//------------------------------//
// III - The Coldest Reality 
// Story: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite 
// by Corejo 
//------------------------------//

	
The Coldest Reality


Monsters weren’t real.  It was a truth Twilight Sparkle had held all her life.  Unlike other foals who hid under their blankets at night, there were no monsters under her bed, or creatures lurking in the shadows of her closet.  Maturity came early for her, and that meant she had no reason to think such things existed.  But the way Mr. Kite had spoken moments ago, dangled her life before her very eyes, proved just how wrong she could be.

The air had settled, the magic that lingered in the aether receding like dusk before night set in.  She could no longer feel Kite’s presence on the higher frequency, but she consumed Twilight’s mind from the inside out.

Are you afraid of death, Twilight Sparkle?

The trembles that consumed her moments ago—had her convulsing beneath a skin she could not move for fear of the blade—subsided.  A fog cleared from her head, leaving herself with more questions than was willing to admit.

She could still taste Mr. Kite’s lips.  Licorice.  It was heavy on her tongue and wafted to her nostrils.  How real it was—the kiss, the threat, then gone—yet how impossible it was to believe.  

The circle of cages hadn’t moved, and yet it felt as if they did, had shifted to conceal away the monster that lured her to this circus of nightmares and all memory of her.  She knew what had happened, but it made no sense.

There are far worse things to fear.

How effortlessly she had said those words, so easily whispered them in her ear, like a passing compliment, as if the unimaginable things worse than death were beautiful in her mind, something fantasized.

They were meant to hurt her.  For what, Twilight didn’t know.  What hints had Kite given?  Her motives hid somewhere in her words.

In their first conversation, Kite had poked at her status as a princess, fought to steer the topic toward it and her friends.  What was the connection?

A polite cough behind Twilight broke the silence.  She wheeled around to see Rarity, blushing in the dim light.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” she said.  “Was I interrupting something?”

The clenching feeling in Twilight’s chest disappeared, a sudden warmth spreading through her body.  A smile overtook her.  “Rarity!”  She ran as fast as she could to wrap her friend in a hug.  Twilight had never considered the softness of her friend’s coat comforting in an emotional sense, but at this moment it eased her mind as if she had woken from a nightmare.

Rarity squirmed a little, prompting Twilight to release her.  She fixed Twilight with a foalish smile.  “So that’s who Fluttershy was talking about.”

“You saw Fluttershy!?”  Twilight almost leapt upon her.  “When?  Where?”

Rarity all but jumped out of her skin, staring at Twilight as if she was a shadow that had darted between her hooves.  “W-why, yes, Twilight.  About an hour ago, outside by those, eugh...”  She twirled a hoof and rolled her eyes, grimacing as she fished for a word.  “Horrible, snake-like things.”  She shuddered.  

Twilight’s hopeful smile deflated.  She had seen Fluttershy far more recently than Rarity.

“Why, what’s wrong, Twilight?”

“It’s Kite,” Twilight said.  “She…”  Twilight’s mind continued on to think ‘kidnapped Fluttershy,’ but her tongue lolled in her mouth.  The silence left her with a blank stare on her face, one Rarity returned.

“She what?”

What was happening?  The words were there but stuck in the back of her throat.  Twilight pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, trying to work out the warning that refused to spill forth.  “Kite’s…”  Her throat seizedfor an instant like an asthma attack.  ‘After you and the others’ never made it out.

Her heart beat faster.  The words she desired to say fled into the depths of her chest, hellbent on keeping Kite’s plan a secret.  Fluttershy’s life depended on them, yet she could do nothing.  Her tongue hung limp in her mouth at the very thought of speaking.

It was unnatural.  To have gone mute so suddenly… It wasn’t nervousness, and fear only urged her to speak.  There was only one possible reason.

Magic.

Mr. Kite’s kiss—the hum of magic.  It was a Kiss-and-Tell pact, a paralysis hex placed on the bearer’s tongue, meant to guard lovers’ secrets.  Whenever one might attempt to divulge the contents of the pact, it would cut off nerve function to the throat.

By virtue, it was reciprocal: Kite could speak only with her on the matters constrained by the spell, but it left Twilight without recourse other than to find the boundaries of the pact she had unwittingly consigned to.

“Ah.”  Rarity glanced away, searching for an answer.  “I’m not sure what it has to do with Fluttershy, Twilight, but if you’re trying to tell me about you and that mare, well, it was rather obvious.”

After struggling for so long to speak, Twilight wasn’t sure what to say.  “Obvious?  You saw what she did?”

Rarity laughed.  “Well, yes, I just happened to be walking by and couldn’t help but notice the two of you.”  Her smile was unnervingly dreamy, the kind that often meant gossip was soon to follow.

Twilight fixed her with an uneasy stare.  “Rarity, why are you looking at me like that?  What was obvious?”

