The following weekend was Twilight’s trip to Canterlot. She knew her schedule would be tight; she had ambassadors to meet, the Canterlot Hearth’s Warming ball to attend, and a lecture on Advanced Emotional Magic to give at the school with a reception after. She and Applejack agreed that it would be worth it for her to extend the visit by a day, to take a look at the Canterlot library for information, and to try to get some time to talk to Princess Celestia.
The former was easy enough, the entire library was at her disposal any time she needed it. The latter took some pleading notes, hoof twisting, and one hay of a guilt trip, just for a short tea with the busy solar princess.
Celestia’s sitting room was a tower with windows on all sides, with an unrivaled view of Canterlot and the surrounding countryside. The edges of the room were lined with low couches, and perched on one sat Twilight and Spike, while across the room Princess Celestia rested on another. Celestia sipped her tea, but Twilight’s cup hovered nearly forgotten as she explained the events of the past week.
“So, to summarize, something is going on in my house that ranges from annoying to awful, and I believe it’s connected to the homesteading ritual the Apples did on our roof beam eighty years ago. What should I do?”
“That does sound terrible. I’m so sorry, Twilight,” Celestia said with genuine concern in her eyes. As she considered the question, she cocked her head to the side. “I thought that homesteading was simply for luck.”
“That’s what Granny Smith said, but the magic was very real, and it must be directed at something…” Twilight explained, then her eyes went wide. “You mean you don’t know what it is, either?”
“Don’t look so surprised. I may be long lived and well read, but there’s only so much one pony can be expected to keep track of.” Celestia shook her head. “I don’t recall hearing of anything like what you’re talking about. What’s more, I personally checked Sweet Apple Acres for harmful magic before you moved there, and I found none.”
“You… did?” Twilight blinked. “And you didn’t find anything?”
Celestia smiled at Twilight. “You had enough to worry about, preparing for the wedding, and I thought you might assume the place to be safe. But I didn’t think there was any harm in looking, and when I found nothing out of the ordinary, I never mentioned it. They do have quite an infestation of fruit bats, though.”
Twilight sighed. “Great. This is just getting more confusing.”
“Or it’s becoming more clear,” Celestia said, taking a sip of her tea. Then she smirked at the look of resigned irritation on Twilight’s face. “Oh, Twilight, this isn’t some philosophical tangent. You are looking for an answer, the solution to a puzzle. I don’t have that to offer you, but I could give you more pieces. Whatever this magic is, it’s not dark magic, unless it’s something that’s been cast since the wedding. And if it is related to homesteading, it’s an anomaly. This is not a something I’ve come across in memory. I know that those aren’t answers, but I hope they can help in your search.”
Twilight relaxed and nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Princess.”
“You’re quite welcome. Other than this issue, are you enjoying life on Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Oh yes,” Twilight said happily. “My house is beautiful, when it’s not ruining my life, and the Apples are the most welcoming ponies I know. And Spike is having a great time.” She smiled at her assistant.
“Sweet Apple Acres is cool,” Spike agreed. “AJ makes the best food, and Apple Bloom is awesome, and having a room of my own isn’t bad either… ya’ know, when we’re not being haunted or cursed or whatever.”
Celestia smiled at both of them. “Then it sounds like it will be worth it to get this problem solved, once and for all.” Her smile turned sad as she rose to her hooves. “I’m afraid I have to get to my next appointment now, but I do wish you the best of luck, Twilight.”
“Thank you, Princess. And thank you for talking to me,” Twilight flew over and offered her mentor a nuzzle.
“Any time, Twilight…” Celestia nuzzled back. “Though, more notice would be helpful. I would have loved a longer visit.”
“I’ll remember that,” Twilight said, following Celestia out of the room with Spike right behind.
