For the Benefit of Mr. Kite

by Corejo

I - A Grand Entrance

Twilight Sparkle had never considered Equestria a dangerous place.  She had grown up in Canterlot studying countless books on Equestria and its neighboring countries, and further works read in preparation of princesshood never swayed her belief.  It wasn’t the idyllic place she held it to be as a filly, but it was far from grim.  And while villains arose seeking dominion, the power of friendship was there to see her through.

  There were no wars, no famine, no social crises to threaten the Equestrian way of life, only her and her friends in the town of Ponyville, living and loving the days that life brought them.  

Twilight was thankful that becoming a princess hadn’t changed her life as drastically as she had expected.  Though always eager to please Princess Celestia and strive to learn everything she could on the magic of friendship, she was never fond of change.  Ponyville was a comfort zone, a place where she never felt insecure, never felt alone.  Having to move away from her friends—losing them—was her greatest fear.  But as with war and famine, she had no reason to worry.  Her only responsibilities were toward her friends and the library.  Friends and books.  It didn’t get any better than that.

The only grievance she ever had between the two was when the friends checked out the books and then kept them longer than they were supposed to.  Among the residents of Ponyville, keeping books overdue was more habitual than accidental, a problem Twilight greatly despised—especially before her monthly custom of recataloguing the library—and was the reason why she had woken early, a list in her saddlebags and a frown on her face.  She was by no means a morning pony, but the task at hoof was far more important than beauty sleep.  Books were for sharing, not hoarding!  

She had planned her course in a clockwise fashion around town, to minimize travel time.  The sheer number of returns had crossed her mind, but only in passing, thanks to a healthy dose of ingenuity; books were both easy to stack and carry by magic.
Halfway through her route, she decided it best to hit town square, as the morning rush had started dying down.  And it was while considering changes to the library’s rental policy that she happened to notice a poster tacked to the front door of Town Hall.  It was a simple thing, so minute in her surroundings that she wondered what about it had even caught her eye.  

The only logical answer was that it was exactly that: a poster.  A poster in the close-knit town of Ponyville, where advertisement travelled far better by mouth than sign.  Whoever posted it wasn’t from around here.  She broke off from her route to investigate.

The wooden porch of Town Hall creaked its greeting as she trotted up to the door.  Twilight could have stopped at merely raising an eyebrow at the gaudy block print and kerning that bordered on heresy, but the message itself also earned a cock of the head.

And to Twilight’s bewilderment, the list went on.  The thought perplexed her, though; only a hoofful of circuses with such an array of spectacles travelled the known world, and she couldn’t recall any of them having the word “Royale” in their names.  Maybe one of her friends would know more about this circus that had cropped up out of nowhere. 

She smiled and turned to resume her book collection from the remaining overdues on her list.  She scanned down the page to land on a personal favorite of hers: Illusions, Elementary, held captive by none other than Rainbow Dash.  She rolled her eyes.  Of course she would be on the list.  Why expect any less? 

Regardless, it gave her a familiar somepony to ask about the poster.  She rounded a corner and beelined for the house of swelling cumulus drifting above the outskirts of Ponyville.

Her venture across town proved a quick one, and when she arrived, looking straight up at it put quite a strain on her neck.  A sigh and flex of her foreleg—just like Cadence had taught her—readied her for a hard lecture on timely returns.  She took a few tentative flaps of her wings before leaping into the air.  Although she had learned it well enough, flying just wasn’t her thing.  She preferred keeping her hooves on the ground, where the dirt supported her weight with hard reassurance.  It stayed where it was supposed to, and that’s how she liked it.  

But Rainbow Dash’s porch was rather supportive, she decided upon landing.  It had a heaviness to it, absent in most clouds, that gave spring to her step.  Rainbow Dash’s experience as a flyer showed in such attention to detail, and her job as the weather mare only gave her the ability to act upon it.  She showed understanding of momentum and force conceptually, though Twilight assumed she steered clear of them mathematically.

