//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 
// Story: It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door 
// by Jetfire2012 
//------------------------------//

	“Check!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she took her mouth off her priestess.  She had trapped the black king in the left section of its own half.
Twilight Sparkle lowered her head and picked up her king with her mouth, moving it one square over.
Pinkie used her hooves to move her remaining knight into position.  “Check,” she said again.
Twilight used her black palace to take the pink earth pony's knight.  It also set the black castle-shaped piece in just the right spot.
Pinkie did not have another piece she could move into immediate check.  She chose to move her one remaining pawn forward a space, and wait for Twilight's next move.
Twilight moved her own black priestess diagonally across.  “Check and mate,” she said.
Pinkie blinked, looking across the board at her own king.  Sure enough, she had backed it into a corner, and now it could not move out of range of Twilight's palace or priestess.  With a grin, she knocked it over.  “Oh wow Twilight!  I didn't see that coming at all it was so sneaky and super clever!”
The lavender unicorn laughed.  “Don't worry, Pinkie.  You're getting a lot better!  It took a lot more work on my part to beat you this time.”  It had been her own idea to teach Pinkie Pie to play chess.  Three days after taking ill, she noticed that strenuous physical activity began to exacerbate her condition, on top of doing any kind of magic.  She had sensibly decided to take it easy, but this had proven to be difficult with Pinkie Pie taking charge of her 'sickbed entertainment.'  The pink earth pony had enough energy for a dozen pegasi, and when confined to the library she tended to literally bounce off the walls.  To rectify this, Twilight had begun to teach her the many games she had learned over the years.  She had already taught her several new card games; Pinkie had an impressive poker face and could bluff as well as anypony.  They had started on chess yesterday, and again Twilight had been surprised.  For all her impulsiveness, Pinkie was a good player.  She was very aggressive, and it had gotten her into trouble at the beginning.  Now, however, she was tempering her tendency to attack with cleverer coordination of her pieces, surprising Twilight several times over the course of a game.
“Can we play again?” Pinkie asked.
“I don't know, Pinkie,” Twilight replied.  “It's getting late, and this game took a long time.”  She looked up at the window.  The sun was setting, streaking the sky with orange.
“Twilight,” Spike said, sitting nearby, “I think you should get to bed.”
“Spike, I'm feeling fine!” the lavender unicorn said.  “When I start feeling bad, then I'll go to bed, but for now I want to stay up!”
“I...” Spike trailed off.  He looked at Twilight's head.  The top half of her horn was completely black, with a long, thin streak of darkness running all the way to the base.  She could not even begin to do magic now without excruciating pain.  She also felt pain if she ran too hard or jumped too high.  She could not even escape the pain by avoiding magic, because the Horn Rot would trigger her magical circuit at random intervals, causing her to fall to the floor screaming in agony.  There was no way to tell when she would begin to suffer.  And her sleep had been... troubled.  The purple dragon could see the bags under her eyes, hear the exhaustion in her voice despite her cheerfulness.
“I at least want to stay up until Fluttershy gets back,” Twilight said.  “I have to be awake to take her medicine, right?”
“I guess...” Spike murmured.  Fluttershy and Zecora had been working together for the past week to devise new pain relievers, combining the butter-yellow pegasus' knowledge of body pain and its treatments with the zebra shaman's skill at concocting complex brews.
“Don't you worry your spikey little head, Spikey!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.  “Twilight's going to be just fine with a little more waketime, and that's plenty of time for one of my games!”
“One of your games?” Twilight repeated.
“Uh huh!” the pink earth pony exclaimed, bouncing up and down on her elastic knees.  “It's called Rainbow Spy!  Dash and I came up with it!”
“How do you play?” Spike asked.
“Oh, it's easy!”  Pinkie Pie said.  She sat back on her haunches, raised a front hoof, and swirled it around.  “I spy with my pinkie eye, something colored... purple and white!”