Rarity waved a hoof at her, starry eyed.  “Oh, please, Twilight.  I’m not blind.  You following her here.  Alone.”  She giggled.  “Where nopony would see.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped.  “I… wha—no!  That’s not what happened!”  It had suddenly become rather warm.

“Well it’s certainly what it looked like,” Rarity retorted, smiling proudly.  “It doesn’t matter to me who you like, Twilight.  Even if it is another mare, I will never judge you.”

Twilight worked her mouth and failed as if the Kiss-and-Tell had decided everything was off limits.  How Rarity could be so wrong when the evidence unfolded before her very eyes made her want to scream.

“Rarity,” Twilight said.  “I’m telling you, you’ve got it all wrong.  Kite…”  Nothing.  Kiss-and-Tells always protected themselves in addition to the secrets they guarded.

Rarity’s smile turned bland.  “Twilight.  We both know what I saw.  We are above this childish nonsense.  Can we get on with seeing the sights?  I would particularlylike to meet the giraffes.  I was told these two know a thing or two about fashion.”

“Rarity, this is no time to be fooling around!”  Twilight stamped her hoof.  “We need to find Fluttershy.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow.  “Really, Twilight, what has gotten into you?  First you’re on about Fluttershy, and then you try and shoehorn in your little romance—but get offended when I ask you about it?  That’s not like you.”

The warmth Twilight had been feeling became like a hole, one whose sides both grew taller and crumbled away like soft dirt whenever she tried climbing out.  Distress tinged her voice.  “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right I don’t understand, Twilight, you aren’t saying anything.  You simply clam up at the mention of this Kite pony you just kissed.”  Her face took on a motherly look.  “I’ve seen lovestruck ponies, Twilight, but you’re something else.”  Rarity cleared her throat.  “Now I think we’ve talked about your little affair long enough.  I for one would like to see the giraffes and would be more than happy if you came with me, but I don’t want to hear any more about this Kite nonsense.”  She turned to leave.

Twilight hesitated.  Fluttershy was out there somewhere in the innumerable alleys and tents, stuffed in a hole or locked in a cage.  She and Spike could do nothing but wait for rescue.  But while they were already captured, the others skirted the same fate.

Kite might be a scoundrel with little regard for the well-being of others, but her methods so far gave Twilight reason to believe Spike and Fluttershy were safe.  A trap isn’t worth much without bait.  Given that, she had to gather the others so they wouldn’t also fall victim.  

And Rarity was walking away.

“Rarity, wait!”  Twilight ran to catch up.

Rarity gave her a smile, and Twilight withheld a groan.  Always with the gossip.  She had to know everything about everypony.  Her skill in it did have its benefits, though.  Twilight could always count on her to know something about anything.  Or anypony.  Which made it odd how grossly wrong her friend had been moments ago.

Rarity might have been a gossip queen, but she was no fool.  Her stumbling upon them wasn’t coincidence.  Seeing how Kite liked to play dirty, there must have been an illusion at work.

It made sense in the grand scheme of things.  This circus was far too large for all of it to be real.  Kite had to have taken shortcuts.

“I do simply love the embroidery,” Rarity said, looking back and forth at the far sides of the tent.  “Though it seems a little too cultured for some of these… hardier beings.”  They passed a pair of steely-eyed dragonkin loitering by a stack of crates.  Whatever species they might have been, they appeared far younger than any she was used to seeing in the dragon migrations.  Their bipedal statures reminded Twilight of the salamander, Sylissyth.  

“It’s a shame you didn’t bring Spike with you to see all this,” Rarity said.  “I’m sure he would have loved it.”

Twilight winced.  Not something she wanted to hear at the moment.  “I’m sure he would have, too.”

“Then why didn’t you?”  There was a hint of accusation in Rarity’s voice.  

“Because…”  Because he’s been kidnapped.  “He couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?”  Rarity smiled.  “Don’t tell me he’s too busy cleaning the library to come out and have a little fun.  You work him too hard, Twilight.  All work and no play, as they say.”

“It’s not that.”  The Kiss-and-Tell threatened to tie her tongue in a knot.

“Then what is it?”

“I…”  She could feel her tongue going limp.  “I can’t say.”

“Twilight.”  Rarity’s eyes were set directly upon her.  “I don’t like being strung along.”

Twilight couldn’t take such a stare.  She knew it was insulting, but fishing for that curiosity was the only way she could communicate.  The spell might stop her from directly speaking what she knew, but it held no power over a trail of breadcrumbs.  She had to try.

“I know, it’s just, it’s the only way I can say it.”

“By not saying anything at all?  That hardly makes any sense.”  Rarity made a show of looking away, more than likely expecting an apology.

They re-entered one of the many larger aisles that ran the length of the tent.  It was loud again, as it was when she had first entered with Kite.  Twilight had to speak above the rukus.

“Look, I’m sorry, Rarity, but it is.  I need you to understand.”

