"I'm sorry, but Twilight isn't taking any visitors at the moment, she-"
Twilight muttered a soft curse as her listening spell crackled out of focus, and she lost spike's voice in a haze of staticky feedback. Shameful. She was getting out of practice...much too out of practice for her liking, but it had to be done. The strenuous spells that made up her usual magic regimen were strictly off limits. Too risky. She absolutely could not allow anything to go wrong.
Not with this.
Closing her eyes she tried to focus her magic onto the conversation in the foyer. She had little energy to dip into for the spell, even though it was infuriatingly simple. Most of her magic was siphoned off constantly to maintain a much, much more important spell. Even then she had been forced to stay in bed for the past six or seven weeks. Even with magic, getting up and moving around in her...condition...would be incredibly dangerous.
With one last frustrated push, the listening spell fizzled back to life.
"Please" a voice pleaded, too fuzzy to make out it's owner "It's been months"
Ten months and twenty days, to be exact.
Spikes voice tuned in, in reply "I'm sorry princess, but she really cannot see you"
Princess? Twilight's mouth hardened into a flat line as a face immediately sprang to mind...but no. Twilight hadn't spoken to her since, well, since the day that took away any reason for twilight to speak to her ever again, that manipulative, lying-
No. It was probably Luna, maybe Cadence. She hadn't spoken to Cadence in a long time, longer that she liked, but that was Cadence's decision. The years had changed her, the loss of Shining Armour, broken her. When she had picked up the peices, she didn't quite come back the same. Twilight missed Cadence.
The unidentifiable voice cut back in, loud, desperate. "You have to let me see her! I need to see my..." the voice broke off, started up again "I need to see my old student. Please"
Twilight bit the inside of her cheek. Hard. She could recognize it now. As quick as thought, magic fueled by the burning inside her, she reached her mind down to the foyer. The doors to her palace slammed shut, and held fast with the help of a thousand different protection spells that had been woven into the walls of her castle years ago. It seemed like an eternity, maybe it was.
There was a soft knock at the door, followed by a creak as Spike pushed it open, poking his head inside. No longer a baby dragon, though not yet fully grown, Spike stood a good head above her now when fully upright. Currently he was stooped over, shoulders hunched so his spines wouldn't it the door frame. His barbed tail flicked uncertainly.
"Are you okay?" he said softly, the rumbling timbre of his voice bringing some comfort to Twilight.
She gave a nod. Once. Too quickly.
Her oldest friend gave her a knowing look, then turned back through the door and shut it gingerly behind him, politely leaving her so she could cry in private.
In about an hour, he would bring her some hot tea.
A soft sob shook Twilight's body. She knew this routine all too well.
Soon though, soon it would all be worth it, all the isolation, all the pain. She would have them back.
Celestia's lies didn't matter any more. All the deceit she had been spoon fed for years would no longer be of any importance.
She was Twilight Sparkle. She had unknowingly cheated the grim reaper once. Celestia be damned if she wasn't going to cheat him again for her friends. She would bring them back, this was her long, tiresome, difficult labor of love and she was going to bring them back.
Labor of love. Twilight giggled weakly at the pun, eyes still watering, then wriggled her body awkwardly in order to shift into a more comfortable position.
It was hard finding an agreeable way to lie down when pregnant with five foals.
Her friends were worth it.
Her friends were worth that and more.
It was a complex magic she was weaving with her body and her soul, the power to bring the spirit resident within a talisman to flesh, to create it through herself. It was old too, ancient.
Twilight wondered if anyone had possessed the nerve to try it, before her.
She had stumbled upon it years ago, in the castle of the twin sisters, before she knew why they had died, before she knew who had caused it. Celestia had told her not to use it, so she hadn't. Then things changed. She re-evaluated her choice.
The inception of the spell was easy, if uncomfortable. It had not been difficult to memorize the incantation, nor to change her appearance via a magic so she wouldn't be recognized. Seducing a stallion had been almost laughably easy, though it wasn't like she picked a difficult target. A soft hoof around the neck, a well timed flick of the tail, a purring voice asking where she could get a drink in the place. By the second frilly cocktail she was being ushered to some stallion's home.