Twilight and Spike parted from Celestia and left the castle, headed for the Canterlot Library. Twilight knew the way by heart, though flying there didn’t allow for the same jolt of memories that walking the familiar path would have. But she couldn’t help but notice where old Hearth’s Warming decorations had been replaced by new, and where shops had closed and different stores took their places. Canterlot would always be special to her, but it just wasn’t home anymore. Besides, once they were near the library her path led down a less well traveled hallway that had never been a regular part of her walks, past a large portrait of a smiling zebra mare and through an unassuming door.
Twilight had never spent much time in the Zellena the Trusted Wing of Non-Unicorn Magic, so it took her a little longer than usual to orient herself. While much of the space in the wing was taken up by zebra and pegasus magic, three bookcases towards the back contained the extent of Equestria’s knowledge of earth pony magic. Twilight raised an eyebrow at the meager offerings — roughly a third of the population of the country got three bookcases? But she had to admit that in all of her studies, despite being a princess and having an earth pony for a wife, she’d never gone looking for these shelves before.
What books there were seemed to focus on a small range of subjects. Twilight skipped over the books on general metaphysics and the evolution of magic; the effect in her house couldn’t have been more than eighty years old, and she’d learned enough about the structure of the magic in her general studies. She was also able to rule out books on nutritional magic, and on the effects of magical ability on earth pony social structure, though those sounded fascinating and she had Spike note a few titles for her to look at later. A shelf of books on the subject of earth ponies who displayed unusual amounts of magic yielded more results; she selected a few of the titles and sent them to her table, planning to compare the ways a talent like that might be revealed.
The largest part of the section was on farming magic. Here, Twilight dug in, scanning indexes and sending a whole stack of books to her workspace. There were several books that mentioned homesteading, though none of them had more than a few listings in the index.
Once she was sure she’d pulled every book that seemed likely to help, she returned to the table where Spike was already scanning her selections.
“These two just tell us what we already know. Homesteading is a good luck ritual done by many earth ponies when they settle an unoccupied piece of land. Then they give the same instructions Granny gave you.”
Twilight nodded. “Just set those aside, and keep looking.”
But book after book gave them the same answers. It soon became clear that nopony knew what homesteading actually did, though the earth ponies clearly took it seriously as a superstition. The same instructions Granny Smith had shown her were written out several times, and the symbols matched the ones Granny had drawn.
The books on magically talented earth ponies were also disappointing. There was no mention of homesteading in them at all, nor any indication that even the most powerful earth ponies were capable of effects like the ones that had been happening at the farm.
Twilight stared at the homesteading symbols in one of the books on farming magic. She’d spent hours looking at them since Granny Smith drew them for her. Twilight knew hundreds of magical symbols, some of them so outdated that they were more curiosities than tools. She knew the theory behind them, different ways the glyphs captured and channeled magic. From the simplest method using written language, to complex signs that were most reliably reproduced by magic lest you end up with a smudge that would be difficult to explain to ponies cleaning up the wreckage, one thing was certain: the homesteading symbols didn’t seem to fit any parameters she’d ever learned.
Without looking up, Twilight said softly, “These… just… can’t channel magic. They look like a pony wrote down what they thought some magical symbols would look like. Exactly as if homesteading was a good luck charm with no real magic behind it... Okay, Spike, what does this tell me?”
“That… Apple Bloom and her friends could make really good earth pony curses?” Spike hazarded a guess.
“No.” Twilight shook her head. “They are channeling magic, in my house. So, where did earth ponies get a symbol that would contain and amplify such strong magic, but doesn’t fit a single magical theory? It sure wasn’t borrowed from unicorns.”
Spike closed his book. He knew this game. “They made it up?”
“That would have been nearly impossible. Even if these didn’t violate Hornquill’s second law of magical containment, it would have taken trial and error over thousands of years. And besides, writing would have worked just as well…” Twilight’s face shifted from frustration to curiosity. “Wait a minute. What if this was writing?”
“What would it say?” Spike asked.
