DEMONS
The Shadowbolts
“Shutterbug, the Equis Chronicle! Is there any truth in the rumour that you had an affair with Prince Blueblood?!”
“Freelance, Ponies magazine! Does Spitfire have a grudge against Princess Celestia?! Inquiring minds want to know!”
When the crowd of ponies tumbled out to the red carpet walk, their noisiness gave way to shocked silence. Their cameras and tape-recorders fell, and they stopped to stare around. Dumbstruck. Flags of panic snipped up their bellies the next moment when they processed all that they were seeing.
It was night outside in the middle of the day.
Spitfire had to admit, seeing the paparazzi squirm put a smile on her face. Behind their clamours, their blinding camera lights that had equipped her wardrobe with many sunglasses, they were awkward and shifty. Juicy role-reversal. Spitfire herself was unphased almost entirely, but including even her wonder team, she was the only one.
“Cripes,” said Fleetfoot behind her. She stared up at the stars with her mouth flapping open. “Boss, there something I missed here?”
Rookie mistake, the Wonderbolt captain thought with a scowl. The paparazzi ponies gaped fearfully at Fleetfoot, who could only provide a slanted grin and a nervous chuckle in the way of reassurance.
Not knowing what else to do, one of the reporters sprang forward and stammered, “Uh- Star Struck, the Manehatten Times! What are your comments on this new revelation?”
Soarin’ opened his big, fat mouth to say something, but Spitfire plugged him up with a hoof. “No comment,” she commanded.
The other reporters followed Star Struck’s lead and began babbling with revitalized frenzy, sounding much like a flock of geese. They shoved recorders into faces, they blockaded paths, and they filled Spitfire’s eyelids with sunspots, even with her sunglasses.
She knew she’d be circled by them for hours. She made a smile for the cameras. Flashes. If they got Soarin’ going, she’d be trapped even longer. Which, of course, took about two seconds.
Her eyes returned to the sky. The sinister sky.
---
Spitfire loved Do Not Disturb signs. Enchanted by unicorn inn keeps or maids, these kept the bad out and kept the good in. Nopony could enter their room without their consent, media included.
With wayfaring ponies unable to see in the dark, there would be no vacancy in any inn for miles. For anypony else. Government-funded air aces, however, had badges and sparklers they could flash for easy access.
Soarin’ and Spitfire took a suite together. They’d stayed in a lot of places like this- motels, inns, lodgings- even before they were Wonderbolts, so it wasn’t a new arrangement or anything scandalous. Both being of highest rank, they could call dibs on bunks, anyway. And, to be honest, by then, they had trouble sleeping apart.
Soarin' kept going back to the window, pacing the floor like a rodent in a cage. He’d pull back the veil, tut-tut-tut his tongue and shake his fluffy-haired head. After a while, it grated on Spitfire’s temper. On maybe the fiftieth time, she slammed down her hoof. “Soarin’.”
“Spitfire,” he said, gazing out the window.
“I’m asking you to stop doing that right now.”
He groaned, "Spits, I don't like it. Look at it out there, that wouldn't even be normal in winter. It‘s never that dark."
"I don't know what’s going on, either," she murmured as she brushed down her coat in the wooden vanity. “But, you know, the princess never really makes a mistake, now does she?” She smiled devilishly.
The lieutenant’s brows pinched together. “But, what if it’s trouble? Seriously. It’s night out there.” She didn’t seem as impressed as him. “Oh, come on. Everypony knows something’s up, why aren’t you as stir-crazy as the rest of us?”
Because she’d been brushing her teeth while Soarin’ was speaking, Spitfire gargled and spat before answering. “Well, I’m smart, for one. The Royal Guard is on patrol with the princess, and you know them.”
"Goodie-goodies,” Soarin’ groused, crossing his hooves.
Spitfire smiled. “Even if something evil got through the Guard, I don’t think there’s any threat out there more powerful than the sun. You’ve probably never seen it, but she has some pretty powerful magic stowed away. She can take care of herself.”
Soarin’ kicked off his flight suit and grunted. He knew she wasn’t in the mood to humour his opinions. She was right. He could get as red-cheeked as he pleased, but it wouldn’t change that, nothing would. This happened aggravatingly often.
Spitfire laughed, “Get away from the window.”
