Dear Princess Celestia,
Recently, a dangerous creature has begun making a nuisance of itself in Ponyville. Normally I would never involve royalty with an issue this insignificant, but the creature seems to have somehow brainwashed one of my friends into defending it at the cost of her own health.
It should be mentioned that I have some experience with this species, and have seen firsthoof how cruel they can become with minimal provocation. They are called humans, and as far as I knew they had no knowledge of Equestria, much less the portal from their world to ours. For this, I was grateful. However this human seems to be different somehow. As opposed to the humans in the "alternate-Equestria" I visited, this creature has dull coloring, small eyes, and a broader chest. Upon closer examination (while it was unconscious of course, I was not about to approach while it was alert) I noticed more pronounced canines as well, indicating it to be carnivorous, or at the very least omnivorous.
The creature has recently escaped, and is likely in a state of starvation and severe psychological trauma. Please please please please please send help before it attacks somepony!
Sincerely,
Your faithfuPrincess Twilight Sparkle
Princess Celestia read over the letter for the fourth time, blinking uncomprehendingly. That can't be right... The solar diarch shook her head. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Reading over the letter again, her concerned expression waxed into outright worry.
The letter remained the same.
"Oh Twilight...what have you done?" Celestia whispered to herself, absently levitating a scroll and quill to herself. The quill swooped and pecked to her will, forming a brief reply. With a flash of her lance-like horn, the Princess of the Sun sent her message in a flash of light.
-----
"BLEUUURP!!!" Spike belched hard enough to briefly lift his chubby body off the ground, his eyes widening with the familiar but still-jarring effects of dragon-mail. Falling to his feet, the dimunitive drake watched as the materializing scroll was caught in Twilight's magic like clockwork, a well-oiled machine.
In the same fluid motion, the lavender alicorn unfurled the scroll and moved it in front of her face, reading the short letter.
Wait there.
No pleasantries, no introductions, just two hastily-scrawled words. Twilight bit her lip. Was this creature, this human really so dangerous that even Princess Celestia was serious about its capture? And I was in the same room with it... Just how close to destruction had she been? How close was Applejack? What would it do once it no longer needed her? Twilight's panic grew with each increasingly terrifying scenario, so much so that she didn't notice the flash of teleportation in the center of the library. She was only drawn out of her thoughts by a tug to the tail from her assistant. Turning her gaze back to Spike with a manic, quizzical expression, she followed his pointing arm to see—
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight bowed low, her wings still splayed out as if she were ready to take off at a moment's notice. "I didn't expect you! N-not that you're not welcome, I just expected the Royal Guard to-" She was halted by a hoof pressed against her muzzle, the gilded slipper adorning the limb shockingly cool to the alicorn's lips. Turning her gaze upwards, Twilight stared into a serious, almost stern stare from her mentor.
"Twilight, where is Jason Wright?"
The smaller mare's mind screeched to a halt. Jason...Didn't Applejack call it that? Pulling back enough to speak, she gulped. "How do you know it's name?" Her voice was quiet, wavering, and barely audible, betraying a sense of dread.
Celestia's look of urgency intensified, and she lowered her head to be level with her ex-student's. "Twilight, we don't have time for questions now. Take me to Jason, this is a matter of great importance."
Twilight's nervous trembling and shuffling worsened, and her head dipped almost to the floor."I...Umm...I really...can't."
Celestia's serious expression turned to one of equal parts worry and disappointment. Lifting Twilight's head, Celestia leveled a stern look at the fledgeling alicorn. "Why not?"
"He...escaped." Twilight pulled her head free and returned it to the ground. "He was at Sweet Apple Acres, but then we left and when we went back he was gone!" Celestia remained composed on the surface, but a chunk of ice had settled in her chest. Somepony doesn't escape unless they were held captive.
What had happened after he came to Ponyville?
-----
I awoke to a painful ache in both my arms, and blood caked uncomfortably under my nose. Looking down at my chest, I was greeted with my bare torso criss-crossed with heavy rope. An experimental shift of my arms confirmed my theory: I was bound, my back to a large wooden pole. Another movement caused me to hiss, one of the deep scratches on my arm stretching painfully.
"Stop moving around, you'll just hurt us both." A scratchy, feminine voice groused. Straining my neck to look behind me, I saw the griffon from earlier sitting with her back to me. Oddly enough, she was bound in rope as well. We seemed to be bound to the same pole. I sighed and let my chin hit my chest, groaning.
"What is this?" I inwardly winced at the sound of my voice. It was harsh and gravelly, a far cry from the light baritone I had before all of...this. I certainly wouldn't be singing any time soon, even if I did recover.
"Punishment. Now shut up, your voice hurts my ears."
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "Yeah, fuck you too." I grunted in pain as the griffon shifted violently, causing the ropes to tighten painfully on my lacerated arms. "What the Hell is your problem?!"