“I have no idea. I don’t think anypony does. But what if it started out as writing? Maybe even in a different language. But it wasn’t really written, it was passed down through carvings, or drawings like Granny did. It means something, so it has power, but the letters aren’t even letters anymore, they’re just marks.”
“...And that means we still don’t know what it means!” Spike announced happily. Then he paused. “Uh, how does this help?”
Twilight looked up and smiled at Spike. “The same way Princess Celestia helped; the more information we have, the more we narrow down what we’re looking for. For the true meaning of a word to totally fall out of memory and become nothing but some drawings would take a long time. And during that time, the actual meaning of a spell could be easily lost as well…”
Spike nodded. “Okay, but why would ponies keep using it if they didn’t know what it did?”
“Well, they think it’s lucky,” Twilight explained. “It must do something that’s good for ponies… that would make sense, since Princess Celestia said it wasn’t harmful, and there haven’t been other problems like this that we know of.”
“How is breaking your stuff good?”
“I don’t know, Spike.” Twilight sighed, her face falling again. “I feel like… like I have all the pieces of a puzzle except for one. I just need to figure out what effect the spell could have that would make sense.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re just looking for something a spell can do that’s good for ponies, but bad for us; and that nopony remembers, but earth ponies use all the time?”
“Yeah…” Twilight shook her head clear and stood up. “Come on, Spike. Let’s take a quick look in the languages section.”
“Okay, lunch sounds— wait, more research? We do have to eat sometime, Twilight.”
“We’ll eat later.” Twilight stood up and headed to the door. “If this is a language, maybe we can find something similar in one of the ancient texts. We’ll check them all.”
Spike hurried to catch up. “Um, do you know how many ancient texts this library has? It’s a lot!”
***
Twilight and Spike both slept most of the train ride home the next morning, exhausted from a full night of poring over ancient languages. While Twilight hadn’t found anything resembling the carvings, a quick detour to cryptography convinced her that it was a language, at some point. But she could easily see how a word passed down through rough carvings and shaky old ponies who had no idea what it meant would lose its resemblance to anything in a book. She knew she’d probably looked right at the word, the translation written neatly next to it, and been unable to recognize it in the symbols.
Despite the drowsiness that came from replacing a good night’s sleep with a nap, Twilight’s eyes lit up when she saw Applejack among their friends as soon as she stepped off the train in Ponyville. She flew over to her and greeted her with a deep kiss, while the rest of their friends gathered around in a hug.
“How was Canterlot, darling?” Rarity asked before they even broke the hug. “Did you have a good time at the ball?”
“It was boring,” Twilight said, giving AJ another squeeze before letting go. “Everything in Canterlot was boring without you girls there.”
“Did ya’ get any studyin’ done?” Applejack hinted.
“Yeah, did you find out anything about your cursed house?” Rainbow Dash added, earning a glare from Applejack.
“A few things, but no real answers.” Twilight explained, starting to fly slowly in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres with her friends by her side. “It’s not a curse, for one thing. It’s not dark magic at all. Whatever it is there is something that’s probably helpful… just not to us.”
Fluttershy gave Twilight a look of pure concern. “But… the way Applejack described it, it sounded, well, dangerous.”
“It hasn’t hurt nopony yet,” Applejack pointed out.
“Not physically,” Twilight agreed.
Rainbow Dash glanced suspiciously at Twilight. “What about Twilight’s hoof?”
“I just tripped.” Twilight said. “... I think.”
Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “What if you didn’t?! What if it’s trying to hurt you?”
Fears pressed into Twilight's mind, but she pushed them back with a shake of her head. “Pinkie, that spell destroyed our house. If it wanted to hurt me, I think it could have done more than impersonate a tree root.”
“Twi, what if she’s right?” Applejack said softly. “I mean, it started out with stuff like movin’ ink pots and tossin’ your clothes in the snow—”
“I hope it knows those were hoof stitched,” Rarity pouted.