“Purple and white?” Twilight Sparkle repeated.  She put a hoof to her chin.  What was nearby that was purple and white?  She looked around the library.  They were sitting on some cushions near the stairs leading up to her room, the tall shelves carved into the walls filled with books of all shapes and sizes.  A few of them seemed to be dark purple, but none had white trim that she could discern.  “Hmmm.... okay, Pinkie, what is it?”
“It's you, silly!” Pinkie laughed.  “In Rainbow Spy you can spot multicolored things, but you can also spot things that are colors which are really mixes of other colors!  You're lavender, which is a mix of purple and white!”
“Oh,” Spike said, grinning.  “Okay, then: I spy with my spikey eye something every color.”
“Every color...” Pinkie repeated, furrowing her brow in concentration.  She looked around the room.  What was every color?  Rainbow Dash usually tried this trick, but it was easy to beat her, because she was always talking about either her mane or her tail!  But Dash was gone- on a spectacular amazing colossal adventure!, she told herself- so there was nothing obvious to fit Spike's cue.  “What is it, Spike?”
Spike smiled.  “It's the chess pieces!  The black ones, anyway.  Black is every color brought together, right?”
Pinkie grinned hugely.  “Good work, Spikey!”
“Let me try!  Let me try!” Twilight exclaimed.  “Hmmm...” she wracked her brain hard, trying to recall all the colors and combinations of colors she knew.  She'd taken a few art classes as a foal, but that was so long ago.  She did know basic light theory, Fig Newton's theory of color...  Color is a property of visual perception actualized by the reaction of cone cells in the retina of the eye to various wavelengths of light, generated by-
“Twilight?” Pinkie asked, arching an eyebrow at her.  “Are you going to go?”
“Huh?” Twilight blinked.  She had been thinking too hard- again.  “Oh, sorry,” she smiled sheepishly.  “Okay, I spy with my little eye-”
“Your twilight eye,” the pink earth pony said.
“I spy with my twilight eye something that's colored... blue and yellow!”
“Blue and yellow,” Spike repeated.  “Those make green, right?”
“Yep!” Pinkie said.  “So let's see what's green- is it Spike?”
“No,” Twilight said.
“Is it... that book over there?” she pointed at a large dark green volume.
“No,” Twilight said, a smile spreading across her face.
“Is it that book over there?” she pointed at another book, on another bookshelf, this one a lighter shade of green.
“Nope!” Twilight said.
“How about that book over there?” Spike asked, pointing at yet another green book.
“Nope!”  The lavender unicorn was feeling very smug.
“Okay Twilight, what is it?” Pinkie asked.
“It's your cushion, Pinkie!” Twilight said with a laugh, pointing her hoof down below the pink earth pony.  Sure enough, it was striped blue and yellow.  “You never said we had to name blended-color objects, did you?”
“Noooooo,” Pinkie Pie drawled out.  She smiled and laughed.  “Hahaha, that was a good one Twilight!”
“I guess it was,” Twilight Sparkle admitted.  She laughed.  This was fun!
A white spark popped off the tip of her horn.  All the books in the library rattled; a few of them flew off their shelves onto the ground.  Twilight's front hooves flew to her horn as her head was wracked with agonizing pain.  “AAAHHH!!” she screamed, falling onto her back.  “AAAHHH!!”  she writhed back and forth.
“Oh my gosh!” Spike yelled, dashing to her side.  “It's okay, Twilight!  It's gonna be okay!”
“AAAAHH!!  It hurts!  It hurts!”  The pain was excruciating.  Her eyes began to water.
“Pinkie, when did Fluttershy say she was coming back?” Spike asked.  The pink earth pony seemed frozen in place.  “Pinkie!” Spike snapped.
“Oh!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.  “I... I don't know!  She said she wouldn't be long!”
“AAAHH!!!”
Spike brushed a clawed hand across Twilight's forehead, avoiding her clutching hooves.  Her temperature, which had been higher than normal all day, was rising sharply now, as it tended to do during these fits.  “I...” he trailed off, on the verge of tears himself.  The little dragon felt completely helpless.  He didn't know what to do.