If only she applied that understanding to due dates.

Twilight cleared her throat before knocking on Rainbow Dash’s front door.  Well, before trying to, anyway.

Her hoof passed through the condensed vapors to leave quite the hole in the door.  She winced, then frowned at her newly drenched hoof.  Apparently Rainbow Dash hadn’t given the same consideration to her house as she did her porch.

Rather than destroy more of her friend’s home, Twilight called out, “Rainbow Dash?  Are you in there?”

Silence.

“Rainbow?”

Still silence.

“Rainbow!”

A bump preceded the shattering of what sounded like glass and a series of muffled curses.  The large rose-colored eye of Rainbow Dash peeked through the hole Twilight had made, brow arched in confusion, before the door swung open.

Mane more dishevelled than usual, Rainbow Dash stood scratching her head, still looking curiously at the hole.  “Uh... good morning?”  Sleep bagged beneath her eyes.

Twilight grimaced at knowing she had woken her friend, and tried hiding it with another cough.  “Uh, good morning, Rainbow Dash.  I was just stopping by to collect your overdue book.  You do have it with you, don’t you?”  She forced a smile.

“You know it’s like, eight in the morning, right?”  Rainbow Dash yawned.

“Actually, Rainbow, it is eight-oh-five.”  She closed her eyes and stood tall.  “Which by library policy means your book is overdue by five minutes.”  She finished, widening her smile.

Rainbow Dash blinked.  A third and, hopefully, final yawn escaped her before she spread her wings and stretched her back.  To Twilight’s surprise, she then plunged her head into the floor and reemerged, face damp, vapors whipping into the air.  She shook herself like a dog, reawoken.

“So you need it back now?”  There was a glint of energy and challenge in her eye.  To her namesake, Rainbow Dash was up the stairs and gone around the corner before Twilight could draw breath for an answer.  A split second later, she landed at Twilight’s hooves, nearly startling her off the porch.  Illusions, Elementary was balanced on her back, and she was grinning at it slyly.

“All read and done with,” Rainbow Dash said.  “I gotta say, all your sciency stuff is waaay boring, but this illusion stuff is pretty cool—even if I can’t do any of it.”

Twilight smiled, remembering how she felt the first time she had cracked it open herself.  “‘An illusion is only as strong...’” began Twilight.

“As the illusee is observant!” Rainbow Dash finished with her, gleeful, hoof raised as if part of a cheer.

Twilight blinked, then cocked her head, a smirk forming on her lips.  Rainbow Dash had actually remembered that all on her own.  She had to admit, when Rainbow Dash put her mind to something, she was pretty good at it.

Rainbow Dash blushed furiously at her outburst.  She glanced aside before clearing her throat and straightening herself.  “Yeah, uh, just don’t go loud-mouthing that to everypony, alright?”

Twilight chuckled.  “Of course not, Rainbow.  Cross my heart and hope to fly.”  She floated the book into her saddlebags as she removed the checklist to cross off her friend’s name.  She smiled, thankful no corners were bent or pages torn.  “Alright.  Thanks.”

“Like I said, no problem.”

Twilight turned to leave, but remembered the poster tacked to Town Hall.  She spun back.  “Oh, I almost forgot, do you know anything about this ‘Circus Royale’ that’s supposedly coming to town tonight?”

Rainbow Dash looked up, then shrugged.  “Can’t say I do.”

Shoot.  She would just have to ask the others, then.  “Alright.  Thanks anyway.”  She took a few apprehensive steps toward the edge of Rainbow Dash’s porch.  Her wings were as able and trustworthy as her hooves, but the initial fall she could never get used to.  She glided carefully to the ground, giving her flight no chance for surprises.  She landed at a trot and sighed relief.  Good old ground.  