“I’m not sure this spell cares, Rarity.” Twilight’s ears drooped. “It didn’t care much about our family Hearth’s Warming decorations.”
“Oh!” Rarity gasped. “I’m so sorry. How very insensitive of me.”
“That’s just what I’m sayin’, Twi. It’s been gettin’ worse. It’s been quiet a few days, but… you think it might do somethin’ dangerous?” Applejack gave Twilight a worried glance.
“I don’t know, AJ. I really don’t. But we’ll have to be careful.” Twilight smiled, hoping the wavering in it didn’t show. “We’ve faced a lot worse than a cranky house.”
Rainbow raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah, but you weren’t exactly sleeping in Discord’s bedroom.”
“He slept on my couch…” Fluttershy pointed out.
“That’s a little bit different, darling,” Rarity said, smiling at Fluttershy.
Twilight bit her lip, then set her shoulders and smiled. “We’re not letting this chase us out. Right, Applejack?”
“If you’re stayin’ there, I’m stayin’ there,” Applejack said with a nod.
“Spike?” Twilight asked.
Spike considered the question. “My bed stays in your room.”
“Yeah, I guess that would be for the best, for now.” Twilight looked wistfully at her wife, and added quietly, “We’ll just have to get this figured out fast.”
“You know, I’m sure my sister asked about a sleepover tonight… perhaps Spike would like to come?” Rarity asked, with a wink to Twilight.
“A sleepover? At… your place?” Spike said, his voice dreamy and far away.
“In Sweetie Belle’s room,” Rarity said sternly, but Spike didn’t seem to notice.
Applejack and Twilight both silently signaled their thanks to Rarity, who nodded graciously.
As the group of ponies approached her house, Twilight noticed Big Macintosh standing by the door. Twilight’s face fell, and her heart beat faster. But she felt a nuzzle from AJ, and when she glanced over, Applejack was grinning.
“All clear, Mac?” Applejack called.
Mac smiled and nodded, and started to trot back to the farmhouse.
Applejack turned back to Twilight. “I set Mac to watch the place while we came to get ya’.”
“Yeah,” Pinkie said, nodding. “We have a surprise for you, but it’s supposed to be a happy surprise, not a yucky surprise like you had before.”
“A surprise?” Twilight asked, as they approached the door. Rainbow Dash flew ahead and opened it.
Twilight stepped inside, to find the front room decked from ceiling to floor. Somepony had gotten new garlands, this time wrapped with ribbons and beads, and hung them from the tops of the bookcases. Sitting on the bookcases beside the books were boxes wrapped in bright, shiny paper, and on the mantle sat a Hearth’s Warming cave made of gingerbread, with white frosting for snow, and little candy founders inside.
Her face lit up. This was her home again, maybe even more wonderful than before, because she knew the love her friends must have put into this.
“Surprise!” Pinkie shouted.
Rainbow grinned at her. “Doesn’t it look awesome?”
“It’s… it’s beautiful, you guys,” Twilight stammered, unable to take her eyes off of the decorations.
“It was Applejack’s idea.” Fluttershy smiled. “Nothing is irreplaceable... you can enjoy it, and you don’t have to worry.”
“Yeah, me and Dash got the evergreens, and Rarity and Fluttershy did the trimmin’, and Pinkie made the cave herself.”
“And if that one breaks you can just eat it up!” Pinkie pointed out. “Some meany-spell is no reason you shouldn’t have a good Hearth’s Warming!”
Twilight just grinned.
“Oh, and darling, I have one more thing for you.” Rarity’s magic floated out a box and lifted the top off. Nestled deep in tissue paper sat Twilight’s snowpony, carefully pieced back together. “I fixed Applejack’s embroidery as well. It’s as special as new.”
Twilight mouth fell open. She looked at her friends, eyes wide with wonder. “Oh Rarity! All of you! You’re the best friends ever!” Then her eyes landed on Applejack. “And you are the best wife ever.”
