It took Twilight ten minutes of nudging and shaking Rainbow Dash before the pegasus reluctantly opened her eyes the next morning. She groaned and tried to roll over on the chair where she had spent the night, waving a hoof at her friend.
“Go ‘way!” she mumbled. “Dark. Sleep when dark.”
“Rainbow!” Twilight hissed in a whisper. “Come on, it’s time to go. You have to show me how to get to the quarry.”
“Later.”
“No, it has to be now.” Twilight poked her between the shoulders with the tip of her hoof. “Foxtail and Lilac Breeze will be coming by in just a few hours and no doubt they’ll have a full schedule for you again.”
That caused the pegasus to groan again and she tried to burrow under the seat cushions. Twilight, however, had run out of patience and trotted behind the chair, rearing up and tipping it over. Rainbow tumbled to the floor with an undignified thump.
“Ow!” she yelped, rubbing her head and glaring. “Not cool, Twilight.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have a lot of time. Come on.”
Grumbling under her breath about sleeping for a week once they returned to Ponyville, Rainbow climbed to her hooves and obediently followed Twilight through the bedchamber to one of the windows. She glanced sourly towards the bed where Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity soundly slept, with Fluttershy curled up contentedly in the canopy.
“Not fair,” she mumbled.
Twilight smiled sympathetically, then teleported out of the room. Rainbow hopped onto the windowsill and looked down to the ground below, where the unicorn was waving frantically for her to follow. Sighing, she flapped her wings and jumped from the window, drifting gracefully down to the grassy lawn.
“Alright, which way to the quarry?” Twilight turned in a slow circle to get her bearings in the predawn darkness. “You can’t see it or the dust from here.”
Rainbow stretched and shook herself from nose to tail before looking round. “Uh, I’m not sure. I wasn’t really aiming for it in the first place, you know.”
“Right.” Twilight pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, you left the sitting chamber adjacent to the banquet hall and, from the contrail you left behind, you seem to have flown in a relatively straight line, at least until you were out of sight. So, it stands to reason that we could follow your path if we leave from the same location.” Pleased with her deduction, she grinned brightly at Rainbow Dash, only to find the pegasus staring at her with raised eyebrows.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re scary sometimes, you know that, right?”
Twilight frowned. “It’s just logical deduction.”
“Yeah, sure.” Rainbow yawned widely, then blinked at their dark surroundings. “The banquet hall is that way—I could see part of the lake when I was dancing with Linden.”
“Perfect! We just need to find the right windows and we’ll know whe—aaahh!”
Impatient to get on their way, Rainbow had taken to the air and grabbed Twilight as she passed over her head. The unicorn managed only a short yelp before they were both soaring quickly around the castle walls, dodging perilously close to several tall and sturdy trees that loomed suddenly from the shadows.
“Warn me before you do that!” Twilight scolded once she had gotten her bearings.
“Where’s the fun in that!” Rainbow retorted with a bright laugh. The thrill of flying had wiped away all signs of sleepiness and she felt great. “Want to do a loop-de-loop?”
“A loop-de—no! Rainbow Dash, don’t you dar—ooh, look, there’s the library!” She had just spotted the distinct rows of arched windows that lined the walls of the palace library, easily recognizable even from outside. Though most were dark, two glowed with the warm orange light of a lantern from within. “Wow, someone’s up early,” she mused, spotting the silhouette of a pony head at the window.
Rainbow glanced back over her shoulder. “Probably your friend, Nightfire. He spends almost as much time in the library as you, doesn’t he? Wanna go back and wave?”
“Wave? Rainbow Dash, we’re supposed to be on a stealth mission here!”
The pegasus snorted. “Twilight, if he just saw a pegasus fly past the library, he pretty much has a fifty-fifty chance of guessing who it was.”
As Twilight was considering this, Rainbow landed softly and set the unicorn back on her hooves. Tilting her head back, she said, “I think that’s the banquet hall up there.”
Twilight assessed their darkened surroundings with a careful eye. “I think you’re right. So, you flew out the window up there and kept a relatively straight course…yep, see that tree over there? Looks like you clipped the top right off it.”
Rainbow started. “Really?” She glanced at her belly and noticed a long, thin scratch. “Huh, never even felt it.”
“Then we just need to keep a straight heading from here,” Twilight started trotting briskly away from the palace, “and we should find the quarry. We’d better hurry if we want to get there and back before sunrise.”
“Right, we’d better hurry.” With an impish grin, Rainbow launched herself into the air and sped after the unicorn, catching Twilight around the middle again and dragging her off the ground.
“Raaaiiinboooooow!”
**
They smelled and heard the quarry long before they came within sight of it. The heavy, choking scent of powdered rock and dust filled the air, mingling with the steady tink tink of hammers clanging on stone.
Rainbow set Twilight down in the woods near the quarry and they went the rest of the way on hoof, creeping quietly through the brush until they found a place where they both could spy on the jagged cliff lined with slave ponies. They were kept working straight through the night, aided in the darkness only by sporadic firefly lanterns and candles. Twilight gasped when one of the overseers plied his whip on a small mare struggling under the weight of the cart she pulled.
“Oh Rainbow,” she whispered. “This is awful!” As the snap of the whip cut the air again, followed by a cry of pain, her purple eyes narrowed in fury. “We have to stop this!”
“Sounds good to me.” Rainbow reared up and punched the air with her front hooves. “Who do we take out first?”
“Not like that. We have to be subtle about this. There’s only two of us. First we need to find out what they’re all searching for.”
“Okay, but I asked one of the ponies that last night and he didn’t have a clue.”
“The enslaved ponies may not, but it seems to me those overseers should have some idea of what they’re supposed to find. We’ll have to ask them.”
“Oh yeah, sure. Ask the overseers. Why didn’t I think of that? We should just trot over and introduce ourselves, then ask them what they’re looking for with these hundreds of captive Equestrian ponies.”
“Exactly!” Twilight slipped into the shadows to their right, leaving Rainbow staring after her confusedly.
“Uh, Twilight, I was kinda being sarcastic, you know?” Frowning, the pegasus followed her friend. “You really think we can just walk up and—ohmygosh!” She jumped a foot in the air as she edged around a bush and came face to scowling face with a burly, dark blue overseer. “Whoa! Where’d you come from?” Instantly, her wings flared out, catching her at the apex of her jump, and she raised her hooves threateningly. “Back off, pal! I’m not afraid of you!”
The large colt took two ominous steps towards her before the glare melted off his face and he collapsed in a fit of wild giggles.