A quick shake to settle her feathers and she was off for the pond at the north end of Ponyville.  Sweetie Belle had borrowed a pop-up book a while back that was in desperate need of circulation.  Twilight smiled.  It needn’t worry; she would be there soon.
Stirrup Street was the quickest route since it cut diagonally through Ponyville.  She followed it down a hill, letting gravity lengthen her stride.  

As she went, she chuckled to herself, pulling Illusions, Elementary from her saddlebag. The large eyes on its cover stared back at her.  “An illusion is only as strong as the illusee is observant,” she said, returning its gaze.  Many years had passed since she read that opening sentence, the book’s first and foremost law regarding the nature of illusions.  She knew her memory was sound, though, undiminished despite the weathering of time.  It was, after all, her favorite book from before she became Princess Celestia’s pupil.  It still was, if she didn’t count—

“Oof!”  Twilight bumped shoulders with another mare.

“Sorry,” they each said.  The mare continued on her way as if their meeting had never happened to become part of a commotion developing around them.  Twilight looked about, confused, at all the ponies that had seemingly come out of nowhere.  She knew she was prone to close-mindedness, but never to such a degree.  They couldn’t have simply appeared out of thin air.  Wherever they had come from, though, they were all headed in the same direction, toward the center of town—toward Town Hall.

Again the poster flashed like a phosphorus bulb before her eyes.  She shook her head.  She was being obsessive again.

But what could be the attraction that they all were so obviously drawn to?  She had to find out.  Twilight diverted from her course and followed the crowd.

As she trotted, particular voices stuck out from the general hubbub.

“I wonder what it is,” a high-pitched voice said.

“I hear they’re really amazing,” came another.

“Somepony said the minotaur can lift the weight of an elephant with just its nose ring!”

Twilight’s curiosity doubled with the mention of a minotaur.  Surely, it had to be related to that “Anslo” character from the poster.  She quickened her pace.

The crowd was thick around the front of Town Hall.  She tried pushing her way through, but to no avail and instead found a spot beside an earth pony couple, where she strained her neck to see a figure cloaked in black standing on the porch.  The figure’s frame bulged at odd segments of its body, and yellow, slitted eyes glowed beneath the hood like lanterns in an unlit alley.

“Ladiess and Gentlecoltsss,” it said.  Its voice was deep but soft, and seemed to almost purr on the inhale.  “It is my honor to announce the arrival of the mossst magnificent spectacle of our age.  For thisss night, and thisss night only, Mr. Kite’s Cccircus Royale will hold its show here in your very town.”

It shifted its gaze from one side of the audience to the other.  “Witnesss this once-in-a-lifetime exxtravaganza, or forever regret the wonders never to be seen again.”  It let the sentence hang like a carrot in front of the crowd before a pair of claws emerged from the folds of its cloak and drew back the hood.  Blood-red scales shone like glass in the sunlight.  A forked tongue flitted from its mouth to a round of gasps from the audience, Twilight included.

A salamander in Equestria?  Such an event had never before been recorded—let alone dreamed of.  The knowledge it must have of its homeland across the Great Ocean would be beyond invaluable.  She took an instinctive step forward.

“I am but a harbinger of the exoticsss in sstore,” the salamander said.  “Tonight—” its eyes flicked directly at Twilight for the briefest of moments “—you will see the world!”  In a sweep of its cloak, it vanished into nothingness.

Murmurs and yelps rose from the crowd.  As a single body, it shifted back and forth in a swirl of excitement, fear, and curiosity.  Twilight kept her eyes fixed on the space the salamander had occupied moments ago, skin crawling, mouth agape.  

It disappeared without an ounce of visible exertion.  No glow.  No flash.  No sound.  The absence of those three physical manifestations meant it hadn’t drawn its energy from the leylines that run through the earth, as all magical creatures do.  Its power was not bound by the laws of reality.  And never in the rare, documented contacts with salamanders did they ever display any sort of magical capability.  A chill ran down her spine.