Twilight's eyes were shut more and more tightly, the pain in her head almost blinding.  She could feel her horn dying, bit by agonizing bit.  Suddenly, her mind was flooded with a rush of energy.  Her eyes snapped open, and they were blazing white, clouded over with a glowing haze.
Pinkie Pie gasped.  “She's about to do it again!”  The pink earth pony stretched herself like a rubber band across the library, instantly reaching the windowsill where a pad and pencil lay.  Another stretch took her back to Twilight's side, where she set the pad down and took up the pencil in her mouth.
“No!” Spike said, stomping angrily toward her.  “No more!  It hurts her when you do this!”
Twilight's fits of pain were often accompanied by flares of magic.  It was at night, however, that another symptom manifested.  It had been the third day of her illness when the lavender unicorn, in the midst of a pain spell, began to scream out words.  She had yelled about a 'nightmare' and 'endless night.'  Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had immediately thought of Nightmare Moon.  When they consulted Zecora, she had told them that the wild outbursts of magic the Horn Rot was causing made Twilight's mind susceptible to impressions from other points in space and time.  Her first outburst was clearly a look back into the past.  Zecora had suggested they keep a notepad handy to record what Twilight said she saw- because it was just as likely that she would have visions of the future as well.  The lavender unicorn had been very upset at this, berating her friends for believing in something as ridiculous as prophecy.  But her magical outbursts in the night were unfailingly accompanied by these glowing eyes, and screams about what she was seeing always followed.  The fourth night, while she had been sleeping, she had woken Spike up yelling about dragons.  For the past three nights, her eyes had brimmed with tears, and she had screamed about red eyes burning in the dark.
“But Spike, I'm not trying to hurt her,” Pinkie Pie said.
“Well you are!  Don't ask her questions, it makes the pain worse!  I know it does!” the little dragon yelled.
Twilight screamed again.  Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.  Spike knelt down and tried to cradle her head.  Her skin was burning.
Pinkie Pie gripped the pencil with her teeth.  “I told you NO!” Spike growled, smoke billowing from his nostrils.  He was crying now.
“Spike, Zecora said it didn't make her any worse!” Pinkie shouted.
“I don't care!  I WON'T let you hurt her!”  A tongue of green flame burst from the little purple dragon's mouth.
“What is going on here?!”
Pinkie Pie and Spike snapped their heads around.  Fluttershy stood in the open door of the library, a burlap saddlebag buckled around her flanks.  Her turquoise eyes blazed with quiet fury, and as she caught her friends' attention she amplified the anger in her gaze.  Her stare froze Pinkie and Spike in place, all thoughts of continuing their argument vanishing.  She held them captive for another few seconds; when Twilight screamed again, she blinked, and the spell was broken.  The butter-yellow pegasus flapped her wings and fluttered to the lavender unicorn's side, her light pink mane and tail pooling on the floor as she sat by Twilight's head.
“Twilight,” she said softly, putting her hooves around the suffering unicorn's.  “Twilight, I need you to move your hooves.  I have something here to rub on your horn that should make it feel better.”
Twilight Sparkle began to comply- but an arc of wild, stabbing pain sprang from her horn and raced all the way down her spine.  She arched her back and screamed again. Then, she spoke. “AAAHHH!!  AAAHH!!  Sparks and sprinters, trees and tines!  Peril is paused but not ended!  Be wary!  Learn well!”
Pinkie Pie quickly jotted the words down on the notepad. Fluttershy glanced over at her and Spike.  “Spike, Pinkie, could you please pull Twilight's hooves off of her horn?”
The little dragon and the pink earth pony moved to either side of Twilight's head.  Taking one hoof each in both front limbs, they pulled, and slowly pried Twilight's front legs away.  Reaching back into her saddlebag, Fluttershy pulled out something wrapped in wax paper.  It looked like a stick of butter, pale, tinted faintly blue.  Squishing her front hoof into it, Fluttershy dabbed some on Twilight's horn, then with both of her hooves she began to rub the stuff in.  Soon the lavender unicorn's horn was slick with the ointment, and over the next few minutes, her screaming died down, until it was replaced by heavy breathing.  Twilight's body was damp with sweat; her skin was still burning.  Her eyes slowly crawled open, and they were once more their normal purple.  “F-fluttershy....” she whispered.