“Wha-huh?” Rainbow let herself sink back to the ground, but kept her hooves raised. “Who the hay are you, buster? If you hurt Twilight—”
“Rainbow, it’s me!” The colt suddenly melted before Rainbow’s astonished eyes, shrinking and morphing into a slender, feminine frame while the blue coat faded to purple. A moment later, Twilight Sparkle stood before her, grinning happily. “Pretty good, right? Got you!”
Rainbow sat down with a thump, her mouth hanging open as she sputtered in shock. “Wha—how—I saw…but you were…huh?”
The purple unicorn pranced to her side. “It’s called a glamour. I was working on them back in Ponyville. Basically, it gives you a temporary change of appearance, like a costume made of magic.”
“Whoa.” Rainbow gave her head a shake. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. That was totally freaky, Twilight.”
“But a perfect way for us to get into the quarry and find out what’s going on, right? I can costume us both and we’ll sneak inside and down into one of the tunnels. I’ll talk to some of the guards and you can question the workers.”
“You don’t think they’ll be too nervous talking to an overseer?”
“Yeah…about that.” Twilight’s horn glowed softly magenta and Rainbow felt a strange tingling wash over her. Glancing down, she snorted in surprise to find her pale blue coat was now the dingy, bland color of dust. Standing up quickly, she craned her head around to see that her brilliantly colored tail had turned a nondescript, mustard yellow. Even worse, her wings were gone!
“What the—Twilight!” She jumped backwards and felt a surge of relief as her wings automatically opened at her sides. They weren’t gone—they were invisible!
“Shh!” Twilight clapped her hoof over Rainbow’s snout, silencing her. “Not so loud.”
“But why do I have to be a slave pony?” Rainbow asked, kicking sulkily at a twig.
“The overseers might be suspicious if two new guards show up, but they probably won’t notice an extra slave. Besides, it’s my spell.”
The pegasus opened her mouth to argue that she would make a much better guard than Twilight, then thought of Acorn, the slave pony she had met the night before. Now was not a time to pout over a stupid spell—not when there were ponies desperately in need of their help. “Fine,” she relented, surprising Twilight with her quick compliance. “How long will this spell last?”
“I think a few hours, at least, but you’re going to have to stay as close to me as you can without getting noticed. It might fade if you get out of range—besides, we may have to teleport out of there in a hurry.”
Rainbow didn’t have the chance to reply to that. Both ponies jumped at the sudden, sharp crackling of twigs nearby. Twilight suppressed a yelp and hurriedly cast the glamour over herself, morphing into the burly overseer just as a wiry mare with a whip wound about her neck appeared around a tree. She stopped short, eyes widening and flickering back and forth between the two ponies. Finally, she cleared her throat.
“Sorry, I thought I heard something and, what with the diggers who ran away recently, just wanted to investigate.” She jabbed a hoof at Rainbow Dash. “Was this one runnin’ away too? You caught her, did you?” She dropped her head so the whip slid from her neck and caught the end in her mouth, giving it an expert flick that made the supple leather snap loudly. “Want me to bring her back and make an example of her like we did the others?”
Rainbow Dash didn’t have to fake a wince at her words—she had felt the wind of the whip on her cheek and instinctively flinched. Twilight stood and stared at the mare, unable to think of a single thing to say. The silence stretched between them until Rainbow pointedly cleared her throat, hiding it in a cough.
Quickly, Twilight gathered her wits and gave her head a brisk shake. “No need,” she said curtly, not wanting to imagine what Rainbow Dash would do if the mare tried to make an example out of her. “I’ve got this. Come on, you!”
Leaving the mare staring after them curiously, she gave Rainbow a rude shove to make her walk towards the quarry. Rainbow bit her lip hard and, letting her head hang, went without a word, not even when Twilight punctuated her authority by jabbing at her several times with a hoof and berating her for being slow.
Somehow they made it all the way to the tunnel-pocked cliff face without being stopped or questioned by any other pony. No other guards took any interest in them and Twilight took the chance to steer them towards a line of ponies filing into a tunnel with metal pails. Rainbow found an abandoned pail and picked it up, falling into place behind a dull orange colt who had half healed whip scars crisscrossing his haunches.
The interior of the tunnel was slightly brighter than the outside, since the light of the sparse torches was concentrated and reflected off the brown walls. The stone also echoed and amplified the sounds, so they were immediately surrounded by a cacophony of hammer taps, hoofbeats, the rattle of wheels, and a blur of voices.
After a hundred feet the tunnel opened up into a small chamber, wide enough for a half dozen ponies to line the walls on either side of the path. These ponies sat on their haunches, chipping away at the stone with small hammers held in their mouths. A single guard watched this area and waved them impatiently on before cracking the staff he used instead of a whip against the wall. The tempo of hammering increased.
They moved deeper into the quarry, following a series of tunnels that sloped continuously downward. Rainbow tried to keep an eye out for anything that could be considered a clue, but as an hour passed, she saw nothing but the occasional side vein of digging ponies and the tail of the colt in front of her.
“Ponyfeathers!” she muttered under her breath. “How much longer can it be!”
To her surprise, the colt answered her, pitching his voice low. “I wouldn’t be too eager if I were you. We’re going to the Big Cave.”
“Big Cave?” Rainbow echoed.
“You must be new here. That’s a pity. You’re young.” There was a moment of silence broken only by the steady clopping of hooves, then he spoke again. “The Big Cave is big, open. Lots of digging spaces. Once you’re down there, it’s for good. You eat, sleep, and dig—not always in that order—all underground. Say goodbye to sunlight, stars, or fresh air. You’ll probably never see them again.”
At those words, the tunnels suddenly felt smaller and tighter around Rainbow Dash. She loved the freedom of the open skies, with all the wide, empty space to stretch her wings and fly as far as her wings could take her. What would happen if she was trapped underground, not just for hours, but for days or months or even years, with no cool breezes or soft clouds, or even smells other than dirt and rocks and sweat? Feeling her wings start to rise in panic, she hurriedly pushed the thought from her mind before it made her crazy.
She glanced quickly over her shoulder to see if Twilight had heard the colt, only to find that Twilight was no longer behind her. A dark green mare was plodding along in her wake and she couldn’t see her friend anywhere. Swallowing hard, the pegasus tried to stay calm, reasoning that Twilight might just have fallen behind a little and would soon come walking around that last bend.
To keep herself from worrying, she looked forward and spoke to the burnt sienna tail before her, “What’s going on here? Why all the tunnels and digging?” The loud crack of a whip split the air, followed by the pained cry of a stricken pony. “The whips?” she added.