He followed orders. Spitfire watched through the mirror as the lieutenant sat on the bed, hooves rubbing his knees. Then he started playing with his Wonderbolt dog tag, a tendency he picked up on their first mission overseas, and for the first time, she was worried.
She remembered that first week. The mission had been to ease tensions in relations between a tribe of savages and the Minotaur polis of the south east, which is to say, nearly impossible. It hadn’t exactly gone well; the Wonderbolts were nearly prisoners of war.
She and Soarin’ had only made the team a few weeks before. It was when the gravity of their job set in – the first mission usually was.
Spitfire had pulled a lot of strings to get in Soarin’s company, high-up stings, but that was the week she knew it was all worth it.
She sighed, and her shoulders fell in the mirror.
The Captain put her goggles on the vanity before she flew to her bed, left of his, and threw a pillow at the back of his head. She waited for a reaction as the tiny white feathers cluttered his bed. Soarin’ made no move.
Spitfire crossed her hooves. “We’re staying here, Mopey. There’s nothing we can do.”
“There’s always something we can do,” he amended, turning his head just enough to look over his shoulder. “I don’t care if it’s something stupid and hopeless.” He turned back to the window. She heard a tiny jingle as he fiddled with his tag again. “We’re Wonderbolts.”
“Trying stupid things doesn’t help anypony,” she dead-panned.
He shrugged. “Makes me feel better.”
Spitfire sat back against the headboard of the bed, her eyes raised, crumbling her forehead as she took a deep breath. Her eyes shut as she sighed it out. “Well … what stupid and hopeless thing do you suggest we do?”
He rubbed his neck instead of coming up with an answer.
“I’m not going to Canterlot tonight,” she told him.
“What if I did?”
She turned on her side and propped her neck over her folded foreleg, and put on a heavy, dubious gaze. “You’re going to go all that way? Tonight? All alone?”
Soarin’ flopped backward and looked at her upside down. “No, but at least admit I’m not going out of my mind here.”
Spitfire chuckled quietly, but said nothing. If you were going out of mind, it’d be a short trip.
“Oh, c’mon, something’s wrong, right?”
She tried to make her shrug look convincing. “Hey, maybe it’s that new ‘daylight savings’ thing the farmers wanted. I heard Celestia thought it was a pretty good idea,” she yawned. “Would make sense, and well, what else would?”
“Hay, I don’t know,” he murmured. The blood was rushing to his head, the way he was lying. He was too exhausted to fly to Canterlot, anyway, but there was the annoying matter of his conscience nagging in his ear. For some reason, it never seemed to be as tired as him.
His friend smiled a little. “Can I go to sleep?”
“Pbbt,” he sighed, buzzing his lips. “Sure. Just forget Equestria.” Soarin’ rolled over onto his stomach. He crawled into an unkindly cold satin, pulling back a comforter for lavender-coloured ripples. He tore off his goggles, slung them across the room, and put his down head, snuggling into the pillow.
“Atta’ boy,” she told him, the smile coming through to her voice.
“Whatever,” he got comfortable under the thick layers of blankets. “G’night.”
She blew out the candle on the bedside, and it wasn’t too long before they were asleep. In fact, they fell asleep within seconds.
“Night.”
---
Spitfire was in Canterlot Gardens.
She was overwhelmed by the solid smell of soil. The green was impeccable. The flowers, tropical globetrotters fostered from foreign gardens. She knew this place.
Spitfire looked around and was captivated by a single tree, the only tree in sight. How large it was. How tall it was, that it went on and on and if she climbed it and fell she would break her bones. Of course, she could fly now. It was only this squeamishly familiar feeling that she should be afraid here.
At the same time, she wanted to know this tree, this yard. She had a strong urge to name every flower, recall every smell they had inside of them. She wanted to remember this place, but what she remembered was long gone and from an entirely separate angle.
[That’s when she saw it below. There was the garden! It was the other way around! There were the million moths!]
There was no sky. Doming above was another garden, not entirely like the one below, but not a different garden, either. This wasn‘t a mirror. She knew that. The roofing was as supremely solid as the ground under her, packed dirt and stone, and it went on forever in both cases.
She had a sense that this wasn’t one side of a planet, or a capsule in the midst of one, but somewhere else entirely. A plane between planes, a different instance of existence not unaligned with hers, but a place where she didn’t know where she had been, or would be, but was right now, and couldn’t do anything about it. An unknowable instance of existence, yet not unable to be experienced.