“I'm here, Twilight,” she said softly, nuzzling the lavender unicorn.  “We're all here.”  Pinkie Pie and Spike moved closer, both of them smiling weakly at her.
“I...” Twilight panted, her voice weak.  “I'm sorry...”
“It's not your fault,” Fluttershy said.  “I think it's time you went to bed.  You'll feel better in the morning after a good night's sleep.”
Twilight's head drifted off to the side.  “I guess you're right.”
“Pinkie, Spike, could you both please try to clean up the library a little?  I'm going to put her to bed.”
“Can you manage her all right?” Spike asked, his voice hesitant.
The butter-yellow pegasus nodded.  “Don't worry, Spike.  We'll be fine.”  Sitting back on her haunches, Fluttershy reached her front legs under Twilight Sparkle and flapped her wings.  She lifted Twilight slowly off the ground; fortunately, Twilight wasn't terribly heavy, and Fluttershy was not as weak a flyer as she used to be.  Flapping her wings in strong, even beats, she hovered up the stairs and passed through the doorway.  “Don't worry, Twilight,” she whispered, drifting down the darkened hallway.  “Everything will be all right.”  She reached the door to Twilight's room and pushed it open with her head.  The sun had set, and in the deepening dark of the night sky stars were beginning to twinkle.
Fluttershy set Twilight gently on her hooves beside her bed.  The lavender unicorn shakily pulled back the covers and climbed in, drawing the sheets and blanket up around her.  “Thank you,” she whispered.
Fluttershy reached back into her saddlebag and pulled out a sprig of leaves.  “Eat these,” she said, passing them to Twilight.  “They should help bring your fever down.  They'll also help you sleep.”  Twilight silently took the branch between her hooves and chewed on it, stripping the leaves and chomping them down.  Fluttershy plucked up the empty branch with her mouth.  She nuzzled Twilight gently on the cheek.  “Good night, Twilight,” she said softly, turning to leave.
“Wait...”  Fluttershy stopped.  Turning around, she saw Twilight facing her.  Tears were welling up in her eyes.  “Fluttershy, could you... stay with me for a while, please?”
Fluttershy smiled softly.  “Of course I will,” she said, moving closer to Twilight's bedside.
“I...” tears flowed down her cheeks.  “I'm so scared, Fluttershy!”  Twilight rolled over, turning away from Fluttershy.  “I want to believe that Rainbow Dash and Applejack and Rarity will get the Beneviolet in time!  I do!  They're my friends and I should trust them!  But...” she sniffed, “But...”  She began to sob.
“I understand,” Fluttershy said softly.  Sitting back on her haunches, she stroked Twilight's midnight purple mane.  “I know you must be so frightened.”
“I am!” Twilight sobbed.  “I don't want to die, Fluttershy!  I don't want to die!”  She lay on her back and cried.
Fluttershy said nothing in speech.  She began to hum softly, wafting up the melody of one of her favorite lullabies.  Then she started to sing, but the sound died in her throat after a few notes.  The song she had begun to sing was too cheery, too light for the present circumstances.  She didn't wish to make Twilight sadder, but she knew in her heart that a song too happy right now would be worse than a funeral dirge.  The butter-yellow pegasus wracked her mind for something more appropriate.  In a few moments, words flooded her consciousness: a song from the depths of her childhood, a song she had heard once at a time when she, too, had felt hopeless.  It was not a song her parents had taught her.  Summoning lower notes, she slowly stroked Twilight's forehead and began to softly sing:
When sunset's embers fade away
And darkness shrouds the land,
Your mind may fill with nameless fears
You do not understand.
Though I would fain protect your sleep
I cannot breach your head,
But twinkling friends beyond my strength
Shall aid you in my stead.

I cannot take your fears from you,
I cannot watch your dreams,
But all the stars that shine above
Shall guard you with their gleam.