“I don’t know,” was the reply. “First we thought it was gems, but they got lots of those by now. That unicorn even got angry last time he came and they only had buckets of gems to show.”
“Unicorn? You mean Goldhoof?”
“Didn’t have no gold hoof that I ever saw. Not that I looked much, not after he blasted poor Sweetwater.”
“What? Blasted!”
“Shh! You’d better keep it down,” the green mare admonished. “Talk too much and they notice you. Get noticed and you get whipped. Got it?”
Rainbow fell silent, but her mind was racing. Goldhoof was the only unicorn in Saddellia—at least, he had been before Twilight and Rarity—so what unicorn was this pony talking about that didn’t have the advisor’s very noticeable yellow hoof? And what exactly had that unicorn done to Sweetwater?
Before she could begin to puzzle out any of these mysteries, the tunnel turned right and opened into the Big Cave. Yet it wasn’t the size of the cave that made Rainbow stop in awe, but the sweeping silver walls of a castle being slowly, but methodically freed from a prison of stone.
“Whoa!” she breathed. What in the hay was going on here?
**
Twilight couldn’t believe it. After all the warnings she had given Rainbow about sticking close and the possibilities of the glamour unraveling, the pegasus had gone and disappeared! Well, Twilight had stopped for just a minute when she’d spotted what looked to be ancient pony petroglyphs drawn on the wall of one of the alternate tunnels—it had turned out to be only a poorly rhymed limerick accompanied by a stick figure drawing of a pony. When she’d turned back around, the coffle line of slave ponies had been gone.
Stifling a yip, she broke into a trot to catch up, hurrying around a corner and down a sloped path. She was so intent on finding the coffle line that she didn’t see the crème-colored mare stepping out of a side tunnel until she had crashed into her. The two went down in a tangled flurry of hooves, rolling and skidding a dozen feet down the tunnel before catching up on a jut of rock with bruising force.
“O-ow?” The crème mare raised a hoof dazedly and waggled it back and forth, then rolled over and wriggled out from under Twilight, somehow managing to kick her on the snout as she did.
“Ow!” Twilight yipped, clasping her hooves to her nose.
“That’s what I said!” She got to her hooves and patted a good deal of dust off her maroon tunic. The cap she’d been wearing fell off, revealing a wild spill of aquamarine and chartreuse curls that matched the musical notes surrounding her flute cutie mark. “What are you doing running down the tunnels? You know that’s not allowed. One of us could have been seriously hurt.”
“I-I’m sorry,” Twilight stammered, struggling to her hooves. “I wasn’t thinking and I lost sight of my group and…”
The mare frowned, squinting at her skeptically. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you around before.”
Heart starting to pound, Twilight said, “Uh, I’m…you see, I’m, uh, new here?”
The mare continued to frown at her, giving her time to begin to sweat nervously, then suddenly broke into a cheery smile.
“I thought so! Why else would you be dumb enough to run in the tunnels?” She pranced up to Twilight’s side and patted her on the shoulder. “Nice to meet you. I’m Piccolo.” Suddenly, her face scrunched up in a wince and she rubbed her leg, giving a rueful little laugh. “I guess this could have been considered a cute meeting if we both weren’t all bruised now. What’s your name, handsome?”
Reminded that she was in the guise of a colt and glad that the glamour changed her voice as well as her appearance, Twilight managed a weak chuckle and smile to buy herself time to think of a suitable name. Piccolo continued to look at her expectantly, so she blurted, “Midnight, uh, Mist. My name is Midnight Mist. I didn’t mean to knock you down. I just, well, I managed to get myself a little lost.”
“Really?” Piccolo raised an eyebrow. “Where are you supposed to be?”
“Um…I was with a long line of ponies heading in from outside. I think they were headed for…” She trailed off slightly, hoping Piccolo would take the lead and supply a suitable answer. Luck was on her side.
“The Big Cave?” she prompted.
“Yes! That’s it. The Big Cave. I need to get to the Big Cave.”
“Hmm, yeah, I guess they would be bringing in new ponies for the Big Cave, since they found that new chamber and all. Strange that they sent a newbie down, though. Woulda thought they’d let you get your bearings outside first. Harder to deal with ponies who’ve been stuck underground for weeks.”
“Weeks?” Twilight echoed.
Now Piccolo’s face took on a slightly sympathetic look. “Yeah. Takes too much time to move them about in regular shifts and too easy for some to try getting away in the confusion, so once they come down from outside, they’re usually here to stay.” She suddenly bumped Twilight with her shoulder, amazingly strong for such a slight pony. “Come on, you big doof. I’ll show you the way. Keep wandering around aimlessly and you’ll get yourself in trouble. I’d hate to see you end up as a digger.”
Now that was a shock. Even Saddellians weren’t immune to being slaves in the mine apparently. Following behind Picollo, she wondered how many of the miserable ponies she had passed were actually from Saddellia and not Equestria. Had they been using Saddellian slaves all along and only started raiding Equestria when the need for more ponies became evident?
She pondered these questions as Piccolo led her back up to the main tunnel and turned towards the downward slope. The crème mare seemed happy enough to keep up the conversation, kindly filling Twilight in on the day to day duties within the mine and imparting helpful tips to stave off the claustrophobia that almost always hit the newer arrivals after awhile. When she asked Twilight where she was from, the unicorn mentioned the only part of Saddellia she could remember—the Blue Hills that Rainbow had been given. Piccolo laughed, calling her a “country colt”.
“Yeah,” Twilight said, deciding to play that tactic. “They didn’t even tell us what was going on, just that they wanted recruits to help with a…a royal project. What are we looking for here? Gems?”
Piccolo shrugged with a toss of her bright mane. “We’re finding plenty of those, that’s for sure. Not that we get to keep any of them—a wagon comes once a fortnight to take the best ones away.”
“So it is gems?”
“I don’t know, honestly. They take them, but personally I think we’re after something else. Something a lot better. Things got really exciting around here once the diggers found the castle.”
“The royal castle?” Twilight asked, surprised.
Piccolo paused and looked over her shoulder. “No, the buried one. Sheesh, didn’t the recruiters tell you anything? You sure you were conscripted to be an overseer and not a digger?”
“I, uh…”
The crème pony shrugged. “I won’t say anything. Personally, I think you’d be wasted on digging.” She grinned impishly and flicked her tail.