Whatever this circus was, it wasn’t natural.  And the way it had looked at her not even a moment before disappearing screamed maleficence.  She needed to tell the others.  She turned for the nearest of her friends’ homes, Carousel Boutique.

“And you say he was red and scaly?  Like a lizard?” Rarity asked as she poured herself a cup of tea.

Twilight sat across from her at the kitchen table, an impatient frown slapped across her face.  “Sal-a-man-der,” she corrected.  “He was a salamander, Rarity.  Do you even know what that means?  A salamander!”  She threw her hooves into the air.  She waited for a reply, but when none came, groaned.  “It means he’s from across the ocean.  The other side of the world.  They don’t just... pop up out of nowhere.”

“Zecora is from quite a ways away, Twilight, and she’s a close friend, isn’t she?”  Rarity took a sip of her tea, winced, and added a cube of sugar.

“I’m not talking about Zecora; I’m talking about this—” she jiggled her hooves in front of herself “—circus thing, and that magic I saw.  That wasn’t natural magic, Rarity.”  Her frown grew, almost into a scowl.

“So you’re worried over a little something you know nothing about?”  Rarity looked up, brow raised.  “That doesn’t sound like the Twilight I know.  She would be excited, eager to learn!”

Twilight felt her jaw drop, the heat in her cheeks rising.  “Wha—I’m worried about why this would just show up out of nowhere.  Why Ponyville?  Why not a bigger city with larger crowds?”  Twilight’s voice continued escalating as if it would slap such ignorance out of her friend.  “I mean, Trixie was one thing, but this?  And I told you already about how it looked at me.  That wasn’t just a passive glance.”

“Oh, do stop fancying such a silly thing, dear. You and I both know that could only have been coincidence.  Why, you said there was practically all of Ponyville there!”  She idly stirred her tea.  “Why in Equestria would it single you out of hundreds of ponies?  And it didn’t even do anything when it saw you, either, did it?”

“N-no.  But—”

“Well, there you have it, Twilight.  It was just a coincidence.  Anyways, I think they chose Ponyville because they simply wanted a smaller venue. To test the waters, as it were.”  Rarity took another dainty sip and smiled at her friend.

Twilight returned the opposite.  She stormed out of the boutique with her frown and headed down the street.  Of all ponies, Rarity should have been one of the easiest to convince something was amiss, what with how she loved to gossip.  Practically drooled over the chance to.  Why in Equestria she would be so dismissive was beyond comprehension.  Twilight huffed, but then stopped in her tracks as she noticed the position of the sun.

It sat directly overhead.  

There was no way she had spent nearly four hours at Rarity’s.  Ponyville Elementary’s bell chimed noon, proving she wasn’t seeing things.  Twilight shook her head.  Maybe she had.  Just losing track of time.

She turned for Sweet Apple Acres.  Applejack would understand.  Yes, she was a very level-headed pony.  Vigilance was her mainstay, the nearby Everfree and its dangers the perfect fosterer for such a trait.  The care and maintenance of such a sizeable estate alone would—

Twilight stopped and rubbed her eyes.  Before her stood the large, red barn of Sweet Apple Acres.  There was no way she had walked across Ponyville that quickly.  The breath she had taken seemed to have disappeared from her lungs, and they refused to draw another without conscious effort.  This wasn’t right.  Ponyville didn’t just move around.  Her mind was screwing with her.

“Twilight?” came Apple Bloom’s voice.

Twilight turned her head to see the little filly beneath a tree, an empty basket beside her.

“What the hay’re you doin’ here?” she continued.

Twilight smiled away the tension in her chest.  “Oh, I was looking for Applejack.  Is she around?”

“Sure is.”  Applebloom nodded over her shoulder at the barn.  “Should be in there workin’ on the plow.”  She bucked the tree, an apple fell into the basket, and she hopped around, shouting for joy.