Spitfire craned her neck skyward in wonder. There were ponies dancing up there, and talking, and sitting around to chat. They were giants to her, each a good measure taller than anypony should be, colourful towers. They laughed and rejoiced together. This was a happy time. She remembered it well.
Spitfire strained to follow the path of a comet, suddenly streaking through the legs of the party guests. Brilliant red and orange streamers danced and billowed on the end of the night (because it was night there, though she could’t be sure what time it is where she was standing). It was a dress, and flouncing hair: a young filly. She ran as fast as her painful shoes allowed, ran to the edge of the court, where the black fence penned off the cliffs of Canterlot.
The filly stayed there, distracted by something she saw through the cylindrical bars. Spitfire and the girl felt something at the same time, something eternally powerful on the horizon, a great BOOM. Thunder.
Soon, the filly wasn’t the only party patron to recognize it. Party guest after party guest stopped in their festivities, in their conversations, to stare off exactly where Spitfire was staring. They were all of them still. Nothing continued, nopony could ignore.
Then, one stallion muttered, “… Rain.”
Even a small utterance in the garden was booming on the other end.
And that one word ran through everypony’s tongues, “… Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain …” In disgust, disgruntlement, disappointment, and despair. It sounded huge.
Everypony covered their heads, and Spitfire, craning her neck upward, watched rain “falling” up at them. She gasped, “Elements alive …”
She watched the cavalcade of water pellets spawn from nothing, from nowhere. Being so close, she felt the mist tickling her snout. She soon writhed, holding her ears against her skull. The roar of it entering the amplified world above was almost unbearable. Ponies galloping, calling to each other, the water speckling the garden’s green.
While everypony else ran and hid away, the filly at the gate wouldn’t budge. She was captivated by something she saw in the horizon line, a hoof to the thin, black iron of the fence.
Spitfire stared incomprehensibly at the sky, knowing by now who the filly was, even what night that was supposed to be, but not what she’d been staring at. She remembered most of this night as it happened again in front of her, but not that.
The filly tensed her haunches, unfolded her wings, as if preparing to take off, when-
“Hey!” another filly called. “What are you waiting for? It’s pouring teacups out here, ‘Fire!” This was the clearest, loudest voice of all. Spitfire’s head panged above her left eye. The world was quickly being obscured by the forming rain, coming down harder on the other end of things, but Spitfire knew who’d said that. Cadence.
“Ugh! Oh! Come ooon,” little Blueblood whined, bouncing beside Cadence. “It’s getting muddy. Ack! No! Spitfire!”
The entire courtyard was blurry by now, but Spitfire remembered what happened next anyway. The other two were pulled inside by a party guest and she was the last one in the yard. They were leaving her behind.
[-the world’s a changing and we’re a part of the tide, but if you fall behind-]
Spitfire felt a heat behind her eyes, and she suddenly hated this. She didn’t want to remember anymore. She was suddenly struck with despair as an overwhelming sinking feeling clawed her away.
[-she didn’t want to she didn’t want to no no-]
She looked down at her hooves, and saw them engulfed in the ground, inching into it. She was sinking. The courtyard above was a quagmire of colours, swirling now- sweet merciful- a whirlpool was forming, by Celestia, a whirlpool.
Above her, a torrent of massive power surged, below, she felt her hooves stiffening in with frigidness in the ground. A giant anger broiled in her belly.
Blueblood and Cadence were herded into the Castle ballroom, the closest shelter from the storm. Spitfire remembered stumbling after them, losing sight of them as the crowd surged, and trying to forget whatever she saw off on the horizon.
Impulsively, she screamed, “Wait for me!” before she was slurped finally into darkness.
---
Spitfire’s breathing was shuddering and shallow, swallowed by a blustery squall that slashed at her bones with frost.
She swivelled left, right, and up and down, and behind herself, but most discouraging still was just how sightless she was. There were zero licks of light in any peripheral. This was a starless, moonless night.
This must’ve been- she wished it weren’t so, with all her energy she did, but it had to be Tartarus. The primeval abyss ponies knew existed, but didn’t factually, entirely conceive. The cell of titans. The bone yard of criminals. This odious bane of Equis was a hairline fracture in temporal logic, in causality. And it adhered no boundary lines.