“You need me to understand something I assume is important about Spike but you won’t say what it is?”  Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity continued unabated.  “Fine.  I guess I’ll just have to find out what’s so secret from him later.  I’m not here to play twenty questions with you, Twilight; I’m here to enjoy a fabulous ensemble of exotic art.”  She strutted off down an aisle, where the giraffes were visible in the distance above the heads of passers-by.

“Rarity!”  Twilight had to trot to keep pace with her.  “Rarity!” she shouted again.  The only response was an away-turn of the head, poised upward.  Twilight growled, and wrapped her friend’s head in a bubble of magic.  She whirled her around, face to face.

“Rarity!  I’m trying to talk to you.”

Rarity scowled as if she had been called fat.  But whatever retort came out of her mouth was lost on Twilight.  The scent in the air had changed, like a cold snap in a desert.  An acrid stench of something that had long since died masked the low-hanging pungence of straw and dirt.  It was far stronger than anything she had ever smelled before, as if the thing lay right beneath her nose.

Twilight gagged, tried gauging where it was coming from.  She looked around for it, and she realized that nopony else seemed to notice.  They all ran about smiling as if through a field of daisies.

She held a hoof up to her nose, a futile attempt to block the smell.  No beast in Equestria smelled so rank.  But then again, almost every creature on display came from some far off land.  What in the world could reek so strongly of death, and yet nopony else notices?

When she again faced forward, Rarity was already several spaces ahead.  She trotted to catch up.

“Rarity,” Twilight said.  “You have to listen to me.  It’s not safe here.”  Rarity kept walking as if Twilight hadn’t said a word.  “Hello.  Rarity.”  Nothing.  “Will you listen to me?  I’m being serious.”

Rarity upturned her nose.  “If you’re going to ignore what I have to say, Twilight—as you so rudely just did—then I suppose it only fair I do the same.”

She didn’t smell it either?  She was standing right beside her.  “Rarity, I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“Then what did I say?”  Rarity shot her a stare as cold as ice.  Twilight clenched her teeth, looking away.  Rarity harrumphed.

It was overly dramatic, even for Rarity, but Twilight dismissed it.  “Look, I’m sorry, Rarity.  But you didn’t smell that?”

“Smell what?”

Indeed, the smell had faded by the time she caught up.  Nopony noticed, Rarity among them.  “That smell.  It was like… like something died.”

“Twilight, that is simply appalling to hear.  Why on Equestria would you think such a thing?”  

Twilight huffed inwardly.  Convincing Rarity proved itself an impossible task.  She needed to change directions.  Accomplish another goal.  “I don’t know… Why don’t we just go try and find the others.”

“You don’t sound very convinced about that.”  Her remark felt true enough.  Every step they took weighed heavier than the last.  Magic hung thick in the air, like a cloud she had just passed through.  It tasted of copper and had a static to it, a charge potential that tugged out and away as if lighting poised to strike.

The smell returned, stronger.  It stung at her eyes, made breathing difficult.  Rotting flesh held no place in the realm of sense.  Such a foul smell should never exist.  It sent her stomach retching all the way to the giraffes.

The walk was short, thankfully, and the smell went away as they neared.  They were a lively bunch, the giraffes.  Twilight could hear their banter long before reaching their stall.  Motley and Longneck, as a squat, top-hatted capybara was quick to announce every few seconds to new passers-by, acted the part of two grade school brothers.  Motley, the—ironically—slightly taller of the two and—to his namesake—much spottier, appeared to take the role of older brother: joking and antagonistic.  Longneck came across as more reactive, though not without well-mannered retaliation.  Headbutts and expletives seemed to be the main of their attraction.

Rarity, surprisingly, took it in stride, nothing but a smile on her face as she and Twilight approached the stall.

“Oi, Long, getta look at these two!” Motley said, craning his head upside down.  He leaned down uncomfortably close to Twilight, eyes almost touching hers.

“Get off it, Mot, I can’t getta look if yer all in me way!”  Longneck pushed his head beside his brother’s, eyes like saucers.  

“Aye, Mot, that’s a pony that is.”  Longneck nodded emphatically.  Twilight wouldn’t have been surprised if she had heard rocks banging around inside.  She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn’t sure what to say.  She hadn’t expected Trottledee and Trottledum.

“She don’t know what to say, Long,” Motley said, rearing his large face toward Longneck.  “It’s probly yer big, ugly mug mum gave ya.  S’why ponies keep starin’ at ya.”

“Shut your mouth, Mot, everyone knows you’re the one got all the ugly.”  Longneck shoved his face into Motley’s, who pushed back.

“That so?”

“Aye!”

They started bickering, and Twilight took the opportunity to ignore them.  Rarity seemed amused by their antics, though, her eyes wider than normal and her lips pursed to suppress a giggle she was surely hiding.  She held her hoof to her lips, an unusual thing for her to do, either to keep herself from bursting out laughing or awaiting a moment to interject.