Twilight chuckled, glad that at least something still made sense today.  “All right, well, you have fun.  And thanks.”  She headed for the barn.  At the door, she paused, listening to the clamor of metal on metal within.  Instinctively, Twilight cleared her throat before knocking.

“Just a second!” Applejack yelled.  Though it took by definition more than one second, she opened the door promptly and gave her usual, warm smile.  Her forehead was damp with sweat, and the smell of straw and wood graced her like a perfume.  “Well, howdy, Twilight.  What brings you ’round here?”

“I was just coming down to talk with you about something that happened this morning,” Twilight answered.

“Oh?  What’s that?”

Twilight straightened herself.  “A poster about some ‘Circus Royale’ appeared on Town Hall.  Then, there was a salamander—a salamander—right here in Ponyville.”  She leaned forward, almost pressing into Applejack’s snout as she hissed the beast’s name.

Applejack leaned back, grimacing.  “Oh.  Y-you mean like them little ones Fluttershy keeps next to the birds in her living room?”

“No, a salamander!”  Applejack raised an eyebrow at the outburst. Twilight continued: “Big as a pony, claws like a manticore’s.  It was at Town Hall advertising the circus.  And then it just vanished—no magic!”

Applejack scrunched her face.  “Well, if’n you put it that way, I guess it does sound mighty fishy.  Course that’s just prob’ly one of their fancy magic tricks gettin’ the best of you.”  She chuckled.  “Least this time it did, Twi. Last time some show came to Ponyville it was—”

“Trixie, I know.”  Twilight rolled her eyes.  “But this is different.  I don’t know what’s going on, but all day things haven’t been normal.”  She looked away, biting her lip.

“Like what?”

“Like the time for one thing.  It was eight-o-five on the dot when I spoke with Rainbow Dash about her overdue books, right before the salamander came.  But when I left Rarity’s directly after that to come straight here, it was noon.”  She looked back at Applejack, hoping for a reassuring smile, but her friend’s face was far from comforting.

“Twilight.”  Applejack’s voice treaded the border of worry, face forming a wince.  “I’ve been fixin’ our plow all day.  What time did you say you came here?”

A gasp caught in Twilight’s throat.  Muscles tensed at the implication.  No answer dared cross her lips, and she slowly craned her neck to look at the sky.  An evening sun hung low over the distant mountaintops.  No.  She shook her head in disbelief before dashing back toward Ponyville, Applejack’s cries lost in the distance.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be happening.  This was unnatural.  Time didn’t speed up or skip entire days.  The poster.  The salamander.  The circus.  It was all connected somehow to this violation of natural law.  And she would have to get to the bottom of it.  There was no time to—

Beasts and monsters torn from the darkest pages of the Canterlot Library’s bestiary lumbered and snaked and scuttled among massive tents in the clearing between Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres.  Their screeches and roars were jumbled in the distance, reached out from the valley’s mouth at her like claws to drag her down into whatever nightmare spawned them.  Her legs trembled beneath a weight growing in her stomach.  

Indeed, there was no time to lose.  She clenched her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and thought of the soft grass outside the library.  The pressure of the world left her for just an instant as the magic gathered in her horn cracked the silence. 

She opened her eyes to see home standing before her.  Here this nightmare would not follow her.  Here she could shut herself in and formulate a plan.  She was safe here.  

The door opened at the glow of her horn, and she stepped into a darkened library.  It shouldn’t have been dark, though.  Even if the day were going normally, Spike would still be up tidying the place, the lamps along the bookshelves warm and aglow.  But it instead looked as if he had done quite the opposite; papers lay strewn across the floor, books left unshelved.  Spike never went to bed without putting everything in some semblance of order.

A shadowy figure swooped overhead.  Twilight shrank into the floorboards, her eyes shooting into the darkness above.

“Hoo!” came a high-pitched voice.

Twilight eased herself, sighing away the spike of adrenaline that had set her heart pounding away.  It was just Owlowiscious.