It had always been easier to imagine Tartarus as a group of islands on the very opposite axis of the globe. When she pictured them, they were tar sand shorelines, enduringly slathered by a wash of black, foaming smooze. These isles were, in her imagination, inhabited by skeletal creatures. She thought you’d hear a constant brattle as they moved, their bones clacking together.
Miserable islets in myths were easier to think of than this.
She felt her eyes burning in the gust. She felt it stealing her body heat, as if stealing her until, by slow measure, it dawned on her that she was being frozen. Alive, if not soon otherwise. Her face, carved by anger, lost sensation, her ears pierced down by gathering ice. Her hair, her mane and tail both, seemed heavier with snow.
With burning down her throat, adrenaline and terror, she grit she teeth hard, and her creaky hoof reached foreword. Spitfire took a step in Tartarus. She went on, took another, got further, and again, and one more, and two- she was walking and wouldn’t stop.
This painful, rigid-boned slow-gait lead nowhere, from nowhere, but moving was progression, and even in a place without cause-and-effect, something like that can push a pony to keep going.
Before she could keel over or slip, let herself freeze, Spitfire was saved. She almost suddenly had to shield her eyes from a searing, golden luminosity seeming to take in the darkness and horrible sound of that nightmare.
Spitfire had fallen on her flank, digging her hooves into her eyes to protect them. Her jaw was shuddering. Soon, she couldn’t hear that bellicose roar, and everything seemed still.
“I’m here,” claimed a frail, but warm voice. “Please look at me.”
As mortally relieving as it was to hear Princess Celestia, Spitfire’s eyes were burning in the radiance. Like a groundhog, she had to squint and rub at her eyes for several minutes of blurriness before she could see the princess.
By that time, the warming effect of standing in the princess’s presence melted away the frost-bitten tremor Spitfire’d had. A soreness from shivering so hard found her back and hooves, but for the moment, her body was distracted by the warmth, and couldn’t be bothered with pain. She wiped away the tears she hadn’t known she’d been crying.
They were in a pasture of light. Spitfire could see Princess Celestia’s magic holding together a pocket just big enough for two. The pegasus looked, and beneath her hooves there was nothing, for once, a dizzying feeling.
Technically, she wasn’t standing, if she wasn’t standing on anything, so she wasn’t doing anything at all, but then, if she wasn’t, what did that mean for reality? Where did that mean she was, and wasn’t? What about time? This wasn’t one of those temporal paradoxes she’d heard about, was it?
She decided she wouldn’t think about it.
When her full sight returned, Spitfire attempted to stand at attention for her Princess, but Celestia pardoned her with a hoof. The moment of silence focused the Wonderbolt’s attention. The sun sovereign kindly rasped, “No formality tonight. There isn’t the time.”
Spitfire lowered her hoof, partly due to surprise. Princess Celestia looked sickly. That was no pretty alicorn princess. This one was old and fragile. Spitfire felt misery from gazing upon her, as any of her subjects would, because a magistrate of her majesty had never been this ruefully tarnished. Her face was craggy and pocked, her body thinned and skeletal. Her mane, at rest.
With angry stupefaction, Spitfire rumbled, “What did this to you? How did this even happen?”
Celestia’s movements were glacial, even her sigh. Her magenta eyes were pleading, sapped so much of colour that they‘d turned light pink. “Nightmare Moon.”
“Nightmare- we’re not in- wait, what?” her eyes scanned their barren surroundings. “How did we get here? Where are we?”
“Don’t you know?” Celestia asked, with a remnant of her humour. “We’re in your sleep.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have dreams like this.”
“And I should hope nopony does, but this place is yours,” Celestia’s voice stretched as she gandered around at the dark winds beyond their bubble of light. Trouble twitched her cheeks, but her attention fell back on Spitfire and she smiled beautifully again. “I like to think Nightmare is influencing you.” she nodded to herself. “Else, she could use places like this to infiltrate in ways nopony can protect you from.”
“Well, if she hasn’t yet, then there’s still time,” Spitfire puffed out her chest and squared her shoulders. “I know the Guard has priority in Canterlot but the Wonderbolts were made to protect our homeland. You need us, I get it now.”
The princess didn’t seem to hear. Though she smiled, her eyes were stony, and watery with age. It was jarring to have to talk to and a little irritating. The alicorn went on as if Spitfire wasn’t even there.