But there wasn’t much to interject about in terms of fashion, as that had been her reason for coming.  The massive bowties they sported, while acceptable for giraffes as part of a spectacle, weren’t anything Twilight would have written home about.  Everything of Rarity’s already shimmered, shone, sparkled, flashed, and any other word she would have probably used to describe them, more, by orders of magnitude.  

Or to not describe them.  They looked like they hadn’t been washed in weeks, the giraffes not too much better.  Though that could just have been from their roughhousing throughout the day, it still didn’t excuse proper presentation, something she would have expected from Kite, what with how she had touted everything on their walk.

She heard Rarity get a word in, and she apparently struck up a conversation, but Twilight only heard one of the giraffes say “the pretty one’s talkin’” before the stench brushed against her nose like the tail of a passing cat.  She scrunched her face in disgust, looking around for whatever reeked so horrifically.

It seemed to grow in power every time she came across it.  The last time she almost lost her lunch, but this time it practically knocked her off her hooves.  She stared at a single point on the backdrop of the stall to steady herself.  A wisp of smoke moved against the back partition, and the canvas waved with it as if in a breeze, but the only draft Twilight felt went the other direction.

“Oi, Mot, this one’s checkin’ me out!”

Twilight blinked, realizing the point she had fixated on was just to the side of Longneck’s rump.  She blushed furiously, her voice stalling.  “I… Uh, I wasn’t—”

“Ye like it, lass?” he said, smirking.  “I do work out y’know.”  He wiggled his hindquarters in her direction.

Twilight cringed, and both giraffes burst out laughing.  Longneck flopped to the ground, his legs cycling out of his control, before he pointed a hoof at her.  

“Got you good, eh?” he said, a tear rolling down his cheek.

Twilight rolled her eyes and groaned inwardly.  A couple of pranksters through and through.  She turned away, hoping Rarity would take the hint.

Thankfully, she did.  “Well, it was fun meeting you boys,” she said to the giraffes.  “Hope to see you perform later tonight.”

Motley jabbed his brother with an elbow, a devilish grin on his face.  “Y’hear that, Long? She wants to see me later tonight.”

“Ya, but she’s gonna be disappointed,” Longneck retorted.  “Last I checked, you weren’t the long-necked one.”

Rarity laughed along with them, waving a final farewell before sidling up beside Twilight and beginning their walk down the aisle.  She sighed.  “They were quite the pair, weren’t they?”

If by “pair” she meant psychiatric ward roommates, then Twilight would have certainly agreed.  She nodded anyways.  “I guess you could say that, but what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“What ever do you mean?”  Rarity returned her inquisitive stare.  The way her brows arched practically screamed how unabashedly determined she was to know.

“Well, for one thing, the Rarity I know would have thought they were dirty, and their bows weren’t very impressive compared to the things you make.”

“Tcha!”  Rarity waved a hoof.  “I most certainly know I would probably have a bit of dust on my coat too if I had to stand around in this place all day.  And I’m sure the’ve got much better sense than whatever those dreadful...things they were forced to wear were.”

Twilight shrugged.  “Fair enough, but what about all those other things they said about you?”

Rarity chuckled.  “Oh, you know, stallions…”  She let it hang is if it was self explanatory.

Except they weren’t stallions.  She wasn’t sure of Rarity’s views on that sort of business, but she smiled, chalking it up to her usual fawning for attention.

It was all in good fun, she had to admit to herself.  They were just making the best of a boring situation—a lesson she had learned herself at the Gala all those years ago.  She put a smile on her face, though the lingering smell reminded her of the situation.  “Where do you want to go next?  We could go look for Rainbow Dash over by the pteros; I heard it’s pretty interesting.”

She hadn’t heard anything of the sort, but it seemed effective; Rarity nodded in agreement after brief thought.

They walked down the aisle, in the general direction of the winged creatures’ section of Le Magnifique.  Half of her kept one eye open for Mr. Kite.  She knew from the depths of her soul that everything around her played a part in the grand scheme of this game.  It was a ruse, an attempt to keep her confused, unable to see clearly her motives.

The other half kept its own facade.  If Kite or her lackeys were watching, she had to maintain some semblance of ignorance.  Overt paranoia would only make things worse.

She hadn’t seen hide or tail of Mr. Kite since Rarity had intruded, and she didn’t know if that was good or bad.  What she did know, however, was that something was out there, watching.

Her alert side sensed there was more to the smell she had been noticing.  It had been following them since the cages.  What bothered her most was the distinct novelty of it; she hadn’t first experienced long ago.

“So what makes you so urgent on finding Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked.

The sudden question startled Twilight.  She glanced over her shoulder, unsure how long it had been since any words had passed between them.  The giraffes barely stood out above the sea of heads.  Had they walked that far already?

“I just want to find her.  We need to get everypony together…”  ‘Before it’s too late’ refused to leave her lips.

“What for?”  The tone of her voice was oddly curious.  “I mean, besides just seeing all the sights with our friends.”

Twilight gave her a glance.  The words had come out a little too quickly for her liking.

