//------------------------------//
// Future 
// Story: The Collection 
// by Churchy 
//------------------------------//


This chapter was written by Future



o----o


Twilight took one last, wistful, look at the speckled canvas that was the night sky. Turning her head, she made for the pinpricks of light that signified her distant home.

Stargazing had long ago become one of Twilight Sparkle's favorite hobbies, overshadowed only by reading, learning, organizing, and making lists of her favorite hobbies. She found it very soothing, especially after a stressful day of being the town librarian.

Introduced to her by a friend and mentor when she was still in Canterlot, the complex arrangement of stars fascinated and bewildered the young unicorn's eager mind. Night after night she would steal away to the rooftop gardens of the city and watch, amazed, as the cosmos twinkled away for all to see.

Twilight's delight with stars was rekindled when she moved to Ponyville and discovered that, to her supreme glee, the city lights that overpowered some of the fainter stars were gone, unveiling a convoluted web of dull brilliance.

Minutes ago, she had been laying down, facing the familiar constellations that kept the moon quiet company. Now, she was on a familiar cobblestone path, beside a familiar forest, facing something entirely unfamiliar on her habitual journey.

Blood.

She nearly missed the drop of radiant red liquid, until its bright hue stood out among the dark greens and browns of the forest's edge.

Twilight looked into the gloom of the dense woodland, her eyes already noticing more crimson stains picking their way through the timber. She wanted nothing more than to hurry back to the safety of her tree, to feel the warmth of the hearth and hear the soft snores of Spike. She was about to turn tail and make haste to her home.

Until she remembered where she was supposed to meet Rainbow Dash.


o---o


As Rainbow Dash hastily made her way from the old castle, an idea alighted into Fluttershy's mind.

“Umm, Princess? What if we just rinsed the paint bucket and used that?” Fluttershy said in her quiet yet subliminally persuasive voice.

“Excellent! Here, I’ll hold them with my magic while you rinse it and fill it with water,” Luna said in her loud yet surprisingly tender voice.

Fluttershy walked over to where the bucket lay after being dropped and violently emptied by Rainbow Dash’s eager entrance. Grabbing it gingerly with her mouth, she rinsed it in the shallow pond and placed it under the magical bubble that held several confused, yet content, fish.

Reverently placed in their temporary container, the fish swam in small, lazy, circles. Fluttershy looked up at the Princess of the Night, her partner in saving aquatic critters. They smiled to each other and with the help of Luna’s magic, began taking their rescuees to a nearby lake.


o---o


After leaving the castle, Rainbow Dash took to the skies on the pair of appendages that were her pride and joy. From her altitude she could see the first rays of sunlight rising in the east, heralding dawn for Equestria. Rainbow Dash almost never saw a sunrise; she was usually fast asleep. There was no time to admire its pleasant colours however; she had to find Twilight.

Flying ever expanding circles over the vast expanse of the forest, Rainbow Dash looked for a streak of pink, a blur of purple fur, or anything that might point out Twilight in the arborous sea. Nothing, she thought, then amended her pessimistic mind. Nothing yet.


o---o


Having carefully tracked the surprisingly fresh trail, Twilight now found herself immersed deep within the brush. She had lost almost all sense of direction, and the dense foliage did nothing to help. So deep was she in the thicket, as well as in concentration on the path, that the foreboding castle the trail lead into came as quite a surprise. Fearing for her friend's safety, she valiantly made her way through the marble and stone archway that was the door.

Twilight almost thought she could sense a sinister aura envelop her as she passed through the forsaken gateway. Trotting through the empty halls of the castle, she could not help but imagine the gruesome circumstances that could explain her following a trail of blood into an abandoned castle. Her imagination ran rampant with the stuff of nightmares. Doing her best to banish such thoughts from her mind, she continued to follow the trail through the twisting corridors.

There was something about this place. Some familiarity that Twilight couldn't place. Every tapestry on the wall seemed to be mocking her, challenging her to remember them. Twilight, however, had little interest in sifting through years of memories, devoting her mind instead to finding her friend.

As Twilight turned another corner, she happened upon a hallway, longer than the rest. At the end she could see a pair of wooden doors left open. It seemed the trail led right to them. Taking her first few paces towards the doors, Twilight noticed her hoofsteps echoing off the walls. To add to the eerie setting, the room past the doors seemed to be partially caved in. Almost never a reassuring sign.

Twilight came to a tentative stop at the threshold of the doors, peering down a slight incline to a horrific scene. A swath of sanguine substance stained the stone floor, reaffirming Twilight’s suspicions of this sinister place. Scanning the rest of the room Twilight noticed a small puddle of blood in the middle of the room, slowly being diluted by an irregular drip from high above. After a few moments of heart-throbbing terror, Twilight spun around and dashed for the exit. Retracing her steps through the castle, she quickly found the rays of the morning that seemed to signify safety from the horrors of the fortress in the forest.

Twilight came barrelling down the stone path leading out of the castle just as a streak of cyan bathed in the warm hues of the early morning passed overhead.