Things were not going well.
It was simple. Act like a super duper noble pony from Mr. Dragon's domain, the guards at the gate would leave them alone, and she and Applejack could go on their way like Mr. Dragon said they would. Instead, not only were they taken to the capital city, but were now trapped in the main castle of Mr. Creepy Feather Pony.
Correction, things were going horribly.
The guards on either side of Pinkie tried to look as friendly as possible, though it was very obvious that they held no friendly feelings towards the pair. Unlike the other guards that guided them to the city, these blue armored ones kept completely silent, constantly watching them to make sure that the two mares that they were “escorting” would make it safely to their bedroom. Pinkie was sure that Applejack was thinking the exact same thing when it came to how she felt about their escort... the feeling was a phrase filled with icky words involving ponies and manure.
Regardless, the two walked down the marble hallway, adorned with too much white and not enough color. Sure, there were paintings, tapestries, murals, and a large rug running down the entire length of the hall that brought a little color into the room, but other than these scant decorations, most of the hall was limited to a bleached out white, with only slight hints of gold. Now if she had it her way, there would be a hint of pink on the walls, green ceiling, and the paintings would be happy ones of ponies playing, not of ones with ponies in battle, and some without heads.
Tearing her eyes from the paintings, the pair finally made it to the very very end of the very very boring and very very long hall. A single wooden door made of some kind of dark wood, oak maybe, separated the pair of earth ponies from their bedroom prison. With the rear guards standing much too close for comfort, the lead pegasus took a few steps forward, and, after taking a key out of a cleverly disguised pouch on his armor's belt, unlocked the door. Pushing down on the latch, the door slowly creaked open.
Inside the room, Pinkie was almost surprised that the room they were forced into was just as fancily decorated as the rest of the castle. The endless feathers decorating the walls and ceilings of the other rooms did not stop at the door, and continued throughout the room, covering nearly every single surface. The walls were covered in various paintings, which, thankfully, did not depict battle scenes, but instead depicted either Lord Xavier the Meanie Pants, Discord, or both. Above them, a simple mural of blue and white skies covered the entire expanse of the ceiling, though Pinkie could make out a few cleverly placed tiny birds in the scene. The right wall had two windows, of course barred, that looked over both the inner and outer walls of the city, and would have given them a view of the entire land around the city and part of the city itself if the sun had not gone down while they were inside. To her left, four large beds lined the wall, with bedside tables separating them, and a candlestick on each.
And of course, most everything was white.
Pinkie felt her flank get shoved forward, forcing her into the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Applejack got the same treatment, her stetson falling to the ground as a menacing scowl started to from on the apple pony's face. Pinkie wanted to get the first word of rebuttal in before Applejack could say anything she would regret. Quickly wheeling around, the pink mare gave the offending guards the best glare that she could muster.
“How DARE you lay of hoof on me you insolent peasant!” Pinkie shouted, her voice just slightly cracking through her partially real anger. “When I get back and tell Lord Sarlaka that I have been unjustly treated in a way such as this, you will personally regret this!”
The guard merely looked at the pink pony blankly, “Right. I'll make sure to tremble in my armor later.” With that, the door behind him closed, and she heard the sound of the lock latch itself against the frame of the door. Behind the door, past a hanging mirror on the backside, the laughter of the guards was heavily muffled now, the heaviness of the door doing its job to silent the hall outside.
With a heavy sigh, Pinkie turned around to head toward the nearest bed to at least make herself comfortable until they were brought to dinner. Once she had turned around, she came face to face with Applejack, the orange mare's scowl remaining on her face as she glared into Pinkie's eyes. Pinkie took a startled stumble back as she looked into the earth pony's eyes, pure rage filled them as she bore her glare into her soul, looking as though she was attempting to grab her heart, and tear it asunder.
Pinkie prayed it was against the guards, and not her.
“Pinkie Pie.” Applejack slowly spoke, “Wha' in tarnation was tha'?”