“Nightmare has imprisoned me. She wants returned to her my sister’s power, she’s siphoning it back at this very second. Though I won’t have it long, I knew you’d need me most, and I needed to … offer … I thought …”
The princess’s gaze lost her flyer for a moment, brow scrunched in concentration.
Spitfire felt a tug at her stomach. “My Grace?”
Princess Celestia seemed as blind as Spitfire had felt. Her eyes didn’t connect with anything and a tragic expression came over her wrinkly face. She shook her head and shut her eyes before she could go on.
“Of course, you realize, this all means I cannot come to visit you anymore. There‘s no longer a reason for me to safeguard Luna‘s dream watching duties; the power is gravitating back to her spirit, in Nightmare Moon. It’s happening fast. Faster than I’d hoped, but-“
“Wait, wait, please,” Spitfire begged. She licked her lips as she put it together, and looked up at the princess in a cautiously afraid way. “You're not coming into my dreams anymore? This is your elaborate way of telling me you- you’re not,” she took in a breath. “so, you’re just not.”
Celestia leaned down, and tried to explain gently, “I can’t. My form is being leeched by Nightmare; you might have noticed I‘m not as young as I used to be.” She seemed carefully sad about that, as though trying not to upset Spitfire, which annoyed the flyer more. The princess quickly hardened. “I believe this is how Nightmare wants you to see me, most likely the only reason I still have enough strength to visit you.”
“For the last time,” quipped the Wonderbolt. She bowed her head, a respect for her monarch, but this was mostly so Celestia wouldn’t see her face and the anger there. Spitfire was the paradigm of irateness- eyes as dull as a fish’s, features tight. Her breathing, even if she wasn’t aware of it, was shallow.
The princess put a hoof to Spitfire's cheek. “We'll see each other on more solid terms from now on.”
She bristled, forcibly staggering away from Celestia‘s hoof.
Their environment experienced a flickering, light failing to darkness, tendrils of it sinking in. But, the princess held her burden. Celestia scowled as her horn pulsated, breaking out in a tenuous sweat with the effort it took out of her. She seized a deep breath that seemed to push away any advance against their bright asylum. Her mouth hung open for a moment afterward.
When she opened her eyes she was met with a horrified and apologetic-looking Spitfire. The princess smiled, coughed out a quiet chuckle at that. In her own, sickly way, she attempted to look reassuring, but a tear of sweat remained on her cheek and her wrinkles seemed deeper.
“I didn’t mean it,” Spitfire grunted scornfully and uttered, “I didn’t know it would do that, I mean, whatever that was, I promise.” She felt partially responsible. It was, after all, her dream.
“Hm ... I wish I could sooth your anger,” Celestia said sadly, thoughtfully, as though deep within a memory of a time when that was possible. “Do you remember how to control it?”
“I know how to control myself, Princess,” Spitfire warbled softly, her head falling. “I breathe, and it gets better. I can stop myself now.”
“You’ve come far.” She nodded once. “I don’t doubt that. You’ve made yourself a wonderful life, Spitfire, a career, many friends. I’m exceptionally proud. A wonderful life, indeed. Nevertheless, I must protect you, and give you the decision to end it.”
Spitfire’s brows came together and she squinted up at Celestia.
The princess put up a hoof. “Not as you think, but it could well be the decision that resolves whether you survive or not. You will have to listen to me in full.” At this, Princess Celestia‘s eyes were searing into Spitfire’s own. It was frightening to be trapped under, and seemed to last particularly long as Celestia punctuated the moment. It got on Spitfire’s nerves the longer it went on. Her mouth quirked.
Princess Celestia’s voice was as firm as the bricks of the Canterlot Castle. “I could reverse the spell. The kingdom would remember- everypony would remember- everything would be as it should, and my royal guards would find a haven for you safe from Nightmare Moon. My captain would devote himself to defending you, I’m sure.
“This could be as temporary or as permanent as it has to be. You know I would only ask if I knew you were in danger. Even safe in your bed right now, she can reach you. I know she can sense who you are to me, and she’ll use that against me if I let her.”
Indignantly, the captain tore her gaze away. “Princess, I can protect myself.” She had trouble controlling her volume. She took in a breath.
“Not from nightmares. Even I can’t do that.” Spitfire’s face scrunched in doubt so Celestia went on. “My nightmares are twisted visions of the future. They-" she sighed briefly- “reveal facets of time which may or may not come to pass in the same fashion as they appear … although, I haven’t had one that was a complete lie. That’s the nature of true fear, I think. There is always some honesty involved.”