“Well, yeah, I think it’d be nice to know where everypony is.”  She held Rarity’s gaze for a moment longer.  She seemed to be measuring her words, as if trying to decipher them, which was weird since Rarity didn’t usually hesitate to meet with their friends.

“I must say I agree,” Rarity affirmed.  “I haven’t seen Rainbow Dash in a while.”  She put on a smile only the grumpiest of ponies could refuse, almost strained for some reason.

And while Twilight might have been worried, she was most certainly not grumpy.  She returned the smile, before holding her head high, happy to have finally convinced her friend.  How, she didn’t know, but glad all the same.

She set a commanding lead through the aisle.  The noises and fanfare of the circusgoers  pulsed with an energy she hadn’t felt since her coronation.  The sliver of emotion felt like a long-lost friend, a sensation she hadn’t experienced in days.  Was she dreaming, or had the pieces of the puzzle finally set themselves straight?

“This will be so much fun!” Rarity said.

Twilight couldn’t help but bolden her smile.  “Yeah, it will,” she said, squinting, moving her head to better see an odd pair of lights hidden beneath a nearby food stand.  

They could have been candles moved hastily out of the way for a demonstration, but no other stall around had any of its own.  The ambient torchlight did its job too well to need them.  Were they food warmers?  

The lights flickered in unison for a split second, and she noticed the darkness that engulfed the middle of each, where the flames should have been brightest.  She raised a brow.

As if trying to strangle her, the stench returned.  Twilight coughed, holding a hoof up to her nose.  There she noticed the smoke about the flames, how it floated unnaturally still in the air, seemed stuck, frozen in time.  The flames had yet to bend in the draft at her back, and again they flickered, down and up, in perfect unison.

Twilight became a statue, the blood in her veins turning to ice as the stench of death invaded her nostrils.  The flames hadn’t flickered; they had blinked.  At last she remembered where she had first witnessed the smell: by the cages, with Fluttershy.

“R… Rarity,” she whispered.  She couldn’t peel her gaze away from the lamp-like eyes beneath the table.  They drew at her, tugged like a fishing line reeling in its catch.  The mind set beyond the glow focused on her, desired her.  The draft in the aisleway became damp and warm, a breath upon the nape of her neck.  “Rarity.”

No answer.

She couldn’t break away, couldn’t turn to her friend for help.  The piercing gaze held her fast, and a part of her believed hers held it in turn.  Looking away would allow the creature to move, to slink away and strike from the shadows.  “Rarity… Please.”

Twilight couldn’t help the tears forming in her eyes.  They blurred her vision, yearned that she blink, but doing so meant losing sight.  

It bared its teeth, sharp and yellow, bright against the sallow camouflage of its fur.  She couldn’t hear it growl, but the sound rumbled in her heart nonetheless, sounded in the chasm that consumed her from the inside.  It looked like it was grinning.  “Just say something…”

Rarity.  She knew the word hadn’t come from her mouth.  Her throat had long since swelled shut, but she continued to plead as her eyes burned and the last bits of strength were sapped from her legs.  “...Anything.”

A sea of friendly faces flooded past her.  But she would die there alone.

The burning in her eyes became too great, and she could hold them open no longer.  A blink, and when the world came to, the creature had vanished.  She shot her gaze above the crowd, ears swivelled to pick up the sound of a thousand pounds of death hurling itself upon her.  Only excitement and cheer lilted upon the air.

Left.  Right.  She spun about to take in every crevice, every shadow in sight.  Even the light could hide it, the color of its skin fluid like water over stones.  A flicker to the left, a snap to the right.  Shadows danced and stretched along wall and canvas, a hundred movements in a thousand places.

There was a whoosh of wind and a bright streak above.  Twilight dropped to the floor, hooves tensed over her head.  She gasped and then stood, realizing the smear was an off shade of blue, eyes scanning the darkened upper regions of the tent.  “Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow Dash zipped about far above, where the torchlight simply could reach no higher.  She banked back and dove toward Twilight, finishing with a loop to soften her landing.  Twilight shielded herself from the kickup, but was unable to stop the smile spreading across her face and the relief that came with it.

“Heya, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Rainbow Dash!”  Never had Twilight been so happy to say her name.  

Rainbow Dash swept a hoof through her mane.  “You having fun?”

A wave of emotion rolled over Twilight.  “Oh, Rainbow Dash, you have no idea how terrible today has been.”

“Terrible?”  Rainbow Dash gawked.  “How come?  This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened in Ponyville!”  She beamed as if she had been accepted into the Wonderbolts.

Twilight winced.  “Coolest?  How can you even think that?”

“‘How can I even think that?’” Rainbow Dash parroted back.  “Have you even looked up, Twilight?”  She pointed into the empty blackness above.

“Rainbow Dash, there’s nothing there.”

Rainbow Dash stuttered, disbelief blanking her face.  “Nothing up there?  Come on, Twilight, don’t turn me into your broken record.  The pteros!  He’s right up there!”  Again, she jabbed a hoof upward.