So much for Applejack not being mad at her.
With a refined giggle, Pinkie replied, “Oh my good Miss App-”
“An' STOP with tha fancy mumbo jumbo!”
With a nervous smile spreading over the pink mare's face, she gulped, “Oh... umm... sorry Applejackie! Umm... what's what for silly filly?”
“Don' get smart with me Pinkie. Wha's up with all tha fancy speak, an' tha servant talk?”
“Oh, well, the guards at that one gate place were being extra meanie, like super duper extra, and they were going to do mean things with those spears. I knew that you couldn't be super duper sophisticated like Rarity is, so I decided to do it. As for calling you my 'most trusted and loyal servant,'” Pinkie said with a her noble persona's voice, “I thought that it would be easier for you to be you, than for you to be not you, because you being not you just isn't you! Besides, I got us through the meanies!”
Applejack took a step towards Pinkie, eyes still narrowed, “Yeah! Outta tha fryin' pan, and into tha fire!”
Pinkie sat back on her haunches, and threw her forelegs up in the air, “I didn't know they were going to imprison us! If I had known that, I would've said something like we're delivering something to Sarlaka's second cousin four times removed on his mother's side or something like that! Sure, maybe it wouldn't have gotten us inside, but I didn't know getting inside would've led to this!”
“You don' have tha' sense ta do somethin' tha' clever!”
Ignoring Applejack's insult, Pinkie pointed an accusing hoof into Applejack's face, and continued in even more of a raised voice, “Besides, if it were up to me, we would've just crossed the bubbly wubbly river, and be done with it! But noooo! You had to go and trust the big mean guard ponies that they would be all nice. Well they weren't nice! They were meanies! I did what I could, and if it wasn't for what I did, we'd be DEAD!”
The pair stared at each other, scowls on their faces. Pinkie had never felt this angry against another pony before. Sure, she had been mad when she thought her friends didn't want to be her friends anymore and had decided to ditch her and Gummy's party, but that was more being hurt than actually angry. What she possessed right now was nothing more than pure anger against the earth pony that she traveled with, and frankly, owed her her life because of the pink pony's smooth and fast talking.
Heavy breathing dominated the chamber, neither pony took their narrowed eyes off of the other, the tension brewing in the room only getting tighter and tighter. Several minutes passed, with beads of sweat running down both of their faces, the heat in the room, even with the sun down, still enveloping them both. Looking at Applejack, her mane was completely frazzled, the bands in her mane and tail barely holding the hair together in the hair's disheveled state.
Suddenly, Applejack looked down, and kicked the ground with her hoof. “Ah'm... sorry...” she mumbled, barely over a whisper.
Pinkie raised an eyebrow, even if Applejack couldn't see it, and replied, “You're what?”
The orange mare looked up, and nearly shouted, “Ah said Ah'm sorry! Ok! Ah didn' mean wha' Ah said!” Lowering her voice Applejack whispered, “An' your right after all. If it weren't for your quick thinkin', Ah... Ah don' know wha' would've happened. Ah'm jus' really mad at them, and Ah know Ah'm taking it out on ya, but...”
At the admission, Pinkie's pent up anger lifted, and it was only half a second before Applejack found herself caught in a pink and fuzzy hug. Pinkie felt Applejack tense up for a moment, unsure what to do. However, after a few seconds, the taught muscles in the orange earth pony relaxed, and the pink pony felt a pair of forelegs wrap around her. The two sat there for a few minutes, with nothing being exchanged between them except the warmth of their bodies.
Applejack pulled back eventually, and looked at Pinkie with a smile on her face. Pinkie watched as her friend looked down, spotting something. The cowpony pulled herself out of the hug, reached down, and retrieved her dropped stetson, and, with a moment of hesitation, plopped it atop Pinkie's head. The pair smiled, and turned towards the door, observing the party pony's new attire.