Twilight blushed, hoping it wasn’t visible against her coat. Clearing her throat, she muttered, “Uh, Piccolo, who’s they? Do you mean the king?”
“The king?” Piccolo rolled her green eyes. “How would I know? I’ve never seen His Majesty in my life. Besides, it’s unicorns who come for the gems, and the king’s an earth pony like us, isn’t he?”
Playing on the fact that Saddellia was inhabited by earth ponies, Twilight faked astonishment. “You’ve seen a unicorn?”
“Seen two of ‘em, back when I was working the wall outside. Never got to talk to either of them, but saw one cast a spell once.” Here, some of the light left her eyes and she shuddered a little. “I never want to see anything like that again, I tell you.” She shook her mane with a sound of disgust. “I was up on the scaffold when one of them started yelling at this mare, Garnet Glimmer. Heard him say that things were going too slow. He got so mad that his horn glowed and he lifted up this huge rock—I mean, it was enormous! Three ponies couldn’t have pulled it in a wagon. But he covered it in this orangey light and the thing rose right up in the air and floated over Garnet Glimmer’s head. The whole quarry just froze, but none more than Glimmer! I swear, she nearly fainted right there. But the unicorn just tossed the boulder away and left.”
“That’s awful!” Twilight gasped.
Piccolo nodded. “I asked to work in the mine after that—figured there would be less chance of running into that unicorn myself. That was before the diggers found the castle though.”
“Right, the castle. Can you tell me more about that?”
“What for? You’re going to see it for yourself in just a minute.”
True to her word, Piccolo led her around a jutting corner of rock and Twilight’s mouth fell open. There, in front of her, was a cylindrical tower and part of a wall sticking out of the brown rock of the quarry. It was enormous, easily ten stories tall, and surrounded by the same rickety wooden scaffolding used in the quarry outside. Clearly, it was made from stone that had been brought in from elsewhere, for the walls she could see had a bright, silvery sheen even through a haze of dust. Scores of ponies clambered around it, digging more and more of the silvery building from the surrounding rock while overseers shouted and cracked their whips.
“Amazing, right?” Piccolo snapped Twilight’s mouth closed with a flick of her tail. “This is only a tiny bit, too. There’s much more still back there, buried in the rock. And I’m guessing what we’re looking for is in there, too, ‘cuz it sure made those unicorns excited when we found it.” She suddenly took a step backwards, her eyes raking over Twilight from head to haunch. “Huh! That’s really weird. I could have sworn your coat was dark blue when you first bumped into me.” Brow furrowing, she trotted around Twilight in a slow circle. “In fact, I’m sure it was!”
Startled, Twilight raised a hoof to her eyes and was horrified to see her coat had grown considerably lighter and was taking on a distinct lavender tint.
“O-oh, uh, no…no, um, my coat is, uh, it’s weird like that. It seems like it changes color but it’s actually just my guide hairs refracting light at different wave lengths depending on the brightness of the room.”
“Say what?” Piccolo cocked her head to one side, giving Twilight a look that suggested she had gone crazy.
“My coat looked darker because the light in the tunnel was darker?”
“Oh, well why didn’t you say so?” Piccolo chuckled and nudged Twilight with an elbow. “Trying to sound all smart for me, huh?”
“Y-yeah.” Twilight grinned nervously. “That’s me, a regular smarty-pants.” Using her temporary advantage of height, she anxiously looked over Piccolo’s head, scanning the scores of ponies at work and hoping to spot Rainbow Dash amongst them. Was she that orangey pony to the right? Or was her coat more like that yellowish green on the mare to the left? With a stab of horror, Twilight realized she had forgotten what Rainbow looked like in her glamour. And if Rainbow’s spell was fading like hers, judging by the changing in her coat, Twilight needed to find her quickly and get them out of the mine.
“What’s the matter? You look all twitchy,” Piccolo observed.
“N-nothing…I’m just really late and need to find my group. Thanks for your help.” She started to move away, but Piccolo broke into a trot to stay at her side.
“No problem. I’ll help you find them. Do you remember what any of them looked li—”
“Aaiiih!”
“Hang on! I’m coming!”
Across the cave, a gray pony suddenly plummeted from one of the upper levels of the scaffolding, screaming as he felt towards what would surely be a fatal collision with the cave floor. Barely a heartbeat later, another pony leapt fearlessly after him, hooves extended in a dive that soon had her able to fling her forelegs around the colt, slowing, then halting his downward drop only a few pony lengths above the ground.
“Whoa!” Piccolo exclaimed, whirling around to gape at the pair of earth ponies now floating in midair in the center of the cave. “Do you see that? They’re flying!”
Twilight draped a hoof over her face. “Nevermind. I found them.”
**
. “Alright, let’s go! No slacking! There’s digging to be done! Move it, you mules! Get going!”
Rainbow Dash had barely a minute to marvel at the castle in the cave before a huge mare stalked down the coffle line and started shoving them towards the scaffolding.
“You, first level, now!” She swung a cudgel at a pink mare who whimpered in pain and scampered to the lowest level of the castle. “Next, third level. Get a move on!” Each pony she passed received a level assignment and a bruising blow from the cudgel if they didn’t move fast enough. Though she shook all over with barely contained fury, Dash was ready when the mare reached her. At the shout of, “You, second level!” she sprang from her place in the line and cantered towards the scaffold, ducking beneath the cudgel so it whooshed harmlessly a foot over her head.
Taken off guard, the overseer had to scramble for balance and immediately turned her ire towards the next pony in the line, a slight, trembling gray colt with a green and black mane. She didn’t even give him his assignment before lashing out with the cudgel, striking him hard across the withers. As he cried out and cowered, she screamed at him to get to the top level.
The colt gulped and looked up at the towering structure. He had to crane his head all the way back to see the top level and immediately began shuddering. “No!” he wailed, flinging himself down to the ground. “Please, no, I can’t! It’s too high! Please, give me something closer down—I can’t do it!”
The mare snarled at him around the handle of her cudgel. “You’ll do what I tell you to do!” The colt yelled when she struck him again, curling up tighter on the ground. This only prompted the mare to hit him harder, while the remaining ponies quickly and nervously backed away.
“Hey! Leave him alone!” To the astonishment of the overseer, Rainbow came galloping back and interposed herself between the colt and the cudgel. The last blow went wide, glancing off her ear, and her vision blurred with tears. Blinking them away, she narrowed her eyes and glared at the other mare. “Can’t you see he’s scared of heights?”