Still only darkness.

“Rainbow, this isn’t the time to play games,” Twilight said.  She hadn’t the patience to hide the edge in her voice.

“Wha?  I’m not playing any games.”  She shook her head, confused, then grinned.  “You hit your head or somethin’, Twi?  You’re not actin’ right.”

No, you’re not acting right.  What in Equestria was going on with these ponies?  First, Rarity hadn’t properly seen what Kite had done, and now Rainbow Dash was seeing imaginary pterodactyls.

“What’re you glaring at me like that for?”

Twilight blinked.  She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder at any shadow that moved.  “It’s not safe here.  There’s some tiger thing loose in this tent.”

“Tiger thing?  Ugh...”  Rainbow Dash sighed, wiping a hoof down her face.  “You gotta stop with this weird stuff, Twilight.  Seriously, you’re freakin’ me out.  If there was a tiger running loose, don’t you think we’d have heard somepony screaming about it by now?”

“I… I don’t think so,” Twilight said.  She tensed: a chunk of ash clattered to the ground from a post torch.  “It’s after me.”

“You?”  Rainbow Dash laughed.  “Okay, now I know you’re just actin’ all loopy.”  She lifted off the ground, eyes sparkling like fireworks.  “I know what’ll screw your head back on right.  Come on!  I’ll show you all the other pteroses!”

Twilight felt the cold fingers of dread clutch about her heart.  “Rainbow, wait!”  But she spoke only to a cloud of dust.  “Rainbow Dash!”

She pushed through a couple ponies in her way, eyes desperate to maintain contact with her shrinking friend.  Her hooves felt heavy, weighted down by ball and chain.  Each breath came stubbornly, more resistant than the crowd she pushed herself through.  They had come out of nowhere, the busy aisleways suddenly standing room only.

She spread her wings to fly, but their bones, once light and delicate, became leaden and refused to flex.  “Rainbow, slow down!”  

Hundreds of eyes were upon her.  She felt them reaching out at her, grasping at her.  Which ones were friendly, and where between them would she see the yellow, slitted portals, the claws extending to peel the skin from her bones?  She pushed herself harder, yearning to catch Rainbow Dash, to keep a friend by her side and break free of the oppressive stares.  

They bled together, like a thousand heads of a single monster, their colors congealing with the world around her.  She felt her steps becoming heavier, uncoordinated.  The stench—the miasma—closed in, drawing the life out of her with every struggling breath.

She stumbled and fell, unable to breathe.  Sweat stung at her eyes, and snot trailed down her snout.  Dirt mingled with what little of the heated air she could draw.  It was more than just stifling air.  A hint of magic danced in it.  Its sour residue coated the back of her tongue—a World Weary charm, a fatigue illusion she should have recognized sooner.

Twilight coughed, squinching her eyes to focus her mind on the magic and reverse it.  She began to rise, feeling an immediate effect on her senses, and channelled the newfound clarity into her counterspell.  Its final vestiges melted away like snow beneath a summer sun.  Weariness gone, she blinked away the tears, happy to again be able to catch up with her friend.

But before she could take a step, she saw, huddled low in the dirt, the glowing slits.  A roar from the depths of her darkest nightmares blasted away all sense and stilled the blood in her veins.

A flash of teeth, and the beast leapt into the air, its fur changing from brown to dark blue before her very eyes.  

Twilight didn’t have a moment to react, only just registering that death bore down upon her with gaping maw.  She felt her body go rigid and her eyes go wide to take in every vivid detail.  

Its massive jaws twisted so as to clutch her firmly about the head.  Claws extended from its paws far beyond the thickness of her throat.  A purple sheen grew stronger upon its body in every moment of the eternity she witnessed.  She heard a fleeting plea for salvation shoot through her mind, something to Celestia.  It didn’t matter; it would be over too quickly to feel.  She closed her eyes to the darkness within its throat.  There was a crack of lightning, and then a slow fizzle.  

She waited.  She stood and waited to feel a weightlessness, a sense of ease, anything that she had fantasized death would be like.  But all she heard were hushed whispers.

Twilight peeked open her eyes.  There was no tiger.  Not a trace.  She glanced around at the onlookers—suddenly a sparse few—hoping for an explanation, but then she felt it in the tip of her horn: a vestigial spark of arcane overload.

She had been casting an illusion counterspell on the World Weary charm.  Twilight looked down at her hooves, at the warm puddle beneath her seat.  It grew cold, mocking her for letting herself become so witless in the face of a simple illusion.  These ‘exotic’ animals weren’t polymorphs; they weren’t even real.

Her reflection stared back, hollow and wide-eyed, as if it too mocked her before soaking into the earth.  And as she let the magnitude of her feelings wash over her again, she felt an altogether new emotion.

Words could not describe it.  It made her grind her hooves into the moistened dirt, grit her teeth until it hurt, tears well in her eyes, her legs both tense and tremble.  There was a fire in her heart, and it made her rise.