“Ya know,” Applejack started with a snicker, “if tha whole party thing don' work out for ya, Ah bet ya could work at Sweet Apple Acre. Ya can certainly pull off tha part.”
“Yeah, except I don't know how to use a lasso, and I'm pretty sure my party cannon wouldn't lasso cattle very well Jackie.”
Pinkie saw Applejack turn to look straight in her eyes, “Party wha'?”
“Oh never mind!”
“... if ya say so...” Applejack stepped back, leaving Pinkie in control of her treasured possession. Pinkie posed a few times in front of the mirror, going from a series of normal poses, making a different face to each one.
Time seemed to fly by as Pinkie experimented with more and more ridiculous poses, a few eliciting soft chuckles from the mare behind her. From standing on all fours, standing on two hooves, or even standing on her tail and hopping back and forth in front of the mirror, The poses she did made both of them smile more and more. She eventually found herself standing on one of her front hooves, the hat balanced precariously upon her flank, and her tail positioned perfectly so that it appeared her rear had a mustache.
“Ya know,” a friendly voice behind Pinkie interrupted her latest stance, “ya never did tell me where ya learned tha' fancy smancy voice of yours. An' don' tell me ya learned it from Granny Pie, cause Ah know tha' ain't tha truth.”
The outburst caused Pinkie to lose her balance, and, gracefully, she somersaulted forward, the prized earth colored stetson landing perfectly on her head, “Well, I might have taken a few classes in formal etiquette before.” she said, staring at the ground, her pink forehoof nervously pawing at the ground.
“Ouch. Ya parents had ya take tha' when ya were a filly? An' Ah thought mah few lesson with tha Oranges were bad”
“Not really. I kinda took them by choice...”
Pinkie didn't have to even look at Applejack to know she raised an eyebrow at that last comment, “Ya took them by-”
“A few months ago, just after the embarrassing Grand Galloping Gala incident.
“Ya were embarrassed.”
Pinkie almost giggled at the comment, “Oh, I wasn't embarrassed by it, but I really embarrassed... well... somepony else, and I didn't want to embarrass that pony like that again...”
“Oh? Sounds like somepony special. And may Ah ask who tha somepony is?” Pinkie watched through the mirror as Applejack approached her, a sly grin forming on the orange mare's face, “Is it one of us?”
Pinkie turned, instantly feeling heat against her cheeks, “What? How did... I mean...”
Applejack chuckled as she took her hat from the pink pony's head, and returned it to its rightful spot, “If Ah wasn' sure earlier, judgin' by your reaction jus' now, Ah'm certain Ah'm right. So... who's tha special pony?”
Her face on fire, Pinkie turned back towards the mirror. For the first time in her life, she knew how it felt to be like Fluttershy, and she could rightly say that it was not a happy good feeling. “I... umm...”
Applejack grinned wider, “Is it yours truly?”
The red faced mare's face tripled in color, and her eyes widened in shock, “What!? I... I...”
Applejack started laughing, “Ah shucks, ya don' have ta tell me. Ah'm jus' messin' with ya. Not often Ah get ta see tha fearless Pinkie Pie get all flustered up.” the orange pony smiled at her through the mirror, the deep green eyes staring into Pinkie's reflection, as if trying to find out who the pony was by intimidating her mirror self.
The smile that the orange mare had on her face dropped into a frown after a few seconds, “Ah guess tha real important question, though, is how're we gonna get outta here 'nyways?”
As if the universe heard the question, the sound of creaking hinges tore their attention towards the source, a guard now standing in the doorway of their luxurious prison. “Dinner is ready my two noble ladies. Our Lord Xavier the Conqueror requests your presence as his honored guests.”
Any resemblance of smiles that the two mares held before were quickly squeezed out of their faces by the two sentences, and were replaced with serious frowns. Pinkie looked at Applejack, who met her gaze, and together they nodded a simple unspoken agreement between the two. Looking back forward, Pinkie retained her frown.