“Hoo!” Owlowiscious called, assumably flying circles somewhere up near the ceiling.  “Hoo!”

Twilight cast a torchlight spell to bathe the room in a warm glow and return it to an easiness she longed to feel within herself.

“Hoo!!!”

She stopped, looking back up at Owlowiscious.  His wing flaps were crooked and frantic, not at all like his normal, precise flying.

“Owlowiscious?  What’s wrong?”

The owl careened down from his wild circles and tumbled into a heap at her hooves.  He scurried to his claws and flapped about, hooting at the top of his lungs.  His feathers were far more ruffled than she had ever seen them, and some even seemed to be missing.

He made his clumsy way toward the papers in the center of the room, wings wild like a baby chick trying to take flight.  As if the scattered papers magically returned his ability to fly, he was again up in the air and diving straight at her, his hoots louder than the screeching of an eagle.

Twilight ducked her head as he passed, and heard his claws scratch wood before he was lost to the night with a final “Hoo!”  She stared out the door, mouth agape.  “Owl… owiscious?”  That was nowhere near normal for him.  He didn’t even act that weird the times he got sick after a night hunt.  What in Celestia’s name was going on?

She thought of what his actions meant.  He never did anything without a purpose; he was a smart owl, after all.  He had struggled through the pages scattered on the floor, and then—

She saw at that moment the claw marks on the doorframe.  They started on the inside, dug deep into the grain, and tapered off toward the outside.  And they were far too large to be Owlowiscious’s.  It felt as if her heart had been sucked out of her chest by a vacuum.  “Spike!”  She could practically see the terror in his eyes as he clung to the doorframe, screaming for her at the top of his lungs as some unknown monster dragged him away into the darkness.

She leapt out into the night, fear gripping at every inch of her skin it could cling to.  She turned to dash into the heart of the circus grounds, ready to fight tooth and nail with whatever monstrosity she must to save her dearest companion.  But just as she looked up, she stopped, the blood freezing in her veins.  

“Misss Twilight Sssparkle.”  

Before her were the lantern-like eyes of the salamander and its bulging, cloaked body.  She heard it breathe in with the faintest of wheezes and flicker its tongue on the exhale.  It stood hunched over as if ready to charge on all fours at a moment’s notice, its foot-long talons absently shaving the tops off blades of grass.  Its eyes became paper-thin slits as sharp as its claws.

“I knew you would come back here sssoon.”  It flitted its tongue.  The glossy scales of its lips were pulled back into a silent snarl, possibly the creature’s attempt at a smile.  “This library is heavy with your ssscent.”  It tilted its head, drawing its lips back further, revealing just how long its teeth really were.  “It smells... deliciousss.  Just like your little Ridgeback.”

Spike!  “What have you done with him!?” Twilight yelled, feeling a weightlessness in her legs.  

The salamander gave a hissing laugh. Its tongue again danced out from the slits between its teeth.  “The Massster, the Great Missster Kite, would like an audience with you.”  It turned heavily on its claws, which ripped up chunks of grass with every step.

Twilight couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat.  Her knees threatened to give on the spot, hooves rooted in place, until it turned a bright eye over its shoulder at her.  This monster wanted her in tow, would only tell her where Spike was if she met this master of his.  Slowly, she willed herself the strength to lift a hoof, then the other.  If he was leading her to Spike, then all the better.  She had to know he was okay.  Oh, how could she have let this happen to him?  And if he had been targeted, then her friends were in danger, too.  This wasn’t right.  If only she could find and warn them.  She needed to.  Somehow...