What are the stars?  Perhaps you ask.
The answer is a tale
Told many ways by many folk
Through forest, glen and dale.
The ponies say the stars are Luna's
Tears from long ago.
The deerfolk say they are the souls
Of those we used to know.
The camels say stars are suns
That burn in empty space.
The bison say they are the light
Shone from the Great One's face.

Whatever species speaks the truth
On this they all agree:
The stars stand watch into the night
And light the galaxy.
So in your hour of fearfulness
When you feel most alone,
Know that the stars are wi-ith you
And they shall guide you home.

And I am with you too,
They love you, I love you.
So do not be afraid,
Sleep now, dream now...

Fluttershy's voice faded into quiet.  Twilight was breathing gently; her eyes were closed.  The butter-yellow pegasus leaned in close.  She was asleep.  Drawing up to her face, Fluttershy gently kissed the tears off of her cheeks.  “Sweet dreams, Twilight,” she whispered.  She exited the lavender unicorn's bedroom, softly closing the door behind her.
Making her way down the stairs, she saw Pinkie Pie and Spike sitting near each other on the floor of the library, both looking very sad.  Spike looked up as she approached.  “Is she... better?” He asked gently.
Fluttershy nodded.  “She's asleep.”
“Oh,” the little purple dragon said.  His green eyes flickered toward the floor, back to Fluttershy, toward the floor again.  “Can... I... can I go... sit with her?”
Fluttershy nodded.  “Of course you can, Spike.”
“Thanks,” he said, rising to his feet.  He started for the stairs, but stopped, and turned around.  “Uh, Pinkie Pie,” he said slowly, “I'm... I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to yell at you.”
“It's okay, Spikey!” the pink earth pony said brightly.  “If my sister were sick, I'd be upset, too.”
Spike's expression was unreadable for a moment.  Then he nodded, and started toward the stairs, taking them one at a time with his short, stubby legs.  He softly padded through the doorway and left their sight.  Sighing, Fluttershy flew over to one of the cushions and plopped down onto it, lowering her head and stretching out her wings.  Her muscles ached, though she had done no particular exercise that day.  “Poor Spike,” she said softly.  “Poor Twilight.”
“I can guess how super-worried he must be,” Pinkie said softly, but even then her voice was bright and vivid.  “Even though he has to know our friends are going to make sure everything is okay!”
Fluttershy tucked her head into her front legs.  She blinked, carefully thinking about her next words.  “I am beginning to think,” she finally said, “that we should let Twilight's parents know what's happened to her.”
“But why should we make them worry?” Pinkie asked.  “After Dash and Rarity and Applejack are back and Twilight is better then we'll tell them, and then they'll be really-mega-worried, but we'll all laugh about it and talk about how it was such a close call!”
Fluttershy did not respond to this.  Her turquoise eyes narrowed.
Pinkie's cyan eyes met the other pony's, and then they widened.  “You don't think they can do it, do you?”
Fluttershy took a deep breath, let it out, said nothing.  Pinkie's stare turned into a glare, and Fluttershy wished she could shrink into the cushion.  “I...” she began.  She looked away.  “I... I think they'll get to the Archback Mountains and find the Beneviolet-”
“Of course they will!  They're our friends and they won't let us down, silly!”
“I just don't know if they'll do it in time.”
“But they have a whole other week!  That's plenty of time and they can just use Spike's fire to send it back lickety-split!”  Pinkie Pie nodded, quite pleased with herself.  The last word especially had captured her fancy: she rolled over onto her back and began to sing a nonsense song built around the word 'lickety-split.'
Fluttershy glanced out the nearby window into the starry sky.  She did not have much experience with magical illnesses like this.  But illness in general was something she knew well, and she knew the signs of an illness worsening when she saw them.  Twilight's Horn Rot was advancing faster.  Zecora had commented on it.  Two weeks might now be too late.  There was no way to be sure.  She whimpered sadly.  Applejack... Rainbow Dash... Rarity... hurry.