The overseer’s face registered her shock for only a moment before turning ugly with rage. “Not my problem!” she snapped. She raised the cudgel again, but hesitated when the dust-colored mare refused to flinch or back down. She wasn’t used to the slaves taking a stand, and there was something in this mare’s eyes that was strange—a strength and spirit that hadn’t yet been broken.
“Let us switch, then,” the smaller mare declared. “Heights don’t bother me at all, so I’ll go up top and he can go to the second level in my place.”
The colt dared to raise his head hopefully, though he flinched when the overseer’s gaze swung to him. A dangerous smile crossed the large mare’s face.
“Would you like that?” she asked in a simpering voice, stepping forward and lowering her head until they were face to face. “Do you want to keep your four little hoovsies down here near the ground while this one takes your place at the top?”
Hardly able to breathe, the colt tentatively nodded. “Y-y-yes, p-please?”
“Forget it!” Flecks of spittle flew from her mouth as she screamed at him. “You’ll go where I tell you to go! And you!” She rounded on Rainbow Dash, who held her ground, though she flattened her ears against her head. “You want to help your little boyfriend so much, you can join him on the top level! Hey, Shale!”
A blue-gray colt trotted over, toying with the whip looped around his neck. “Yeah, Skipper, what?” he asked, looking annoyed.
“I need you to follow these two trouble-makers up to the top level and make sure they get to work,” Skipper told him. Leaning close, she whispered into the colt’s ear, making him jerk his head back in surprise.
“What?”
“Just do it!”
Shale shrugged. “Sure, whatever, as long as you do all the explaining after. Alright, you two, let’s go, on the double!”
The gray colt whimpered, but got slowly to his feet when Shale pointedly uncoiled his whip. Haltingly, he started walking, but balked again at the foot of the splintery ladder nailed to the scaffolding.
“I…I c-can’t! I’ll fall!”
“You’ll be okay,” Rainbow encouraged from behind him. “Just put one hoof over the other and don’t look down. I’ll be right behind you the whole way.”
“But…but…” The colt looked over his shoulder at her, his cheeks damp with tears.
“Go on. I won’t let you fall.”
Taking a shuddering breath, the colt nodded and started climbing. The ladder was narrow and made from branches nailed together in a haphazard way. Some of the rungs were loose while others were spaced far apart, so they had to stretch to reach them. The colt moved jerkily, testing each rung before trusting his weight to it. It made for slow going and Rainbow began to grow impatient. Using her wings, she could have made it to the top a dozen times over before they had even climbed a third of the way.
Halfway up, the colt made the mistake of glancing down and was overcome with vertigo. With a frightened squeak, he frantically wrapped his legs around the ladder, causing it to sway precariously, and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Hey, buddy, c’mon, you don’t want to stop now.” Rainbow reached up and tapped his rump with her hoof, but he only hugged the ladder tighter, refusing to move.
“I can’t!” he gasped. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but I can’t!”
“Get moving!” Shale yelled from a few feet below, deliberately shaking the ladder from side to side and making the situation worse.
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow edged further up the ladder until she was just behind the colt.
“What’s your name?”
“H-H-Hickory,” he stammered.
“Well, I’m R—uh, Dusty. I’m right here behind you and I know you can do this. We’re already halfway there. Just a bit more to go.”
When the colt didn’t budge or reply, she groaned loudly. “Look, I know you’re scared, but it’s not going to get any better if you just sit here like a bump on a log.”
“Move it!” Shale bellowed.
Hickory jumped, nearly losing his grip on the ladder, and screamed in terror. Starting to tip backwards and flailing, he barely managed to hook one hoof around a rung and pulled himself back. Shaking all over and gulping back sobs, he tentatively put out another hoof, and then another.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Rainbow started climbing again behind him, wishing once again that she could spread her wings and fly up to the top. Hoofing it everywhere was just too slow!
At long last, Hickory made it to the top of the ladder and hauled himself onto the wobbly platform. He managed to walk away from the edge, then collapsed with a shaky sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. A couple of diggers paused briefly to glance his way, then apathetically returned to their work.
“See?” Dash hopped nimbly onto the landing, blissfully unbothered by the precarious swaying or the sheer drop just a foot to her left. “I toldya you’d be fine!”
“That’s what you think.” Shale jumped onto the platform, making it rock even more. The diggers looked up again, and those nearest the ladder quickly edged away from the grinning overseer. “Troublemakers like you may take the long way up, but I’m gonna show you the short way down.” Rounding on the prone Hickory, he dragged him to the edge of the platform. “Time to make an example!” he bellowed.
Hickory uttered a single scream as the overseer tossed him off the scaffold.
“And now for y—oof!” Shale started towards Rainbow Dash, but was knocked off his hooves as the small, dust-colored mare barreled past him and leapt into the air of her own accord.
“Hang on, I’m coming!” Rainbow shouted. As all eyes were drawn to them, she flapped her invisible wings and dove after the tumbling pony. With the ground moving ever closer, she stretched out her hooves, wrapping her forelegs around Hickory’s middle. The colt’s mouth was wide open in a silent scream and his eyes bulged when she flared her wings sharply, breaking above the hard stone of the cave floor.
“Got you!” she gasped, grinning widely despite the new ache of her wrenched arms and over-tasked wings. She flapped them slowly, hovering a few lengths above the cave floor.
“Do you see that? They’re flying!” somepony yelled out in the sudden silence that had pervaded the cavern.
Glancing about, Rainbow saw that the entire cave was now watching them. She groaned. “Aw, horseapples!” So much for not getting noticed. Twilight was never going to let her live this down.
“Put me down! Put me down!” Hickory thrashed in her arms, kicking and yelling until she let him go. He dropped in a heap, then scrambled to his hooves and galloped away from her.
“You could say thank you!” Rainbow shouted after him. She shook her head disgustedly and looked up at the scaffolding. “Stop a pony from a ten story drop and he just—uh oh!”
Shale had stumbled over the edge when she’d rushed past him. Now he held desperately onto one of the support posts, his hind legs dangling and kicking helplessly. None of the slave ponies were moving to his aid and his grip was failing.
Quickly, she spun a somersault and rushed upwards just as Shale’s hooves slipped from the post. He made a last, frantic grab for it before plunging head over hooves. Rainbow powered upwards, meeting the bullying, murderous colt halfway. His weight staggered her, dragging them both a dozen feet down before her wings managed to catch them.
“Ow! What have you been eating? Rocks?”
Straining with the effort, Rainbow lifted him to the nearest level of the structure and dropped him unceremoniously onto the splintering wood. Briefly, she landed beside him and raised an eyebrow.
