Rainbow Dash panted… panted… panted…
Everytime she moved, she heard the rattling of metal chains. As shivers ran through her body, she heard the echoes of her agonized breaths against the tight walls.
Something warm and wet trickled down her forehead and over her muzzle. She opened her eyes. The world around her flickered red once… twice. She saw glowing manacrystals propped up on columns situated around a metal dais built beneath her.
More trickling; Rainbow Dash licked her muzzle, tasting blood. A throbbing sensation coursed through her body, fixated in two points across her skull. With a groaning breath, she hunched forward--only to find herself dangling along the lengths of her chains. She wasn’t standing, and yet she wasn’t hanging either. All four of her legs as well as her two outstretched wings were looped with metal shackles bound to a cubicle framework surrounding her atop the circular platform. As her eyesight fell to the floor, she spotted twin puddles of blood along the edge of her shadow.
Glancing back up, she saw her reflection in something. A frazzled pegasus stared back, and two knobs of gnarled brown bone were protruding from the pony’s forehead. It was around this time that Rainbow Dash realized that it was her ruby pendant--hovering in a manafield about two meters directly ahead--that was reflecting her.
Her neck was bare.
“N-no… no!!” Rainbow Dash shrieked. She thrashed left and right, rattling the chains. But her restraints pulled tight from all angles, and she couldn’t move her body a single inch. She hissed and wheezed as a nightmarish pain echoed through her skull. Her ears twitched from what could best be described as a burrowing sound, and she felt the two bony protrusions slowly twisting like wooden screwdrivers piercing the layers of her of her skin. “Guhhhh-haaaugh!” Her eyes flickered red on yellow and back to their usual ruby, in constant flux. “This… this isn’t right! I shouldn’t be here! I-I shouldn’t be like this!”
”La’gnimaasaal thr’aala’kameel thien sel’uusuru, hra’ma ja’lessurem tren’tassan.” A regal voice drifted into the chamber.
Rainbow Dash looked up, breathless.
Princess Lasairfion trotted in from a pitch black corridor adjacent to the platform. She was followed swiftly by the Xonan interpreter, who was already speaking for the silkily robed monarch.
“And yet it is still unharmed, the little pony?”
Rainbow watched with twitching vision as Lasairfion stared at her in her state and calmly spoke, “Th’nna Oss Tray Oh tren’tassan messul m’beraasa diulen hassul thriel.”
“Oss Tray Oh pony is not bound by fear.”
“Hava’salem dre’draan mekhulien maakara’nal vimull thiul Negu’n?”
“Then why should it restrain from the voice of Negu’n?”
“This…” Rainbow hissed, floating helplessly in the web of chains. “Th-this is not power! This is chaos!” She gnashed her teeth as more blood poured down her head like an anointing. “It is very, very dangerous! I’m not being fearless by avoiding it! I am being smart!” She motioned with her head towards the pendant. “Now put that darn thing back on me and let’s be done with it! I’m serious!”
Lasairfion took a deep breath as she trotted around the circumference of the dais. Her voice drifted towards Rainbow’s ears like liquid gold. The interpreter tried in vain to emulate her Majesty’s grace.
“We knew it was coming because Negu’n felt it. Both beat with the same heart. Both breathe from the same skies. But where Negu’n has only slept, Oss Tray Oh has flown.”
“What…” Rainbow squeaked from the pain wracking through her body as she tried to keep her eyes on the Princess. “What are you trying to get at?”
Lasairfion shuffled to a stop and stared fixedly at the pegasus. She spoke in a firm tone.
The interpreter droned, “It needs it to commune with Negu’n, so that the glory of the Goddess will bridge the gap between the world and the sky.”
“You… you expect me to help you…?” Rainbow Dash was too exhausted to frown. “Like this?!”
Lasairfion smiled, her eyes glinting in the manalight as she spoke.
The interpreter said, “It will not help the Princess. It will not help the Goddess. It will help bring love and peace to this continent.”
Lasairfion leaned forward until she was practically purring into Rainbow’s twitching ear.
“It is not the pendant that saves it. It is loyalty that keeps it in this state, just as it is the Goddess’ noble devotion that keeps it in one piece, though infinitely pierced.”
“Infinitely… p-pierced…?” Rainbow Dash murmured.
By this point, Lasairfion was pacing towards the corridor from which she came. She paused, however, to stroke a gentle hoof across the surface of the Element of Loyalty. She spoke in a distant tone, though her regal smile never left.
“Breathe with Her. Commune with Her. Then She will learn to fly. There will be no need of pendant, nor fear. All will be the glory of Negu’n, as brought by Oss Tray Oh.”
The Princess left, and the interpreter followed her. Barely ten seconds after their departure, a loud mechanical grinding could be heard. The dais lit up beneath Rainbow Dash. She watched--breathless--as the entire circular platform spun in a slow circle. It lowered like a reverse drill, suddenly sliding down a deep cylindrical passage.
“Wh-what’s going on?!” Rainbow’s voice cracked as the chains rattled and rattled. If it weren’t for the glowing manastones around her, she’d be cast in darkness with her blood and pain. “Where are you sending me?! What is all this?!” She shook and grunted, but to no avail.
It was then that the cylinder gave way, and Rainbow Dash found herself lowering into a deep, cavernous abyss within the very heart of Sacred Hold. The air flew out of her lungs and her ears folded foalishly atop her head, for a loud, haunting noise was reverberating all around her.
A loathsome, wailing song.
Through the shadows below, something shifted, something cold, dark, and massive.
Rainbow Dash gulped as the platform rotated to a jolting stop. “Hoboy…”