“Very well. Take us to him.”
____________________________________________________________________________________
Darkness.
That was the first thought that came to Rarity's mind as she started to wake up. Complete darkness. She wasn't sure if her eyes were even open of not, but if they were, the void that embraced her was absent of any semblance of light. She could only remember a few bits and pieces of just before this moment: They were fighting an ursa major, Twilight was thrown across the room, she took it down, then...
Pain.
The memory of the ordeal suddenly flooded back to her mind, and she shot open her eyes in shock. Thankfully, the pain was gone, and now, with her eyes open, she was safe. In fact, it was nighttime in the Everfree Forest, the only light coming from the glow of a campfire nearby, and the soft pitter patter of rain the only sound outside of the errant cricket. From the looks of it, the tent she slept in was on the bank of some kind of lake, though if it was actually a lake, pond, or even a slow moving river, Rarity wasn't sure. In any case, the water was soothing, and it, along with the soft rain, brought a sense of calm to the alabaster unicorn, lowering her frantic heart rate.
“Ra... Rarity?”
Groggily turning her head, Rarity looked out of the open tent doors and made out the form of her fellow unicorn, Twilight. The poor mare had been sitting in the open, and even with the light rain, here purple and pink striped mane was drenched, her fur matted. Even more troubling, was, even in the dim light, Rarity could tell that Twilight's eyes were wide open in either shock or fear. The completely soaked lavender unicorn started to silently mouth something as she slowly shook her head, never taking her eyes off of Rarity. From this distance, Rarity couldn't hear the noises, if any, that were coming out of the unicorn's mouth, and also couldn't read the mare's lips. The only thing that was certain was that the poor mare was so spooked about something, that she couldn't even come over to greet her recently awoken friend.
Rarity started to stand, but felt a throbbing pain in her abdomen that stopped her. A few deep breaths later, and she carefully, making sure not to aggravate the internal wounds more, got herself up onto all fours. Finding her footing, she slowly limped her way towards her friend, the light rain slightly chilling the mare as it slowly started to soak into her protective fur. Rarity was surprised that the pain in her abdomen was surprisingly light considering the sudden shock when she first got up. However, while her abdomen felt alright, her legs screamed at her, pleading to return to to their restful state they were in before she got up. Ignoring the pleas her limbs gave, Rarity made her way towards the scared and wet lavender mare.
Making her way to her friend, she was surprised when Twilight fearfully scampered back, tears streaking undisturbed down her face, apparently afraid of Rarity for whatever reason. Sighing, Rarity got as close to Twilight as she could, and carefully settled herself back down onto the cool, wet grass. Rarity took a moment to enjoy the warmth of fire, the heat cutting through the chill that the drenched grass forced upon her, making the temperature pleasant enough.
Turning towards the lavender mare, Rarity finally spoke, “Twilight... what's wrong?”
Twilight again shook her head slowly, her mouth working uselessly. However, this time, after a few seconds, Twilight started to stammer out a noise, “Rarity... I'm... I don't know... I tried... I... Celestia knows that... what I...”
“Twilight, please. Its ok.” Rarity spoke with the softest and most caring voice she could muster, “Is it something I did?”
Twilight merely shivered, “No! I mean... I...”
“Darling,” Rarity started again, “Its ok. Just calm down. It doesn't seem like my injuries were as bad as we initially thought, your injuries look minimal, we got the Element... right?” Twilight nodded, “Then everything is fine.”
Twilight clinched her eyes tightly and shook her head. Rarity watched as the panicked pony continued this motion for a few second until she stopped, took a couple of deep breaths, and released each in turn. Reopening her eyes, Twilight finally spoke coherently, “Rarity... I don't know what to say... I promise I did everything I could, and even if you can't forgive me, I will do everything to help you...”
Rarity's heart started to hammer against her chest, her ribs feeling the strain caused by the muscle. Even the ursa in the battle before didn't worry her as much as this did, “Twilight... what happened...”