“How do you feel now, huh? I just saved your life. even after what you just did to Hickory.” She paused for a second, tapping a hoof against her chin. “And what you were probably planning to do to me.”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” Shale sat up shakily and his eyes bulged when he looked at her. “W-what happened to you!”
“Huh?” Rainbow glanced down at herself and yelped. Thesky blue of her coat was clearly visible through the glamour and her mustard yellow mane and tail were streaked with bright rainbow hues. Even her wings, when she looked over her shoulder, were starting to become visible again, the feathers glinting like those of a dragonfly.
“Uh oh,” she said again. The spell was failing.
“Y-you need to stay right there.” Shale stood, some of the authority returning to his eyes. He took a meaningful step towards the pegasus. “I don’t know who you are, but the bosses are gonna want to talk to you.”
“Yeah, probably,” Rainbow agreed, taking a step back. “But you see, the thing is, I don’t really want to talk to them.” Shale rushed her, but she simply stepped off the scaffold and flapped her wings, hovering just out of his reach. Almost immediately, a fuchsia glow surrounded her and she let out a sigh of relief. Grinning cheekily at Shale, she waved goodbye just before a flash of light dazzled all of the onlooking ponies and she vanished from sight.
**
Twilight watched as Rainbow Dash flew to the rescue of the second pony and knew she had to get herself and her friend out of there as soon as possible. Even from a distance, she could see that the glamour was fading on Rainbow, the blue of her coat coming through and her wings starting to become visible blurs at her back.
“That pony is flying!” Piccolo repeated, her voice squeaking. “How is that—can you believe—did you know ponies could—hey, where are you going?” She hurriedly broke into a trot to follow Twilight out of the tunnel and into the Big Cave. Dozens of ponies milled around on the ground level, heads tilted back in bewilderment to watch the flying pony. Piccolo followed suit, until she seemed to remember that she had a job to do.
“Okay, let’s go, everyone back to work!” she shouted, trotting amongst the ponies and shoving them back to their stations. “Who cares if a pony is flying—get digging, unless you want the bosses to find out!”
This threat was enough to get most of the ponies hurrying back to their hammers and chisels, but a few were still too astounded by what they were seeing to heed the diminutive mare. She drew her cudgel and brandished it at a pair of ponies, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to hit them. Frustrated, she turned to Twilight.
“Midnight, give me some help here. If one of the bosses shows up unexpected, we’re all going to be in trouble.”
“Oh, well, I, uh…I don’t know what…”
“Just get them back to digging! C’mon, hurry up!”
At a loss, Twilight took a couple of steps towards her, but Piccolo suddenly yelped, her pupils shrinking in horror.
“Wh-wh-what the hay!” she cried, skittering backwards and tripping over her hooves. She landed on her rump but continued to push herself away in utter panic. “You’re a-a-a mare!”
The glamour was gone and Twilight Sparkle was once again a petite purple unicorn.
“Oh no,” she muttered, then gave Piccolo an abashed grin. “I’m so sorry, Piccolo. You seem like a really nice pony—y-you really don’t belong here. Thanks for all your help.”
While the crème mare stared at her in stunned disbelief, Twilight pointed her horn at Rainbow Dash and cast her teleportation spell. She was usually closer to a pony when she was doing a joint teleport, but the spell worked perfectly all the same. Piccolo shrieked at the sudden, brilliant flash of light and threw her hooves up over her eyes. A moment later, when she dared to look, Twilight was gone.
**
“Waaih!” Rainbow Dash landed hard on the floor of her sitting room, her legs sticking up in the air and her wings bent awkwardly beneath her. In the same instant, Twilight landed neatly beside her, not a hair out of place.
“Whoa nelly!” Applejack nearly tipped over backwards on her chair, taken completely off guard by their sudden appearance. “Rainbow!” she scolded, sitting up with her hat askew over her eyes. “Warn a pony before you do that!”
“Me?” Rainbow rolled over, scowling as she tried to smooth her crooked feathers. “Talk to Twilight! She didn’t give me any warning either.”
“We wouldn’t have had to leave in such a hurry if you’d stayed close by me like I told you to,” Twilight said. When Rainbow glowered at her, she shrank back with a guilty smile. “Well, maybe I got distracted for a tiny bit.”
Before Rainbow could reply, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity appeared from the bedroom.
“They’re back! They’re back!” Pinkie sang. “It’s about time!”
“Yes, thank goodness!” exclaimed Rarity. “We were starting to get worried. The sun is almost fully up.”
“We had a bit of trouble at the end,” Twilight told them, “but we’re okay.”
“Yeah, things didn’t exactly go as planned,” Rainbow added. Quickly, she told them all of her experience in the mine, starting with Twilight’s glamour spell and going through her rescues of the two ponies. By the time she was finished, Fluttershy’s eyes were welling with tears and Pinkie Pie was close to joining her.
“Those poor ponies,” Fluttershy whispered. “How awful.”
Twilight went to Rainbow and hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry, Rainbow Dash. If I had known how bad it was in there, I never would have made you impersonate a slave pony. You could have gotten hurt.”
“Nah, it’s all good. What would have happened to that pony if I hadn’t been there to catch him? And I learned a lot. Seems Goldhoof isn’t the only unicorn involved in this.”
“That’s right!” Twilight then described her own meeting and conversation with Piccolo and what she had learned of the workings of the quarry. “It’s not gems they’re looking for,” she concluded. “It’s something about that underground castle—and it’s important enough for them to enslave ponies from Saddellia as well as Equestria to find it.”
“An underground castle,” Applejack mused. “Who woulda guessed?”
Twilight nodded. “It must have been there for thousands of years to have been completely buried in earth and for the earth to harden into stone. And whoever built it didn’t use stone from any of the local lands.”
“Right! They were shiny and silver,” Rainbow agreed. “Do you think they were magic?”
“I didn’t get any sense of magic from the walls themselves, but I got a feeling that there was something there with great power.”
“So maybe they weren’t looking for the building, but for something inside the building,” Fluttershy guessed.
“I wonder what it could be.” Twilight paced in a circle, her brow furrowed. “I need to go to the library and research this.”
“And I need to find Linden and tell him what we found.” Rainbow stood up and headed towards the door. “He’ll put a stop to this and let all those ponies go free.”
“Wait, Rainbow, not yet.”
The pegasus paused, but looked at her incredulously. “What? But they were whipping ponies and beating them…and…and throwing them off things. It’s going to keep happening unless we do something about it.”