Applejack blushed and pawed the floor. “I just wanted to see ya’ happy, Twilight. Even if this don’t last, we’ll just keep bouncin’ back, and we’ll make it happier every time.”
Twilight flew over to Applejack and answered her with a deep kiss.
“When you guys are done eating face, there’s food in the kitchen,” Rainbow pointed out, flying past them towards the refreshments.
The rest of the afternoon was spent eating cake and drinking cocoa, talking about plans for Hearth’s Warming, and enjoying the company of friends.
That evening, Rarity took Spike and went to find Sweetie Belle and her friends, while the other ponies went to their own homes, leaving Applejack and Twilight to themselves. Twilight couldn’t stop smiling, and she sighed with contentment every time she looked around her home.
Applejack went to get some wood for the fire, while Twilight made a pot of tea and fixed two mugs. She carried them into the front room and took her place on her favorite pillow. As soon as Applejack had the fire fed she joined Twilight, wrapping her forelegs around her wife. They sat like that for a long time in silence, and Twilight enjoyed the peace and comfort all around her.
Applejack eventually broke the silence in a soft voice, “So, ya’ had a nice trip?”
Twilight closed her eyes and smiled. “It’s nicer to be home… but yes, the trip was fine. I was surprised, Princess Celestia didn’t know anything about our problem. She said she’s never heard of homesteading doing anything like this before.”
“And you’re sure it’s the homesteadin’?” Applejack’s hoof stroked Twilight’s wing.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. There were no magical signatures, Princess Celestia said there’s no dark magic on the farm, and even if there was another pony who would do these things, what would be the point? It’s not funny, nopony stole anything, and it’s not really an attack. If we rule out those things, and considering that we have a very magical spell at work with unknown effects…” Twilight felt herself tensing up, and focused for a minute on the feeling of a hoof smoothing her feathers as they tried to ruffle. “It’s the homesteading.”
“So, what did ya’ learn? In farmpony words, if ya’ don’t mind,” AJ said, smiling.
“You don’t want to get out the ‘High-falutin’ to Equestrian dictionary?” Twilight giggled. “Nothing that complex, actually. Just that I think homesteading is very old, and very magical, and that it must help ponies somehow. I’m almost certain the symbols came from a word in an ancient language, but they’re too garbled to make sense of. And this isn’t something that happens a lot, Princess Celestia has never heard of it. The question is, what does the spell do?”
“Well, say we take all this outta the question,” Applejack suggested. “What could it’ve been doin’ all these years on this farm?”
Twilight considered the new direction to explore, and her mind leapt into puzzle solving mode. “A lot of things. That level of magic could produce any number of effects. It could keep ponies healthy, attract wealth, produce good harvests…”
“Well… I can tell ya’ it don’t keep ponies healthy. And I ain’t exactly rollin’ in bits,” Applejack pointed out.
“What about harvests?” Twilight suggested.
“Granny Smith said that first year was a bumper crop, and they did the homesteadin’ after. Trust me, if you got magic that’s gonna make a good harvest, ya’ don’t use it after the harvest…” She looked at the ceiling, deep in thought, though her hoof never stopped stroking Twilight. “Granny said it’s a promise to the land that you’ll care for it, and it’ll care for you.”
“Taking care of somepony would mean helping them, doing good things for them.” Twilight said, nuzzling beneath Applejack’s chin.
“...Or keepin’ bad things from happenin’ to them.” Applejack gave Twilight a gentle squeeze. “Twi, could all this be a warnin’?”
Twilight’s mouth twisted. “I suppose it could, there could be some kind of precognition worked into the spell. But how are the things that happened supposed to warn us, and what are they warning us about?”
“What if it’s a warnin’ that somethin’ bad is gonna happen to us if we stay here?” Applejack said softly. “That’d explain why it started small… if we took the hint with the clothes, it wouldn’t have wrecked the room here.”