It was the first time she had ever been with some pony.
By the time she had ever thought to seek a partner, she was already aware of her vice like grip on this reality, her ability to continue drawing breath as all of those she had loved and known slipped away. Taking a mate would have just been hurting herself.
Not that she never considered it.
Sometimes she thought that even the stinging sharpness of loss might be better than the grey she lived in.
That was the easy part though, the brief, awkward tangle with a pony she barely knew, the casting of the spell, the hasty teleportation away once he was finally asleep.
It was once the spell had been cast when things got difficult.
Ponies usually only gave birth to one foal, occasionally two. Three was incredibly rare, and more that that, practically unheard of. The pony body just wasn't built to carry five foals. Most of her magic was going into ensuring the safety of the pregnancy. Twilight knew very well that she couldn't be harmed, but the same didn't apply to....her friends? Her children? Them.
She couldn't lose them again.
Twilight was asleep before Spike could come with her tea.
Twilight opened her eyes, feeling the powerful light shine through them as she lifted into the air, not even needing to flap her wings. Before them loomed a great, shadowy figure, flexing myriad sinewy arms of darkness towards them. Somewhere in the middle of the inky mass, a great maw opened, a sullen red light shining through it like a portal to the depth of Tartarus. She was not afraid. Twilight felt the familiar tug of the elements, the rushing rainbow of power, shooting towards the abomination, wrapping it in tendrils of light.
Fluttershy was the first one to scream.
Twilight looked back, fear shooting through her mind, she frantically, desperately, fruitlessly, tried to end the spell. She was trapped by the elements, helpless to do anything but feel the hot-bubbling panic squeezing her heart as the rest of her friends voices joined in, screams harmonizing with those of the monsters in a chorus of agony. Another cry reached her ears, fuzzy, out of focus, her own, not of pain but of anguish. Tears streamed down her face as she fought hysterically to break free, struggling within the grip of the magic, powerless, defenseless, useless.
She collapsed to the ground in a heap, eyes squinted tightly shut, cradling her head. The only thing worse than hearing her friend's agony moment ago, was the absolute silence she heard now. Not a single rustling wing, or drawn breath, or twitched tail, just her own heart, beating "NO NO NO" against her ears.
Twilight opened her eyes to see the monster rebuilding itself, slowly stretching upward, regrowing it's myriad of hideous limbs, lengthening, changing, still a monster, but now different, almost familiar. Glaring at it, she stood up on shaking legs, eyes burning, teeth aching from clenching them so hard, ears still ringing with the screams of her friends.
She was alone.
The abomination let out a roar that shook Twilight's bones. She did not flinch. Fury washed through the alicorn like a tidal was as she launched into the air, burning with rage. A flare of magic shot through her horn, striking the monster directly in the middle. It staggered backward, and Twilight's eyes narrowed with cold satisfaction. She another beam of magic, and another, and another, a primal scream building up inside of her as she twisted her head back for one last blow.
A clawed hand shot out, grabbing her around the torso. As the vice like grip slowly pulled her inward, Twilight shrank her wings disappearing, limbs shortening, she tried to call upon her magic only to find there was none in her new, tiny, filly body.
The monster brought it up directly to its eye.
It had the face of Celestia
"No! No, you're lying!" Twilight screamed "You said the monster killed them! You said it was monster! You bastard!" a choked sob escaped her "...you monster."
The Celestia-thing looked down on her, giving a smile that might have been mistaken for pity, if not for the jagged teeth.
"Oh Twilight..." it said softly, almost gently, a voice unfit for such an awful form "I'm only doing what's best for you"
Then the grip around Twilight's middle tightened, searing agony shooting through her torso, razor claws digging into her-
Twilight woke up with a short scream, head shooting upwards as her pulse raced in her ears. Then her eyes widened in panic.
Not because of the dream. She had been having that nightmare for a long time. Almost every time she slept. It was always the same.
What shot fear through her heart, was the shooting pain in her stomach.
It was still there.
Twilight opened her mouth, fear tugging at her throat
"Spike!"