Celestia seemed caught in reminiscence. Something darkly hateful in her reverie gave her benevolence a new face. She glared at Spitfire as if she had suddenly become an enemy. As though Spitfire had done something terribly wrong. It was rather unnerving, and Spitfire herself was already pretty angry with the situation: this really couldn’t be happening.
Spitfire took to the air. She felt more in control there. She could raise herself to Celestia’s height, and say, “I’m not coming home with you, I’m staying with the Wonderbolts. They need their captain, and hay, I‘ll say it, I need them, too. You understand. You have your kingdom just like I have my team. It’s the same principle.”
“Please, know I never wanted to take this away from you. I only worry. What would I have to think if Nightmare Moon kidnapped you? Or, used you as hostage?” She still seemed blind, her eyes not following the direction of their conversation.
Spitfire shook her head slightly. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. I can do it, I really can, and the only reason you don’t know it is because you- you can’t know. You can’t understand.”
“You can’t understand.” Princess Celestia gazed at her with small, terrified smile that she was trying to quell. “One day when you have your own children, you‘ll see I‘m not as crazy as you think.”
Remembering herself, Spitfire’s mouth formed a small line. She grounded and bowed her head, saying, “I respectfully disagree, Princess.”
“Hm.” Celestia smiled with maternal grace. Even in decrepitude, for a moment, she was beautiful again. Spitfire gasped silently, lips only just parted. It was such a conflicting moment for her.
The princess nuzzled the captain of the Wonderbolts, and Spitfire felt Celestia trembling. Spitfire’s heart panged. It was a while before either one of them spoke, but Princess Celestia made her final decision then. When she did speak, it may have come out colder than she’d wanted, but she was absolutely sure of the way it had to be.
“If you aren’t coming with me, I have to leave you. We’ll have to trust in the Elements of Harmony, now. I’m sure Twilight Sparkle will take care of it. Your work will be done, Twilight is capable.”
She backed out and looked up in Celestia’s eyes carefully. “The Elements of Harmony don’t exist.” Spitfire’s throat tightened finding Celestia unmoved and smiling. Her voice wavered, “Who’s Twilight Sparkle?”
The princess took a deep breath, pushing a hoof forward as if pulling the air out. A knowing smile emerged on her face, one of acceptance, and fearlessness. Her wrinkles settled into an expressionless calm.
When her eyes opened again, she stared beyond the Wonderbolt. For one moment, a singular moment, a deep regret consumed her face. But it was gone, within a matter of seconds, and mightn’t have been there at all. She was very adept at hiding her real thoughts, Spitfire knew.
The princess of Equestria spoke under her breath, her eyes lost somewhere in the dark. “You remember those old stories? They always had lessons at the end. Charity, compassion, devotion, integrity, optimism, and leadership. Good lessons. I wish you could see what I see in you, but it’s okay. Twilight is capable.”
Spitfire wept wordlessly, scowling, unable to understand what the princess was saying, unable to care, unable in so very many ways. She was a Wonderbolt, she needed control. All she knew now was that she’d failed something the princess had set out for her. In fact, Spitfire imagined this test was the true reason Celestia had come. Not a final visit at all, this was just another test. Spitfire burned with anger.
The sightless princess was becoming translucent, she could see that now. Nightmare was draining her. At least that wasn’t a lie. “I must leave you now. Goodbye, Spitfire.”
“Yeah, okay,” she uttered through a thick voice. She couldn’t even look at the princess.
A look of longing graced Celestia’s face as she looked at the back of Spitfire’s head. Something the Wonderbolt never saw ran down her face. “Close your eyes.”
Even in a dream, she could be blinded by the sun. Princess Celestia left in a microcosmic nova, and soon, the darkness returned, but with a new feature.
Spitfire saw what the Elements didn't. Nightmare's truest form.
Everything she feared was held in a face, in a smiling face of formless night. For however long it was, she saw every horrible eventuality of her life and knew there was an element of truth to each. She screamed with rage. She was shaking.
“DESPAIR,” peeled off Nightmare’s smiling lips. Spitfire was grappled by crushing hands and sucked into its mouth.
---
Spitfire was hurled forward. She assumed, down Nightmare Moon’s throat, but soon fell into her destination, a window. She held her forehead as she sat. The darkness held her in place here.
