Cold. The blinding, howling cold cackles into the night; so thick and visible it can make anyone feel isolated by its sheer velocity. Twilight Sparkle didn't know where she was, or what she was doing now. She was so caught up in trying to get out that she never got the real chance to understand her surroundings. Though, now she'll have all the time to contemplate her next move while Luna grills her about her actions. Disconsolate she was, staring down at who used to stand up for so much; bringing massive attention with the whisk of her magic, Twilight Sparkle was demoralized and low-spirited now. And she never really bared the chance to really think of what she had done beforehand, because everything happened so fast. Like at the speed of light, one minute somepony is dead; next dealing with the loss and the sounds starting to come back. Those sounds. The sound of drums beating like a rapid heart; beating, pulsing, blood pumping in and out. The delusions, the fear of her friend coming back to murder her; the glowing bright light questioning her motives. All for what? A prophecy, a gloomy response to her eventual death? What was it? Why were these signs all calling to her now? What was she missing; what was she forgetting; a missing piece? A missing puzzle, was this like a castle of cards and one wrong pull could result in it collapsing? It would be a collapse she couldn't risk for anyone; not even her own self.
The loud sounds no longer clanged and rattled at her ears. Nor the glowing light of wisdom showered across her tired, rundown face. Now she was stuck in a limbo; a state of levitation at a fixed height. Where was she? Was this thing coming back for her? Did it have a title of sorts so she can identify in her muddled state of sedate; was she piqued by the interest of some mysterious being, some...'shadow'. She didn't know, and what was more concrete in her mind was that she didn't really have the energy to care. Like a predator hunting the prey that slowly barks the conclusion to itself that it will never be free from it's claws. She didn't have the feeling to really care about her situation because she was so tired of trying...
Trying to what?
Trying to run away?
To be left alone with her overabundance of thought...
With the last of her ill-fated strength she fired up whatever brain power she could muster during the moment, and tried to figure out what she was running from. Fear always played with her subconscious, and with that, it fueled her drive to get to her as far away as Ponyville. To abandon the help that was readily available to her. Was she not? She stood in this faint, cloudy, divine sparked not by her incoherent thought, or the mysterious light, but from a pony she never quite expected to see.
Twilight bit her lip and wanted to walk backwards, but feared of falling off this levitation spell; which she naturally assumed it was. During this moment, she tried to hide the image in front of her by stuffing her mind with past events of these grueling hours she had been gone. Or was it days? She wasn't sure anymore, but the idea of re-discovering her movements shocked her. She realized she must have been super delirious because all of this shouldn't be real. It should not exist. At all. But it did. And it felt more real than she could imagine, and adding to her running act, she had definitely made quite an impact on her friends alone; if they hadn't found out already. There was though, she heard the light drizzle creeping behind herself before she noticed a mirror in front of her now. Where was this pony she knew so well moments ago? Did she just vanished? And what became of her, she piqued intriguingly, but soon got back to the mirror in front of her. It had a white frame and a glistering sparkle to the mirror itself.
She stared in a somewhat gaze, her eyes gawking at it like a little filly at a candy store. She stared in complete, and utter amazement; which turned into disgust once she had a visualized look at her body. It was dirty, and stuffed with brown and black patches around the chest down. Her neck was so discolored like some big animal came and chocked her with its dirty paws instead. Her mane complimented her abysmal frame with clumps of dirt and mud packed tightly between the split ends of her once-flourishing hair. That she no longer represented a Twilight Sparkle, but showed a darker, vigorous and patchy side of Twilight Sparkle that she never recognized. No pony would know her from the jump if they saw her like this. She noticed that she had quite grown some muscle, especially around her hind legs. Her shoulders looked awkwardly broader than usual. And she vaguely noticed that her height might have increased within the last while. The more she stared, the more she fell into a weird trance of herself. Visualizing herself as some ferocious, but independent and out-standing leader. Fighting the good fight, but she hasn't felt that way in a long time. It was something that was harshly cut off by the sudden hunger pains in her body. She hadn't eaten for a good while now, and she would soon be getting desperate if she didn't make time to look for something now. But with being stuck up somewhere, she dared not to move otherwise she was afraid of falling to her death. A death that sounded easy, but not smart. No. She looked around for anything that could resemble the mare she saw only momentarily ago. And her surroundings were covered with a misty hollow glow in the air, almost as still as a rock; she turned her head as far as she could to see a running stream pounding and slamming the rocks below at the quietest of sounds. The view from her angle was slightly uncomfortable, but felt amazing to see something so pure, and natural just sitting there and doing mother-nature's work. It had been a deal-breaker to see something like this in these trying times. But for her, it ended quicker than she would have anticipated when she turned back to see the mirror changed with the bright light again. Where this being left to, and came from was unimportant to her already diluted stage that she only could look in an angry shock. She realized she could run right here, and forget this being, but she stood still mainly because of her previous fright to falling off the world.