Twilight processed that. She looked around the room. Her room, in her house. She searched for a reason for it to not be true, but finally she just shook her head.
“No. No no no. I’m not leaving.”
“You think that’s what it is?” Applejack asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight said firmly. “First of all, I’ve done this ‘warning from the future’ thing before, and I’m not going through that again. I like my current haircut very much, thank you. And second, this is my house. I— that’s just really important to me, AJ. If something bad happens to us, it’s going to happen here, in the place I love, with the ponies I love around me.”
“You think that’s what it is.” Applejack looked at Twilight, eyes full of worry, but her tone was even as she said, “Twi, if my family went to the trouble of doin’ a magic spell to keep us from gettin’ hurt, don’t it seem kinda disrespectful to ignore it?”
Twilight closed her eyes and lay her head on AJ’s shoulder. “I appreciate the thought, I really do, but… I don’t want to leave. Please don’t make me.”
Applejack sighed and squeezed Twilight again. “Twilight Sparkle, I ain’t makin’ you do anythin’. But, that last time was a pretty strong warnin’. Even if it weren’t for whatever it’s warnin’ us about, do we really wanna live with the way it’s hintin’?”
“Well… maybe it’ll stop,” Twilight said hopefully. “Now that we know there’s danger, there’s no point in warning us anymore. It’s our choice to stay, right?”
“I reckon so…” Applejack reluctantly agreed.
“And we aren’t going to worry about the future.” Twilight smiled. “Future-Twilight is pretty smart, and she can handle herself.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Applejack chuckled. “‘Specially when I got right-now-Twilight, and we got the place to ourselves.”
Twilight met Applejack’s lips with a kiss, then smiled as they parted. “Mmm… I think I’ll need all of your attention on that.”
Applejack grinned and gently pressed Twilight back into the pillows. “I couldn’t think of somethin’ else right now if I tried.”
***
Winona was barking.
Twilight opened her eyes. It was the middle of the night, and Winona had hopped out of bed and was barking at the bedroom door. Applejack’s forelegs were still wrapped around Twilight, but Twilight could feel her stirring.
As the fog of sleep slipped away, Twilight’s heart sped up. Something wasn’t right. She needed to leave. There was a feeling in the house, a familiar sense of fear making her breath come heavy and her wings twitch.
Twilight took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Maybe there was nothing wrong. Maybe Winona heard a mouse, or a timberwolf howling in the distance.
Applejack carefully rolled out of bed and trotted over to the dog. “What is it, girl? Did ya’ hear somethin’?”
Winona looked from AJ to the door, and whimpered. Twilight could sympathize with the little dog right now.
“AJ, something’s wrong. I can feel it somehow.”
Applejack looked at Twilight, her expression steeled. “Okay, me and Winona’ll go check it out. You just sit tight, sugarcube.”
Twilight knew she should insist on going, but between Applejack’s order and her own pounding heart she couldn’t make herself speak up. Her blankets felt safer than out there, and right now the only thing that was actually wrong, as far as she knew, was that she was terrified.
“Okay, just be careful,” Twilight said, somehow keeping her voice calm.
Applejack flipped her hat on her head and gave Twilight a nod. “Will do.” She opened the door, and stepped into the dark hallway, closing it behind her and leaving Twilight alone in the bedroom.
Twilight listened to AJ’s hoofsteps travel down the hallway, down the stairs, then out of earshot. She immediately started imagining what AJ might find… another wrecked room? A message scrawled in blood warning them to get out? A portal to Tartarus? Maybe a portal to Tartarus full of blood that all the things in the room had been tossed into?