Of all the terrible, disgusting tricks a pony could play… Twilight stormed down the aisle, past what little of the crowd remained, past the artisans and caged animals.  She shoved her way out the front entrance against a stream of circus-goers, pushed aside tent builders and livestock tenders.  The circus parted itself like waves to a ship, back to the large tent with scarlet zigzag trim.  She thrust open the tent flap and stomped into a darkened room.  She paused, noticing the room had altogether changed.  A single candle sat lit on the desk, Mr. Kite reclining in a red leather chair behind it, eyes hidden beneath the brim of her hat.  The daffodil dangling from her hat buckle covered half of her demure smile.

“What the hell kind of game do you think this is?” Twilight spat.

Mr. Kite giggled, slow and melodic.  She took pleasure in the inhale, letting her mouth open just enough to see the whites of her teeth, and peeked out from under the brim of her hat.  The candlelight flickered far too brightly in her eyes.

“Game?” Mr. Kite asked.  She put a hoof on the desk, by the candle—whose brass bobeche was clean of wax drippings, as if it had been lit for her arrival.  “I didn’t know we were playing a game.”

Twilight gritted her teeth.  “I’m serious, Kite!  It isn’t funny.”

Mr. Kite looked down at her hoof, flat on the desk.  She supinated it till the cup of her hoof stared back, and then raised it to eye level, studying it for a moment.  Her mouth danced with unspoken words, what might have been invisible incantations.

Twilight sensed the air, tasted at it with her own unseen magics, like slender antennae of an insect.  All about her the voiceless words spiralled, waiting.

“Funny,” Mr. Kite said, her tongue lingering on the final syllable.  She rose from her seat—slowly, effortlessly, gliding out from behind her desk.  Her head and neck moved as if floating on a cloud, but her legs were clearly strutting, her body swaying this way and that as she arched her head to peer down her cheek at Twilight.  “There are many funny things in this little town of yours, Twilight Sparkle."

She came dangerously close, as she had with the Kiss-and-Tell.  Twilight stepped back, determined to keep her distance but holding herself firm.  She was going to get to the bottom of this gamemaster’s plot this instant, whether she liked it or not.

“Yeah, and you’re one of them,” she said.

“Oh, ho, clever, aren’t we?”  Mr. Kite smiled.  “But while that may very well be true, there is another thing here I had in mind, something I find very, very funny…”  She regarded Twilight with a predominant eye, and within it, something flickered.  “You, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight growled, standing her ground as Mr. Kite came close enough to touch horns.  “I don’t care what you think!”  She flared her wings to impose a fuller size befitting her anger.  “You came here with your circus, kidnapped Spike and Fluttershy, and then tried to kill me with a fake tiger!”

A loud chuckle crossed Mr. Kite’s lips, almost breaking free as a full-bodied laugh.  She took a moment to settle herself, but never removed her gaze from Twilight’s.  Despite it being behind her, the candlelight still shone in her eyes.  “Sylissyth is better than I give him credit for.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight spat, narrowing her eyes.

“Simply that and nothing more, my dear Twilight Sparkle.  But surely you know, a fake Gui’etzen can do one no harm.”

Her words, as Twilight knew, were spot on.  Illusions, Elementary dedicated a whole chapter to the idea.  Illusions held immense sway over the mind, but no matter how wholeheartedly the victim believed, it could never kill them.  But this mare was hiding something in her words, dangling it before her.  Best tread carefully.  

“Yeah, I do,” Twilight said.

“But if you know that, then why fear the Gui’etzen?”  Mr. Kite blinked, and the candlelight was gone from her eyes.  It instead seemed to shimmer in her grin.  “Why fear... anything?”

Fear anything?  Ugh!  Twilight clenched her teeth to the point of cracking them.  “Why!?  Because it was real to me then!”

“Ahh”—Mr. Kite grinned wider—“and that’s what makes you so funny, Twilight Sparkle.”  She lowered her head to gaze at her from just under the brim of her hat.  “You so easily believe everything you see.  How gullible you are.”  She turned back toward the desk, gliding away as smoothly as she had come.

The nerve.  Twilight’s breaths came out in trembles, her muscles taught with a rage she couldn’t control.  She only noticed the power radiating from her horn after it started crackling.  The noise caught Kite’s attention, and she smiled.  Then she faced Twilight.

“So very funny.”  Her words had come out flat, absent of cheer or guile.  “I am not something that can be touched, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Then prove it!” Twilight said.  She whipped her head back to sling the power built within her horn.  It seared the very air, screamed through the distance between them.  It punched through Kite’s face as if it were fog, white contrails in its wake.  Slowly, Kite’s face reformed, the blue of her eyes settling back in place, locked on her as if the spell had never been cast.

“Nothing is.”