“Where are you?!” she howled. The muscles in her face ached from scowling, twitching with her ragged breath.
The pegasus didn’t understand what she was seeing. It made less and less sense as things went on, but then, that first moment, when she was only looking into the Everfree forest, she was frighteningly puzzled. But she would soon find out why she was there.
She felt herself being drained of everything inside her. A short-lived process, remarkably painless, though horrifying.
Spitfire slumped over. She had no energy left in her muscles. She panicked inside her head. Her position riveted her down to gaze helplessly through the looking glass. What she found there made her feel insane, a nightmarish feeling in itself.
At first, it was easy enough to watch; a young blue mare dove into a valley of mist to arrive with a rope bridge in her teeth. Spitfire’s first impression of Rainbow Dash went well enough. She looked fine for a flyer
"Rainbow ..."
"Who's there?"
"Rainbow ..."
"I ain't scared a you! Show yourself!" Rainbow yelled. She threw punches for show, which weren’t too threatening, but admittedly spirited.
That fascinating, disembodied slithering answered Rainbow‘s warning, "We've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the best flyer in Equestria.”
Rainbow faltered. "Who?"
"Why, you, of course."
"Really? I mean, oh yeah, me.” She smiled, with impressively large pleasure. “Hey, uh, you wouldn’t mind telling the Wonderbolts that, would you? 'Cause I've been trying to get into that group for, like, ever."
"No, Rainbow Dash, we want you to join us.”
Three forms punctured the fog and came to glide out in a uniform formation, two stallions and one mare. Spitfire gaped and her eyes watered at the sight. That one mare. Spitfire understood now.
Nightmare Moon had drained her energy to use it in recreating a pony. She couldn’t contain her bafflement and delirium, but what could she do to release it? She didn’t have use of her body anymore, Spitfire did. Those goons raised their chins as one and Spitfire said, “The Shadowbolts.”
At least it didn’t have her voice. It used her spirit as a template, but it wasn’t her. In some small way, that was comforting.
Spitfire was smiling broadly as she approached Dash. “We're the greatest aerial team in the Everfree forest, and soon we will be the greatest in all Equestria ... but first, we need a captain.” Rainbow Dash was beaming as Spitfire wafted above her head, thinking out loud.
"The most magnificent-"
"Yep."
"-swiftest-"
"Yes."
"-bravest flyer in all the land."
"Yes,” Rainbow bubbled. “it's all true."
"We need,” Spitfire watched Spitfire breathe into the mare’s ear. “you."
Rainbow Dash sprouted upwards, cheering, "Woo hoo! Sign me up!” revelling at the images in her head. Fame, respect, nobility. Every new cadet looked the same as Dash did right then, and that was even more terrible. Rainbow was giddily giggling, “Just let me tie this bridge real quick, and then we have a deal."
"No!” Spitfire flamed. “It's them, or us."
Finally, Rainbow Dash saw something wrong in them. She tottered back, staring at the pile of rope. Spitfire felt a flicker of empathy. Those Shadowbolts were supposed to be her Wonderbolts (even if they were just cheap knock-offs). She remembered her turn dreaming and waiting to be old enough, to train hard enough to get in. It was tough. pegasai built lives around it, and if they couldn’t cut it, all their dreams would be crushed. Painfully.
A clear voice rang through the fog. "Rainbow! What's taking so long? Oh, no. Rainbow!” Spitfire heard her and effectively barricaded them out, in blinding smoke with a flash of her eyes, as if using Spitfire’s temperament for strength. Rainbow’s friend seemed to drift away. “Don't listen to them ..."
Rainbow Dash weighed her options silently, her head bowed a little. She might’ve stayed that way longer had it not been for Spitfire’s impatience. "Well?"
Without a breath, she said, "You,” and Spitfire’s stomach staggered inside of her. But, Rainbow Dash continued in her most level-headed manner, “thank you, for the offer, I mean, but,” she knotted the rope bridge and turned back with a smile. “I'm afraid I have to say no."
Spitfire smiled until it crinkled her eyes.
Spitfire sneered. She and her two brethren were infused back into shadow and simultaneously, Spitfire felt herself mobile and strong again. In fact, being infused with herself was a rush. Nightmare didn’t count on that, or did, and didn’t care after failing. Spitfire woke up, free.