They walked deep into the heart of the fairgrounds, the salamander leading with a commanding, weighted gait.  It didn’t flinch as a pteros screeched and beat its leathery wings at the chains around its neck, nor did it so much as blink when a minotaur twice the size of Iron Will stomped across its path, three trees’ worth of lumber over its shoulder.  Despite instinct telling her how easily it could tear her to ribbons at the flick of a claw, she kept as close to the salamander as possible for fear of the dark and skittering things around them.  Once—and only once—did she bump into the salamander while trying to avoid a slimy, glistening appendage reaching through the bars of a cage, and its cloak felt oddly warm.

They soon came to a large white tent with a zigzag trim of the deepest scarlet.  The salamander pulled back the flap and bid Twilight enter with an elaborate sweep of a claw.

Goosebumps ran up and down Twilight’s legs at the enormity of the interior, far greater than the dimensions of the outside and rivaling that of Canterlot Castle.  The red velvet carpet beneath her hooves certainly reminded her of it.  It flowed down from the hallways beyond the foyer staircase like two rivers meeting before a waterfall.  Vases of stenciled porcelain stood like sentries atop pillars flanking the mahogany railings.  Tapestries of unnamed kings and warring armies were draped across either far-reaching wall, concealed partly in shadow.  A great fire roared to her left inside a brazier large enough to hold the library itself.  It smelled of cedar, and faintly of cinnamon.  

Her wonder at its grandeur was enough to make her forget her situation and mouth a “wow.”  

“Wait here,” the salamander said, a claw raised in what might have been a threat, drawing Twilight back from her fascination.  It took slow, careful strides up the staircase and disappeared down a hallway.  The fire crackled in the silence.

Twilight bit her lip, feeling her hooves inch for the exit, despite the possible consequences.  Nothing about this place comforted her.  It was too clean, too perfect.  It couldn’t be real.  She shut her eyes, wishing the others could hear the silent screams of her heart, come and rescue her from this nightmare.  Just seeing their faces would make everything better.  Just knowing they were there beside her.  It wasn’t until she heard the pitter patter of her own sweat that she realized how greatly the ordeal was affecting her.

She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes closed.  “Stay calm, Twilight,” she whispered.  “You’re strong.”

Hoofsteps grew in the distance.

Twilight scryed every inch of the foyer for the source.  Sweat trickled into her eye, but she dared not blink away the sting as the hoofsteps chose the top left hallway.  The scratching of the salamander’s claws was distinctly absent.  Only one pony was coming—The Master, Mr. Kite.

Torchlight threw a shadow across the wall and wrapped it up onto the ceiling.  Jewelry clinked, soft and steady, just barely heard over the blood pounding in her ears.  At least, she hoped it was jewelry.

Despite its hoofsteps ringing clearly in her head, she imagined the likeness of a wolf: slavering teeth and matted fur—an ugly, drooling beast wearing necklaces of teeth and trinkets of bone, with a penchant for flesh and sadistic yearnings blacker than its hungry eyes.  She took another step toward the door.

The hoofsteps crescendoed to a peak as the shadow’s legs stretched toward the bottom corner of the doorway, and at last, the pony—a unicorn—appeared and descended the stairs.  Twilight blinked, a breath seizing in her throat.  The figure approaching her looked nothing like what she had been expecting.

Maybe what threw her off was the myriad of purples making up Mr. Kite’s tuxedo, or the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief in its pocket.  Perhaps it was the daffodil dangling from the buckle of Mr. Kite’s top hat and the curly, grass-green mane beneath it that bounced with each sauntering strut.  It could have been Mr. Kite’s half-lidded, midnight-blue eyes flickering in the light of the brazier, a grin steadily growing just below.

Or maybe it was due to the fact that Mr. Kite was actually a mare.

“Hello... Twilight Sparkle,” Mr. Kite said in the most honeyed of voices.  “I have been waiting ever so long for this moment.”

And it was with those words that Twilight knew, deep in her heart, that this pony was every bit the drooling, hungry wolf she feared.

[Author’s Note: Thanks to Pascoite, Pre-reader 63.546, RazgrizS57, and Belligerent Sock for their reviews of this chapter.]