With that question, the dam burst, and Rarity watched her companion completely shatter, the loud and deep sobs emanating from the broken mare. Even in the rain, it was obvious that tears streaking down her face, further matting the once beautiful coat of purple. Twilight's labored breathing and heavy sobbing echoed through the forest, silencing any wildlife around, as if they wanted to watch the scene before them unfold in peace. Even the rain seemed to lighten up a little to allow the distraught unicorn a little comfort. Rarity was still fearful of what was Twilight was talking about, but getting the poor girl to calm down was much more important.
Looking around, Rarity's eyes eventually fell upon a nearby set of saddlebags inside the tent with a handkerchief, most likely already partially used by her friend. Igniting her horn, she brought the han-
Nothing happened.
Frowning, Rarity once again attempted to grab onto the tissues, but was met with the same results. The magic didn't pour out of her horn, she didn't see the tell-tale purple glow around the tissues, the feeling of grabbing the object with her spell was not there. Thinking maybe her magical reserves were low, she attempted to pour as much magic into her horn to do... anything to the handkerchief.
Still nothing.
Rarity's heart rate tripled instantly as it finally registered to her that Twilight was speaking, “-and I didn't know what to do! There was just, oh Celestia, there was so many cracks running down it, and they were spreading to your skull! I... I don't even know what it was that did it! I think it was the ursa's blood, and that it overloaded your magic, but-”
“Twilight...” Rarity squeaked out with a trembling voice, “... why can't I pick up the handkerchief...”
“... I'm so, so sorry Rarity...”
“Why can't I pick up the handkerchief!?”
“Rarity... I...”
Ignoring the pain that shot through her body, Rarity stood quickly, eyes wide as she started looking in all directions for something, anything, to figure out what Twilight was talking about. Her first instinct was to rush over to her saddlebags, and pull out the inside mirror, but a sudden memory of losing it on the first day crossed her mind. Ignoring the pleading unicorn laying next to her, she spotted the water of the lake, and ran towards it with all the speed that her pathetically weak legs could provide. As she got close, she slowed, until she was only five hooves away from the shore. The throbbing of her heart threatened to burst out of her chest as it beat in an unhealthily frantic rate. While when she was running, the pain on her legs was mostly ignored, now each step she now took was a labored ordeal, as if lead weights were attached to each of her hooves as she slowly and methodically took each step towards the water.
After a full minute, she finally reached the shore, her eyes looked straight forward, unwilling to look down at the reflection she knew most likely greeted her. Dread started to fill her being as she stood on the shore, and made her unwilling to look down, but she just had to know. Finally looking down, she closed her eyes before she gazed into the water, attempting to prolong the inevitable. Taking a few deep breaths, and ignoring the begging and crying unicorn behind her, she opened her eyes.
The sight that greeted her was worse than terrifying. The perfectly white coat on her face was slightly singed all over, leaving a spotted darkness where each hair tip was slightly burned away. Her beautiful purple mane, the pride of Ponyville, was similarly treated, the very front hairs slightly singed away, the burned tips standing defiantly against the owner's wishes. Every spot on her fur and mane was completely soaked, matting what was left of the unburnt hair. All over, cuts and bruises adorned her face, making the once most beautiful mare in Equestria appear as nothing more than a simple ruffian who used brute force to solve every problem thrown at her. Of course, all of this was ignored by the fashionista, because her eyes couldn't take their gaze off of her horn...
… or lack thereof.
Right where her beautifully shaped seven inch long horn, quite an average length for a mare her age, would normally sit, instead, was a small one and a half inch long stub, appearing to be perfectly sheered off by a powerful and terrifyingly sharp cutting device.
Throughout the forest, wild birds and docile creatures ran in every direction as the peace of the Everfree was shattered by a blood curtling scream that emanated from the white unicorn's throat.