The room grew dark, as if the tent had been thrown into the deepest of pits.  Only the candle lit the room, and the shadows it threw became like monsters scratching at the world.  Mr. Kite’s shadow crawled up Twilight’s legs.  She could feel it moving underneath her skin.

“Tell me, Twilight Sparkle...“  The smile she once wore had vanished, became stone beneath eyes that glowed with their own light.  “What happens when one dies in a dream?”  She let silence linger between them, clawing at her like the shadows.  Twilight felt the weight in her question, the magic condensing like a thunderstorm ready to hurl its first bolt.  Static collected along her back, tugging her hairs upward.  As the seconds passed, she could see the emotion within Kite’s face slowly drain to nothing.

“They wake up,” Kite said.

There was a tiny pitter patter of liquid, slow at first, building to a steady drizzle.  The smell of burning wick wafted beneath Twilight’s nostrils, and her eyes were drawn toward the candle upon the desk.  It was melting as if thrown into a fire.  

Wax ran in rivulets to overflow the bobeche and pour onto the desk.  As the puddle consumed the last bit of candle, it snuffed out the flame in a puff of smoke and caved in on itself like a sinkhole.  The depression widened, deepened, taking with it the desk and the books atop it.  Its underside oozed downward as its drawers leaned inward.  The lacquer began dripping, melting away with the wax running down its face.  And slowly, Twilight realized that everything else in the room began to sag.

Portraits of nameless ponies ran like fresh paint, their frames weighing down lengthening strings and limp hooks.  The bookshelf in the corner leaned, and its contents ran from its shelves, miniature waterfalls in slow motion.  Even the ground became soft beneath her, stuck to her hooves, and drizzled back down with every raised hoof as she struggled to stagger away.  

“What are you doing!?” she shouted.  The canvas walls were melting, a blackness unlike any other visible through their streaky holes.

“It is time, Twilight Sparkle.”  Streaks of wax ran down the length of Mr. Kite’s body.  Her top hat and overcoat slumped to the floor in bubbling globs.  Her eyes and ears ran down her cheeks, drizzling onto the slow cascade that was her shoulders, yet she smiled.  “Time to wake up.”

Darkness yawned behind the thinning streaks of canvas, a heavy warmth washing forth as if from an oven.  It pulled down against her body like a thousand grasping hands.  She could feel herself becoming lighter on her hooves, and looked down at them to see a puddle of purple forming beneath her.  She jerked back and tried flailing her wings, but they gave no strength to her escape as she felt them melt down her sides.  Her hooves were stuck, impossible to pry from the pool of her sloughing, liquified skin.

Everything hazed purple behind the smear of melting hair, and she felt herself shrinking, incapable of screaming behind the substance pouring over her mouth.  She shut her eyes, unable to breathe, unable to bear the nightmare consuming her from the inside, pleading from the bottom of her heart for it to stop.

The floor gave out.  She was falling.  Instinct screamed to thrash her limbs, to catch hold of something, anything—anything to hold tight and cry for an end to this absolute loss of senses and spiralling descent.

Her lungs burned with a flame she had never believed possible, clawed at themselves in their need for air; but there was none to breathe, her face encased in melting wax.  She held at bay the urge to suck in, willed herself to hold out for air like a diver swimming for an invisible surface.  

Her body convulsed in free fall, every muscle twitching, demanding the impossible.  Tears pushed through squinched eyes in her fading efforts to survive, teeth clenching as a last defense against the inevitable.  She could stand it no longer.

Her lungs forced open her mouth, and she couldn’t even gasp as her skin flooded inward.

Wake up!

Twilight snapped upright.  Air filled her gasping lungs with a cool, sharp pain.  Sweat poured down her face and slicked her mane flat against her forehead.  Light flooded in around her, and she had to shield her eyes.  It took her a moment to adjust, but slowly her surroundings revealed themselves.

To her left was a bay window, where a bright blue day greeted her.  Bookshelves stood tall along either length of the room, a soft purple to complement the shades of wallpaper cramped beneath a low-hanging ceiling.  A table stacked high with books sat in the middle.  

The more she saw, the more the warmth of her very existence faded.  She had seen this place before, but she couldn’t be there now.  She shut her eyes, covering her face with her hooves.  There was a swish of fabric.  Twilight shook her head, trembling, denying the touch and smell of what she held in her hooves: soft cotton, daisy-scented detergent.  No, she was not sitting up in bed, not holding her sheets in her hooves.

Slowly, she peeked open her eyes, hoping beyond hope that she had been mistaken.  But she could not deny the warmth of the sheets or the mattress beneath her.  The bookshelves were solid and laden with the scent of paper and ink.  The clock on the wall was real, and it ticked away in the silence, failing to echo amidst the piles of books and papers strewn about the room.  

Twilight could only cradle her tiny filly legs as the final walls of denial came crashing down around her.  

She sat in bed in her old room back in Canterlot.  And she was very much alone.






[Author’s Note: Special thanks to Belligerent Sock for his review of this chapter.]



[Onward and Upward!]