---
She seemed to shake herself awake. Her entire body was clammy, which would explain the unpleasant smell. Her tongue was dry and her heartbeat boxed her little chest, an uneven fight. She noticed with some discomfort and humiliation that the hotel linens would require a scrub.
She was aware of Soarin’. He’d sat up, sprung, awaking maybe the exact time as her. They made meaningful, panicked eye contact.
Soarin' fell to the floor with the blanket around his hooves, [thump,/i] bolting out of bed. Spitfire threw away her own comforters and started lighting all the candles. He scrambled to shut the windows, shutting out the night. She brought the candles together to enshrine them as they huddled together in the corner.
Soarin’ sat like a gargoyle, with wings pointed behind a hunched back and hugging hooves. That crazy green in his eyes made him look doubly troubled. Spitfire ran through her breathing exercises. It took embarrassingly long for their heart-rates to slow.
Soarin’ turned on her, minutes later. “Who do we tell?”
Taking long breaths, Spitfire inhaled the steam of the candles. She didn’t respond for a while, and Soarin’ asked again. Spitfire looked tired. She mumbled, “Don’t bother me.”
“But, you saw that, too. You saw-”
“What, Soarin’? What was all that?”
He squinted. “I dunno, but you were there, how come?”
She shrugged, still trying to breathe deeply.
Soarin‘s ears flattened against his head and growled, “Well, how come there was one of you and I got split?”
Spitfire hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know- how should I know? We should forget it. You forget bad dreams all the time, right? Give it a day, I can‘t remember some of it already.”
That was actually the truth. While powerful nightmares left an indent, details could escape very easily. It was, in fact, part of Princess Luna’s dream watching duties to partially (if not entirely) wipe the pony’s memories clean of their unreal psychological experiences.
“But, this is a real dream,” he said, though he was trying to remember all of it too, and also unable to grasp many details. That angered him. “We can’t laze around. We take action- we’re Wonderbolts. Come on, let’s be stupid. What’re we waiting for? Equestria is in our hooves.”
“No, let Twilight Sparkle handle it,” she muttered, defeated.
He faltered. “Who's that?”
“If knew I'd punch her in the face,” Spitfire offered.
The lieutenant crinkled his forehead. “And we're supposed to trust her with this, Spits?” She didn’t really give an answer. It wasn’t like he expected her to, but it would’ve been nice.
He changed the subject after a while, and when he spoke again, he was as soft as his gravelly voice could be. “You know, I was okay with it- like, you not talking about why you never want to go to Canterlot, or why you never seem to want to perform for the princess. Or any stuff like that- and why you get all angry at the weirdest things- but … it was fine.”
He shifted, trying to get in a more comfortable sitting position. “You were fine, so I dropped it and I didn’t think whatever this is would be a problem. And it wasn’t, for a while, and that was good, but I think it’s getting bad again, and I’m kind of tired of being okay with it,” his voice sounded as though it had been squeezed in the middle of his sentence.
Her face contorted into one of absolute grief, and she gasped before hiding her face with a hoof. As she started to pant and sniff, hot tears came out. “Soarin’ … I don’t want to leave you.”
Soarin’ stared for a moment, but put his wing around her and she wasted no time hugging back. With a little disbelief he shook his head and told her, “You don’t have to leave me.” He tenderly stroked her shoulder. “I’d go with you anywhere in the world.” Spitfire didn’t move and he scowled. “Don’t you trust me, Spits?”
She cried into his blue fur. It was soft, and his heartbeat was stable. She concentrated so much on details like those that she forgot to answer.
Soarin’ made her look at him. “We’re best friends. If you can’t tell your best friend what’s eating you, you’ll die, or explode or- you’ll rot. You’ll rot, Spits.”
She thought he couldn’t possibly know how afraid and anxious she was, with her confession trapped in her throat. What a terrible moment that was for her. She guiltily looked away, outright refused to make eye-contact. The words screaming in her mind but road blocked by her tongue. It took her nearly a minute, but suddenly, she couldn’t stutter.
“There isn’t a right way to say this, but I could’ve been a princess. I would’ve gotten a horn or something, I don’t know, I never thought about it. But, everypony’s under a spell and they don’t remember I was supposed to be one.”
He stared at her, but in a cautiously imploring way, prompting her to go on. “Why?”
She tried looking at him again, light-headed. “You know how I said my mom was always putting pressure on me?”