“I know.” Twilight looked pained. “I know, and I want to help them, I do, but we don’t have enough information. We don’t even know if the royals are the ones behind all this. Goldhoof and this other unicorn may just be acting on orders.”
“You think Linden is a part of this?” Rainbow was aghast.
“No! No, I…I don’t know. I sincerely doubt it. But that doesn’t mean his parents aren’t, and what if Linden confronts them? They might be forced to hurt him or lock him up.”
“Not to mention us,” Applejack pointed out. “Ah think, at the least, they’d want us to go back to Equestria. Then Linden would have to pick between siding with his parents or believin’ you. You know how hard it is to have to choose sides when you feel loyal to both.”
“But what about all those ponies?” Rainbow persisted, torn and upset. “They tried to kill that colt, Hickory. What if they try again?”
Her friends had no answer for her, though Fluttershy murmured, “What if telling Linden gets him hurt?”
The blue pegasus wilted visibly, hanging her head. “I hate this,” she muttered, stomping her hoof on the floor. “Why does it all have to be so secret and difficult and…twisty!”
Their conversation had to come to a quick close when there was a soft knock on the door. Quickly wiping her eyes on her leg, Rainbow straightened and called out, “Come in.”
Lilac Breeze let herself into the room with a cheerful smile for them all and cast a concerned look at Rainbow Dash.
“Are you feeling alright this morning, my lady? You sound a little hoarse.”
Clearing her throat, Rainbow forced a grin. “I’m fine. I didn’t really sleep well last night.”
“Wedding nerves,” Rarity added with a wink in Rainbow’s direction. Lilac immediately clucked her tongue in sympathy.
“Of course, of course! You must be so excited and nervous. There’s so much to do in such a short amount of time and it all has to be perfect.” She sighed thoughtfully, her eyes taking on a dreamy look for a moment. “I know it’s going to be so beautiful. The event of the century.” A few seconds later, she snapped out of her reverie with an embarrassed grin. “My apologies. I have your schedule of invitations for the day.”
As Rainbow Dash listened to the litany of places and ponies she was expected to attend, her spirits sank even further. The last thing she wanted to do was sit through a boring breakfast with ladies of the court to discuss possible themes for her wedding or talk with the royal steward about the management of her lands.
The only highlight of the day was lunch, which was to be an informal date with Linden, and Rainbow immediately began counting the hours until she would see the prince again.
**
“A rabbit. It’s definitely a rabbit, albeit a fanged one.”
“Yeah, I see it. Ha! It kinda reminds me of Fluttershy’s Angel Bunny. Okay, how about that one?” Lying on her back on a grassy knoll beneath the palace orchards, Rainbow Dash pointed her hoof at a cumulus cloud floating to her right. Sitting beside her, Prince Linden scrunched up his face thoughtfully.
“Hmm, that one is a mushroom.”
“A fanged one?”
The prince laughed. “Almost. And it seems to be smiling.”
“Smiling mushrooms. Sounds like something from the Everfree Forest.” Rolling over, she helped herself to a biscuit and some grapes from the picnic lunch the kitchen had packed for them. “Well, what about that little one?” She indicated a cloud directly overhead.
“A heart,” Linden said immediately. “My heart. Because it’s floating over you.”
It was utterly corny, but Rainbow didn’t laugh. “That’s not a heart,” she said, then hopped into the air and flew to the cloud. She kicked and tugged at it, moving backwards a few times to assess her work with a critical eye before adding a few more pokes and prods. When she was finished, a perfectly shaped heart floated in the sky like a Hearts and Hooves Day card. Satisfied, she dropped down to land beside the colt. “That is a heart.”
Linden was smiling. “No, that was amazing!” Glancing upwards, he gestured to a much larger cloud. “What can you do with that one?”
“Oh, a challenge, is it?”
The prince crossed his hooves over his chest and winked at her. “Think you’re up to it?”
In response, Rainbow Dash darted to the sky again and attacked the cloud with gusto, flying through it, bouncing on the top, and spinning around and around to mold spiral spires. Down below, Linden cocked his head curiously as a shape began to emerge.
“A little more here…a bit more scale…and now for the finishing touch!”
Backing away from her creation, Rainbow revved her wings and blasted clear through the cloud, leaving a small, perfect hole that was immediately suffused with golden sunlight. Banking about, she hovered over Linden’s head and poked him cheekily.
“How about that!”
Linden couldn’t do anything but gape upwards in amazement, for now the sky overhead was dominated by a winged dragon with a snarling, tooth-filled mouth, a serpentine tail, and a single eye that glowed golden with the light of the sun.
“Cloud shaping was one of the activities in my Junior Speedsters flight camp. We had to race to see who could get it done the fastest.”
“You never cease to amaze me,” he said, then looked to the left, where the heart cloud was slowly drifting over the countryside. “The dragon is great…but I think I like my heart better.”
Still hovering beside him, Rainbow followed his gaze and nodded. “You know what? Me too.”
**
Despite her frightening and busy morning, Rainbow felt good as she left Linden by the doors to the kitchens and headed back to the Emerald Rooms. She had wanted to tell Linden everything, to spill all their secrets and let him know what she and Twilight had found in the quarry. She thought he had the right to know, and there was no doubt in her mind that he was a good pony who had nothing to do with the kidnappings and slavery. And she was sure he would be absolutely enraged when he found out.
But her friends’ words had struck a chord with her. Linden would feel honor bound to act once he knew, and if his parents really were behind the quarry, he would find himself torn between his honor and his family.
At first she had worried that she would slip up and blurt out the truth during lunch, but Linden was so charming and interesting that she had easily fallen into the rhythm of the date, which was simple, laid back, and just fun.
At the landing to her floor, she came upon a servant heading down the stairs with a load of laundry to be washed. The maid immediately stammered an apology and tried to back up, but Rainbow simply glided over her head without missing a step.
“They’re not going to learn to respect you that way.”
Looking around, she found Lord Goldhoof standing nearby, smiling thinly.
“Huh?”
The gray unicorn pointed his horn to the top of the stairs. “The servants. It’s their job to do their tasks as unobtrusively as possible. The nobility should not even see them, let alone get out of their way. This is especially true of the royals. As the future princess, you should have made her back up until you had passed.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Why? It was just as easy to fly over, and my friend Fluttershy likes to say that a little kindness goes a long way.”
“Yes, kindness. Interesting.” Goldhoof approached, eyeing her carefully. “And how are you doing this afternoon, Princess? The leg is healed now, I believe? No pain at all?”