The being merely hung there, no emotions to indicate it's tell of thought. Nothing to signify it as a alive, nor dead. But it just hung there, glimmering like the hot sun in the middle of day. The air around her felt suddenly warmer by the thought before dissipating into the thin cold of nothingness like it had been all along. The being finally got a word etch-wise to the ambiguous Twilight Sparkle.
"Do you feel different?" It asked amusingly.
Twilight looked puzzled, then meekly showed little sympathy for the line of questioning, "What?"
"Do you. Feel. Different." This time it asked more directly, with a little venom tickling its artificial tongue.
"Why ask?" Her voice quieted a little, she stared down a little and watched as her legs desperately tried to curl itself into a knot.
"Because it's important. Its relevant to our ongoing discussion." It reassured Twilight, tried to anyways.
"Look, you keep showing up at my worst. So that must be a sign," Twilight replied back, before lowering her voice to the point of being near inaudible, "Right?" Squeaking as she said it.
The being looked at vacuous as it did, but it saw right through Twilight Sparkle. And once more; it saw her future and both the goods and bad's that came with it. It was all in the matter of when Twilight's number would come up.
"Well, you've still got half a brain in you, I suppose. Can't deny that..." the being agreed, wholeheartedly.
"Why must show up, though? I don't understand that. Let alone do I understand why I am being subjected to your little mind games," She opened herself up to this familiar beam of light.
"I am here as a guidance, and as a teller of yourself." it replied.
"Why?! Why do you do this to me, just leave me alone. Leave me alone, and stop this all. Or explain the truth of why am I here. Why am I doing all these things, and why did I leave Ponyville! Huh! Because your money is as good as mine. I have no idea! So tell me. Just tell me!" At that point Twilight could no longer remain still and simply fell to the air. But she didn't fall like she expected, no, she simply sat still on the air. That was when she came to realize that she was stuck up in the sky.
"I can't reveal all the doors that haven't been open by you, yet." The being replied calmly once more.
"Yeah, but-"
"But I can tell you, that everything in your life will be resolved soon enough. It's just a matter of finding your number..."
"Number? What, wait, wait, don't go!" Twilight immediately started to breakdown in a fit of confusion and rage. "Please, I...."
The being started to fade through the mirror and before she knew it, it had been swallowed by this mysterious mirror.
"Hello! Hello! No, please," She whimpered incoherently as she tried to grasp on to any sort of understanding. "Don't go! PLEASE DON'T GO AWAY FROM ME!" she quivered and murmured a few, final words as her hung over her chest; legs crossed; rambling like somepony who just witnessed some other pony die. Uncontrolled and unrestrained by anything to keep her calmed down, she merely sat there and wallowed in anger....
Luna looked at her grimly at first, before it turned into a state of pity. Seeing her so lost, and confused, and tormented with her own thoughts inside her own hallucination spell. She was quite lucky enough to find her, and she had been playing with her for a little while now. She planned on turning her over, soon enough. But needed to find the source. The juice. The root of her problem, was it eternal demons? She hasn't seen this kind of hate for so long since the days before her millennial exile. But this seemed too crudely familiar....
Was Luna being tested to see if she could truly be labeled as the protector that Celestia needed; also the sister she wanted by her side through thick and thin. This felt like Twilight's situation was being chosen for Luna's faith to be put to the test. And the real damaging part is to either submit Twilight Sparkle; Celestia's favorite and most successful student to her. Or not do that and spare Celestia's sanity by keeping Twilight Sparkle alive, but losing her faith to Celestia and Equestria. Luna had to cautiously think about this, and she had a lot of planning to do. She would not sleep for the night, and neither would Twilight Sparkle as she sat in the woods crying and muttering to herself while stuck in a mind-numbing stage. Luna didn't worry because she was not far from her bait, but she knew nothing would really happen to Twilight because they were far enough away that no one in Equestria would ever know of their existence....