"A stupid talking monkey that thinks he can almost kill me and still ask questions, that's my problem." She hissed, anger dripping off her words.
"If you didn't start none, wouldn't be none," I quipped. "I apologized for bumping into you. You're the one who made it a big fucking deal."
"What else was I supposed to do, just let everyone walk all over me?" Her spiteful tone turned to ice. "Literally, in your case?"
I shook my head with an exasperated groan. "Usually, when someone apologizes, it means they didn't mean to offend you. I didn't bump into you on purpose, I was trying to get to the zebra. I couldn't fucking breathe!"
"And you still hit me. Did you really expect me to just walk away after that?" I paused to think at her words. In hindsight, I HAD overreacted. Given my situation up to then it was completely understandable, but she didn't know that.
"I...overreacted." I muttered. "Sorry 'bout that. Just...under a lot of stress."
She snorted, giving a weak, bitter laugh. "You're still an asshole."
This time, it was my turn to laugh. "Honey, I'm from Jersey. We're all assholes." I sighed and closed my eyes, thinking back to the farm. Boy could I go for an apple pie right about now...Heh, looks like Applejack was trying to seduce me with her food. "Fucking Ponyville."
Though I didn't intend for anyone to hear that, an almost bark of a laugh came from the griffon behind me. "Amen to that...fucking Ponyville."
I raised an eyebrow, looking over my shoulder. "You've been?" I quickly faced forward again. Turning my head was starting to hurt my neck.
"Thought I had a friend there couple years ago. We went way back, all the way back to flight-school. She was like a sister to me. I went to visit her, but she wouldn't give me the time of day when her new friends were around. That would piss anyone off, but somehow she makes it out so that I'm the bad guy." She scoffed. "Some friend she turned out to be.
I blinked, realization dawned on me. Oh, stupid stupid STUPID! without thinking, I blurted out, "Gilda?"
-----
"This is where we left him." Twilight said, her voice still holding a great amount of nervousness as she showed Celestia the empty, semi-charred bathtub. "We didn't expect him to be awake for at least another day, let alone capable of walking!"
Celestia looked down at the small burn-marks on the bottom of the tub. "And you say a...fever did this?" Celestia looked up with a raised eyebrow towards her ex-student.
"I...may have shocked him with a lightning-spell to restart his heart." Twilight blurted out, not able to slump much further. While her reasons for distrusting the human—distrusting Jason had seemed perfectly rational in her head, actually describing her treatment out loud to her mentor made her feel...incredibly silly.
"And his heart stopped why?" Celestia pressed further, careful not to allow her emotions to show in her speech of mannerisms.
"...Shock from extreme temperature-change?" Twilight proved herself wrong, laying on the floor with her wings tucked tightly against her sides.
"Brought on by a fever from...?" It was getting harder and harder for Celestia to remain stoic. Twilight...What could have made you think ANY of this was a good idea?
"A massive infection..." Twilight's voice was barely a squeak, and she was curled into a tight little ball on the floor.
"Why did he get the infection, Twilight?" Celestia asked, standing over the lavender mare. "How did he get wounded?"
"A-Applejack said it was..." Twilight couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. The mere thought of such an act left her feeling hollow and cold, and acknowledging it as fact seemed a task her mind couldn't handle in it's current state.
Leaning down, Celestia almost whispered, "said it was what, Twilight?"
"SUICIDE!" Twilight wailed, eyes screwed shut. The volume caused Celestia to reel back, staring at the smaller alicorn in bewilderment. "I-it tried to kill itself! Applejack found it hanging from a tree, a rope around it's neck..." Twilight screwed her eyes shut, a tear leaking down her muzzle. "T-the others...Rainbow bragged about striking it with lightning, Fluttershy was terrified of it, Rarity wanted nothing to do with it...Applejack blamed us for what it did. She said it was our fault..."
"Him."
Twilight looked up at Celestia, blinking away the tears. "I-I don't—"
"Jason Wright is my personal friend, and he is not an it." Celestia allowed her mask to slip away, looking down at Twilight with a look of such disappointment the lavender mare felt her chest seize.
"I...I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"You shouldn't have to know somepony is my friend to treat them with respect." Celestia sighed and turned to walk out of the destroyed bathroom. "Twilight Sparkle...After all the lessons you have learned, how could you have failed so?"
Twilight didn't have any words. She stared, stricken silent and paralyzed as her mentor walked away from her in disappointment. Only after the solar diarch had left did Twilight move, reaching up to her crown. With a scream of anguish and frustration, she flung the adornment against the wall, head lowering and her body wracked with sobs.
Her eyes blurred with tears, Twilight failed to notice the star-like gem set into the crown had faded to a slate grey.
-----
Walking away from Sweet Apple Acres at a sedate pace, Celestia's somber expression lightened to a devious smirk. Mismatched yellow and red eyes narrowed, and a faint giggle escaped her muzzle.