“Good as new.” Rainbow flexed her leg and pranced in place. “It was just a scratch.”
“Glad to hear it. It certainly doesn’t seem to have slowed you down or kept you from going on little adventures.”
“Adventures?”
“Yes. It’s come to my attention that you have done some exploring beyond the castle grounds. In fact, I believe I have something that belongs to you.” He floated a sky blue feather from a pocket in his tunic and laid it on the floor before her. “Looks familiar, yes? Yet it was discovered miles from here. And where is your magical little friend?” The unicorn made a show of looking around, as if expecting to find her hiding behind a tapestry. “The one who has been spending so much time in the castle library?”
“Who? Twilight?” Rainbow lifted her eyes from the feather and shrugged again. “Probably off reading somewhere. She reads a lot.”
“Yes, quite the bookworm.” The unicorn arched an eyebrow, his lip lifting in a sneer. “Yet I could swear that she went along with you on your latest little jaunt.”
“Swearing is a bad habit,” Rainbow retorted, startled by what he knew but refusing to show it. “Know what else is a bad habit? Being a spy!”
“That’s not a very kind accusation, my lady. I am merely doing my duties for this kingdom.”
“And one of those duties, as the king’s advisor, is to spy on me and my friends?”
“My duties including protecting the kingdom, and the kingdom’s secrets.” He took another step closer, tilting his head to one side as he regarded her. “I can certainly understand why our beloved prince is so enamored with you—you’re flashy and bright, beautiful and exciting and brave…and, if I may say, reckless.” He started walking in a circle around her, forcing Rainbow to turn in place to keep him in sight. “Now, prior to your arrival, I had been observing a couple of likely prospects for our prince’s potential wife. Good breeding, also beautiful…sedate and obedient. Yet Linden has his heart set on a rainbow bride and the king loves the idea of winged grandchildren, so who am I to say otherwise?”
Rainbow bristled. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business one way or the other!”
“Perhaps not. It’s just that things always move so much more smoothly when everypony knows their specific place and duties, am I correct? A proper maid should go about her early morning tasks unseen, but should keep her eyes open just in case one of her betters should suddenly appear. A proper gardener should keep the castle grounds immaculate, and report any strange occurrences that may happen at all hours. And a proper lady shouldn’t go snooping about in things that don’t concern her.”
“It’s a good thing I never claimed to be a ‘proper lady’ then.”
“I suppose not.” His eyes drifted to a nearby window for a long moment before snapping back to her face. “I must say, I was surprised to find you here without your gaggle of little friends. You never seem to be far from them.” Lowering his voice, he added, “That’s probably a good thing.”
A strange tingle of nervousness washed over Rainbow Dash at his words and she narrowed her eyes.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
Goldhoof glanced around the hallway before answering. Sure that there were no servants milling about, he whispered, “Just that a certain rainbow-maned pony should learn how to behave accordingly if she doesn’t wish her good friends to come to some rather sudden, unfortunate ends.”
The young mare’s ears flattened against her head and her wings flared out.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
The unicorn smiled, unfazed by her show of temper. “Are you willing to risk your friends on that?” His smile turned sly as Rainbow considered this and deflated a little. “That’s what I thought. Now listen, my lady, and listen carefully. You and your friends are going to confine yourselves to the castle grounds from now on. You will fill your time with whatever ridiculous wedding preparations the queen and her ladies plan. And you will marry Prince Linden if he wishes to continue with this folly, yet you will not tell the prince about anything you may have seen or heard, including this conversation. If you don’t follow these instructions exactly, I assure you that your friends will suffer a series of mysterious mishaps, starting with the annoying pink one—oof!”
Goldhoof staggered as the furious pegasus whirled and kicked him. She didn’t hold back, and the impression of her hind hooves was clearly visible against the dark slate of his coat. The unicorn dropped to the floor, struggling to breathe, and she took to her wings.
Hovering close to his face, she snarled, “You stay away from my friends, or by Celestia and Luna you will know how Nightmare Moon and Discord felt when we were through with them!”
Goldhoof coughed and winced, prodding at a tender spot on his chest. When he looked at Rainbow Dash again, his yellow eyes were flashing dangerously.
“That was distinctly unladylike,” he griped.
The pegasus snorted. “Then all the ladies you’ve known are wimps!” She spun to leave, but Goldhoof held out a hoof, stopping her. Painfully, he climbed to his hooves.
“Kick me like a mule all you want, Princess, but my warning still stands. You can’t watch your friends every second of the day…can you?”
They glared at one another for a long moment, neither speaking. Then Rainbow gave a cry of disgust and soared over his head. In a blur of blue and rainbow, she vanished down the corridor.
The draft from her wings ruffled Goldhoof’s mane. As the prismatic colors faded, he let a smirk come to his lips. He had gotten to the little pony—that was for certain. No matter how much bravado she tried to show, her friends were far too important to her and she wouldn’t risk them coming to any harm.
“I’ll be watching you,” he muttered. Hearing a small noise behind him, he whirled around, then winced and clutched at his side. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped at the wide-eyed maid who had paused at the end of the hallway. “Get back to work!” When the servant had scrambled to obey, Goldhoof started limping painfully back to his chambers.
No, that kick had been most definitely unladylike.
**
Rainbow raced down the hall to her chambers and burst through the doors so hard they bounced off the walls, chipping the stone. Her friends, sitting about in the common room, glanced up in surprise.
“Rainbow? What’s wrong?” Rarity jumped up at the sight of her friend’s frantic face. “Are you alright, darling?”
“Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow shouted. “Where’s Pinkie Pie?” She scanned the room, but the pink earth pony was not there. Panicking, she rushed to the bathing chamber and flung that door open, looking inside. “Pinkie!”
“Rainbow, what’s going on?” Twilight came up behind her, looking alarmed. “What happened?”
“No time to explain!” Rainbow nudged her aside and cantered to the other side of the chambers. “I have to find Pinkie Pie. I have to know that—” Her bright pink friend suddenly came running from the bedroom and she gasped with relief, flinging her arms around the earth pony and hugging her tightly. “There you are! Thank Celestia, you’re alright!”
Taking the sudden embrace in stride, Pinkie hugged her back and laughed happily. “Of course I’m alright, Dashie. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Rainbow let out a shuddering breath and started to describe what had just happened to her. As Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack surrounded them, she noticed that one pony was missing from their group.
“Wait a second!” She released Pinkie and looked around again, her heart starting to pound. “Where’s Fluttershy?”