. The fuse was lit. I stood there trembling as my excitement grew. She said yes. Seconds ticked by and my trembling became a shudder, and that shudder exploded into a joyous exclamation of success. SHE SAID YES! “YES!!!!” I shouted, and jumped into the air with a hoof pump. My excited cheer echoing through the caverns that we were traveling. Making an attempt to give my new marefriend a hug, I was rewarded with a hoof to my mouth. “Shhsshhhssh. Do you want to bring the whole cavern down on us?” Realizing my error, I froze in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. Sadly, the damage had already been done. The echo of my voice reverberated down the cave network and back to us. Shortly after it faded to silence, the walls around us began to rumble and shake. Crap! This isn’t good. “Run!” the purple mare ordered as she split off from me and into a full gallop. Keeping pace, I followed not too far behind her as rocks began to fall around us. “You just had to yell, didn’t you?” Twilight shouted as she dodged a rather large boulder that fell into her path. “How was I to know that it would cause a cave-in?” I countered. “Because I told you it would!” “I’m sorry!” I shouted over the rumbling. “I was just so happy that you wanted to date me that I couldn’t keep quite anymore.” “That’s nice of you to say, but your enthusiasm may have just killed us!” “We are not dying here!” I protested. “Not when I’m so close to finally…” A rock that successfully eluded my perception struck me just above my eye and to the left of my horn, cutting me off mid sentence. “Ah!” I hissed in pain. Stumbling a moment from the disorientation, but I quickly regained my composure and caught up with Twilight before she had a chance to turn around for me. “Are you all right?” she asked in concern, keeping her eyes ahead to watch where she was going. “I’ll be fine.” I answered her. My head throbbed around the wound, and blood began to drip into my eye, obscuring my vision slightly, but I was well enough to run for my life, so I figured that I was fine. “There!” Twilight shouted. “I see a light up ahead!” “Great! Hopefully it’s the way out.” We galloped as quickly as we could while the tunnel behind us collapsed. With a final heave, we jumped out of the passage just before the final stone fell into place at our hooves. Dust bellowed out of the opening cascading it’s debris over our prone bodies. Sliding to a stop on the cave floor, both of us looked over our shoulders at the blocked entrance. “That was too close.” I stated, noting that one of the boulders had fallen mere inches from my outstretched back hoof. Twilight punched me in the shoulder, not hard enough to hurt me, but strong enough to indicate that she wasn’t pleased with me. “It’s your fault!” she cried. “I warned you that something like this could happen.” Turning my head to face her, I began to answer, “I said I was sor…” “You’re hurt!” she exclaimed in worry when she saw the blood. “It’s just a scratch. It’ll stop bleeding in a minute.” This is nothing. It’s just bleeding because I’ve been running. It’ll stop soon. I’m sure it looks worse than it really is anyway. She forcefully grabbed my head with her hooves to get a better look at the wound. Moving my fur around to see the skin underneath, she examined what she could before moving on to my eyes. “What are you looking for?” I asked. “I’m making sure you don’t have a concussion.” Her horn lit up all of a sudden, and then dimmed gradually. “Good. Your pupils are dilating properly. You should be fine.” “That’s what I said!” Once she released me from her hold, I began to look around to see where we were. To my sorrow, we were still underground. We found ourselves in another large cavern, though this one was lit with a number of torches mounted on stalagmites at regular intervals. Each one illuminating a part of a pathway that wound through them. “We should still try to stop the bleeding.” Twilight stated as she began to dig through her bag to find something to patch me up. “You don’t want that to get infected.” Someone had to of lit these. “Um… Twi.” “Oh don’t give me that, ‘A stallion’s too tough’ line. I’ve heard that enough from my brother, and every time, he would whimper like a foul when Mom disinfected his cuts and scrapes.” “No, it’s not that.” I explained. “I don’t think we’re alone.” I motioned to the torches as evidence of my theory. “Huh?” The purple mare glanced up from what she was looking for to notice our surroundings as well. “Oh!” Neither of us moved a muscle in the dim light the torches gave off. The only sounds that we could hear were the crackling of the fire and the sound of running water in the distance. “Do you think it’s safe?” I asked. “We’re underground in the Everfree Forest.” Twilight deadpanned. “No, I don’t think it’s safe.” “We can’t just sit here though.” I reasoned. Forgetting about my injury for a moment, Twilight got up from her place next to me, and examined one of the torches. “These have been enchanted.” she explained. “It’s impossible to know how long they’ve been burning like this. Whoever lit them could be long gone by now.” “Or just around the corner.” I added. Ignoring my pessimistic outlook, Twilight bent down to analyze some of the hieroglyphs embedded in the trail. The act did not go unnoticed by me. No! Bad brain. We are not going to ogle Twilight, even if she’s our marefriend now. She’s… Wait… The adrenalin that had been coursing through my veins during the cave-in was nothing compared to the amount of it I was getting when I thought about realizing a dream I never expected to accomplish. My breathing got caught in my throat. I did it! We’re actually a couple! We can actually… Crap! I have no idea how ponies go about dating other ponies. Is it the same as humans, or does it have pony rituals to it? Are there any stigmas that I should be aware of? I just don’t know! I could really use whatever book Twilight was reading at the library. Well, I guess I could just ask her. She’d understand. After all, she knows that I’m not really a pony. Wiping some of the blood from my brow, I got up from my resting place and approached the mare that I adored. “Hey, Twi.. um… I…” “This is amazing!” Twilight announced as she examined the path in the light of the torch. “The carvings embedded in these tiles allude to Pre-Discordian architecture. It was believed that nothing remained after Discord rose to power.” The excited mare rounded on me suddenly with a glint in her eye. “Do you know what this means?” I shook my head in the negative. “It means that this could be the find of the century! No. The millennium!” “That’s great, Twi! Hopefully that means there’s a way out up ahead.” I stated, figuring now wasn’t the best time or place to talk about dating rituals. “There is. See these glyphs?” she directed my attention to some writing that was scratched into a stalagmite. “These are an incredibly old form of language that I’ve only seen written by the princess before.” She turned to analyze the script in the stone. “ If… If I’m right, then these are road signs.” “Road signs? To where?” I asked in curiosity. “I don’t know. The wording is damaged here.” she pointed out a small bit of stone that had deep scratches on it, masking the markings written. The scratches looked suspiciously like claw marks to me, and I didn’t like what that might mean. Time to go. I’ve seen this one before. Whatever caused those claw marks is still down here, and in all likelihood, it eats meat. “Uh.. Twi? I don’t think we should stay here anymore.” I advised. Turning from the hieroglyphs to face me once more, the purple mare inspected me in curiosity. “Why?” she asked with an uplifted eyebrow. Shortly after the second eyebrow climbed to the top of her brow, and her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. No. I felt a warm breath on my back. No. No. No. “Indeed. Why leave so soon when you only just arrived for dinner?” a deep, rumbling voice asked from behind me. Crap! Ever so slowly, I turned my head to get a glance at the creature that had gotten so close without my knowledge. What I saw did not put my nerves to ease. My vision was obscured by rows of teeth connected to a mouth, which was just as big as I was, twisted in a grin that didn’t bode well for my well being. Beyond those horribly sharp teeth were two yellow, reptilian, eyes that bore into my vary soul. I whimpered ever so pathetically, because what was behind me was a full grown and menacing dragon. I hate it when I’m right.