Her eye twitched, and Twilight decided it was time to stop imagining what AJ might find. Probably AJ would find nothing. This was probably her own imagination, feeding on the weird things that happened. The fact that there was a magical artefact that was probably trying to get them both to leave the house was absolutely not a cause for concern. Nothing bad would happen to Applejack wandering into a dark, enchanted house by herself. And nothing bad would happen to Twilight huddled alone in a dark room right below powerful magic that wanted her gone. And that shadow moving on the wall was just the branches of an apple tree in the moonlight. And the feeling that she had to leave right now was just—
Twilight jumped straight out of bed at the sound of a thump from downstairs. Applejack had been gone long enough! Twilight knew that she really should check on her.
Twilight hurried to the door and out into the dark hall. It was darker than the bedroom, where moonlight through the window at least allowed for some contrast between light and shadow. The hall was just darkness, with the only variance being a hint of light coming from the stairway.
“Applejack? Are you okay?” Twilight called, lighting her horn to push back the darkness.
Nopony answered, and now blackness just seemed to crowd around the edges, in corners and shadows.
Twilight moved quickly to the top of the stairs. Looking down, the room was dimly lit. Probably no more than one candle. She tried calling again, “AJ? Winona?”
Once again, there was silence.
“Owlowiscious?” Twilight squeaked as she started down the stairs.
...Or she would have started down the stairs, but instead she felt herself falling straight down. Her wings flew wide on instinct as she screamed, and she caught air just before hitting the ground.
“Twilight!” Applejack yelled from the front door, galloping across the room. She reached Twilight in seconds, and stood on her rear legs to pull her still-shocked wife out of the air and into a tight hug. “Twilight, are ya’ okay?”
“I— I’m okay. The stairs disappeared!” Twilight said as she caught her breath. She was shaking and wasn’t sure she could close her wings.
Applejack stroked Twilight’s back. “I kinda gathered that. They just… went away?”
“Yes, as soon as I stepped on them. It’s a good thing I can fly. And it’s a good thing I was going down them then. If it had been you or Spike, somepony could have been hurt!” Twilight’s eyes went wide and she hugged Applejack tighter.
“If ya’ hadn’t flapped them wings fast enough, you coulda been hurt.” Applejack pointed out, pulling back from Twilight to look her in the eye. “Twilight, let’s go. Please. Somethin’ don’t want us here, and it’s hittin’ too close to home.”
Applejack’s words made sense. Twilight knew that. And given the uneasy feeling that had only grown stronger combined with shock from the fall, Twilight knew that she had every reason to leave the house. But she had one reason not to, one reason that was more important than anything.
“This is my home. And yeah, it’s hitting me way too close to home! In my home!” Twilight looked up where the stairs should have been, towards the attic where she knew magic was radiating to try to chase her away. She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not allowed to do this!”
She stepped away from Applejack and turned and shouted up, “You hear that, you stupid spell?! I am a Princess of Equestria! I have magic too! You can’t just— just— bully me out of my house!”
Twilight’s nostrils were flared and she was breathing heavily. Her unbrushed mane and the wild look in her eyes made her seem like a pony possessed.
Applejack regarded her with wide eyes and said in a gentle voice, “Uh, Twilight, sugarcube, calm down. Please. How ‘bout we go someplace else an—”
“No! I’ve had it! All I want is my house, and my wife, and my books. I’m not leaving... that stupid beam is leaving!”
Twilight’s horn glowed, and she reached with her magic to the top of the house. Her magic wrapped around the roof beam, but another magic was pushing it away, pulsing from within the beam itself. Twilight braced her hooves and pressed into the magic, sweat beading on her forehead.
There was a loud groan, like the very frame of the house straining, and the books burst off the shelf closest to her, some of them slamming into one side of her body. But that couldn’t budge her, nothing could budge her right now. The house shuddered as her magic slipped through the magic of the house in spots, giving her a weak grasp on the wood.
“Twilight, if you pull that— LOOK OUT!” Twilight heard Applejack shout as the bookcase next to her started to teeter.
Twilight struggled to maintain her hold while shifting to the other side of the room. Her magic slipped just a little when the heavy wooden bookcase crashed to the ground where she’d been seconds before. But with a glare at the ceiling she forced against the magic with renewed determination.
“Twi, we gotta go, come on!” Applejack pleaded from behind her.
“I’m… not… leaving!” Twilight said through gritted teeth.
Her magic tightened around the wood, finally driving through the opposing magic and gripping around the offending beam. The house shook again, but Twilight was not going to be distracted this time as she prepared to rip the beam from the roof.
She didn’t get a chance before she felt herself yanked sharply backwards, seeing the spot where she had been standing slammed by the bookcase on her other side. Her concentration broke as Applejack pulled her by the tail, galloping fast and hard for the front door. Behind them, well made bookcases, heavy with books, tumbled to the floor with a series of crashes.
AJ kept running out the door and across the yard, finally collapsing in the snow at the treeline, Twilight’s tail still clenched firmly in her jaw.
“Applejack, let me go! I’m going to do something about this for once and for all!” Twilight yelled, still straining towards the house.
She felt her tail released just long enough to crash into the snow with AJ’s weight on top of her.
“Twilight Sparkle, listen to me! Just listen!” Applejack shouted at her, fear in her eyes. She panted for a second, then went on in a strong, even voice. “That ain’t a warnin’. That house is tryin’ to kill you. It’s tryin’ to— don’t go back in there. You can’t go back in there. Please, Twilight, please don’t…” The strength drained from AJ’s voice as it turned to pleading, then faded.
Seeing Applejack’s eyes, and feeling the cold snow and earth beneath her, Twilight blinked as the reality of the situation took hold.
“I— I just—” she stammered, unable to explain the fading storm of emotions in words.
“It’s okay, Twilight,” Applejack said softly, shifting from holding her down to wrapping her in a hug. “It’s just a house. There’s other houses in Ponyville. We can live there, and it’ll be okay. I don’t care where we live, so’s you’re safe.”
“I know,” Twilight whimpered, burying her face in Applejack’s shoulder and breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of her wife.
Applejack just held her like she would never let go, and said, “Just promise me ya’ won’t go back in there ‘til we get this worked out. Promise me that.”
“I promise.” Twilight nodded.
Applejack took a deep, shaky breath and stood up, offering Twilight a hoof to pull her out of the snow. Twilight accepted, and shook the snow from her wings.
“Poor girl, ya’ must be freezin’.” Applejack helped to brush off the snow. “We’ll go to the library tonight. Okay? We can stay there for a bit.”
“Okay.” Twilight nodded absently. Right now, the cold didn’t matter to her. Where they were going to stay didn’t matter. They were things that she knew, logically, mattered, but when the emotions from earlier drained they seemed to leave nothing behind.
“Good. We’ll go stay at the library.” Applejack swallowed, and took a deep breath as she stepped away. “Now, stay here… I’m just gonna go…”
Twilight blinked her tears away as she watched Applejack walk cautiously towards the house.
Applejack took another deep breath and called out in an uncertain voice, “Winona? Owlowiscious? Come’ere!”
For several heart pounding seconds, Twilight realized that Applejack had been too busy saving her against her will to do anything to help their pets. One emotion returned to her: searing, painful guilt, strong enough to paralyze her.
Owlowiscious flew out the door and landed on Applejack’s hat.
Then a bark broke the silence and Applejack grinned. “Here girl! Careful now!” she called towards the bark. Seconds later a ball of fur crashed into Applejack, licking her face.
“Aww, it’s okay girl… good girl. You’re a good girl, Winona.”
Applejack turned and walked back towards Twilight, smiling sympathetically. “Okay, sugarcube, let’s go.”
Twilight nodded, biting her lip. She found she could move again, but her ears still drooped, and she hung her head.
“Applejack, I’m sorry,” she said, as they started down the dark road towards Ponyville.
Applejack pressed against her. “It’s okay, Twilight. We’re all safe, and that’s all that matters right now. I mean that.”
“I know,” Twilight said, not sure if she agreed.