There was a thud. Clothing shuffled. Bottles scraped along wood and clinked together. They sounded far away, like they echoed through an impossibly long tunnel to reach her ears. Glass clattered just behind her. Her mind snapped to like a rubber band, and she peeked open an eye.
Laying sideways, she saw a countertop. Bottles of liquids lined the wooden backsplash, along with jars of tongue depressors and cotton balls. Cabinets ran from wall to wall, their glass windows exhibiting boxes with labels too chicken-scratched to read. Antiseptic tinged the air.
She listened to a set of hooves walk the length of a wooden floor behind her. She dared not turn her head for chance of being discovered. The pony stopped directly behind her, at the far end of the room. It then came closer, its hooves trumpeting its arrival on the creaky floorboards. Closer. Closer. Silence.
A warmth draped itself over Twilight’s forehead. A wet towel. She considered herself lucky the pony applied it slowly; she would have flinched otherwise.
“So you have no idea who this is?” the stallion applying the towel said. An older voice, one that had worked many years with little rest.
“Not a clue, Stitch.” Twilight recognized the voice, but couldn’t quite place it. A gruff voice, with a heavy twang to it. The pony with the familiar voice strode up behind her, next to Stitch. “Will that stitch hold?” A slight shift of clothing from both parties, perhaps the two catching each others’ eye. The familiar voice laughed. “Yeah, yeah, happens all the time, I know.”
“But this one didn’t get here on her own, I don’t think, Sherif,” Stitch said.
Sheriff? Sheriff Silverstar. Then she was in Appleloosa.
“No? How you reckon?”
“Unconscious on my doorstep. Curled up in front, not slumped against it. Somepony left ‘er—banged on my door ‘n skedaddled. Three in the damn mornin’, no less.”
Somepony left her. Rainbow Dash. So she believed her, then? It suddenly felt as though a vice had been loosed from around her heart. Finally somepony was on her side. Though, the thought turned to yearning, a desire to know where she was now, just to hold her in her hooves, apologize that she had been dragged into this mess.
Silverstar whistled. “Helluva long time on just one suture, Stitch. What’s that make it, then? Five, six hours?”
A short silence. “Six, I think,” Stitch said. “Poor girl was bit to the bone. Had to do multiple layers, temporary drain. All that fun stuff.” His last words seemed dismissive, casual.
Silverstar huffed. “Whatever that means. Those her clothes?”
Stitch ‘hmm’ed. “That ain’t all of ‘em, though. Shoulda seen her tuxedo. More red ‘n it was purple. Threw it out after I cut it off. No use keepin’ it.”
“Tuxedo?” Silverstar asked, incredulous. She could practically see his bushy moustache dancing around on his face. “Who in their right mind’d be wearin’ a tuxedo ‘round these parts?”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to say she’s from ‘round here, Sheriff. Can’t see it under the pad, but this ain’t no coyote bite. Too big.” Twilight felt her heart leap to her throat. “Nah, Sheriff, I’d reckon she came from the Everfree. Big monsters up’n there.”
“Huh,” said Silverstar. Twilight could mentally see him lifting his ten-gallon to scratch his head. “What you suppose she was doin’ there?”
Her heart settled back down into her chest. They hadn’t gotten word from Ponyville yet. She was still safe. But Twilight kept her eyes closed, decided it best not to reveal herself. Doing so would take time, a commodity she was not keen on wasting, and a slip of the tongue could easily lead things south.
Her shoulder didn’t hurt much at the moment, but that meant powerful analgesics ran through her system—both a crutch and a crucifix, if it came down to fight or flight. She was better off undiscovered.
Slip out at the first opportunity. Find Rainbow Dash. Form a plan. There was no telling when word on the ‘assassination attempt’ would arrive. She would need every minute.
“Can’t say for sure, Sheriff,” Stitch said. “But she was definitely runnin’ from whatever got her. She’s all cut up one side and down the other. If I had to guess what got her, though, I’d say a wolf. One ’a them timberwolves, I think’re called.”
“Hmm… Still don’t explain how she wound up here.”
“Not a bit, Sheriff.”
A pause. “Well, she’s one lucky lady,” Silverstar said. “I’ll give ’er that. She gonna make it?”
A hoof patted her gently on the barrel. It felt padded behind clothes. She still wore a part of Kite’s outfit, then. Or a blanket. Whatever drugs pumped through her made it impossible to tell without looking.
“I think she’ll pull through,” Stitch said. There was a hint of pride in his voice. “Mighta lost a good pint or two, but I got her stable on an IV of saline. Best I could do since Bar Fight needed the last of my blood packs, and my next shipment isn’t due until Tuesday. If she’s made it this far, though, my bits are on the conductor, not the carpenter.”
“Heh, well, we’d ship her home in a match box if we really had to, Stitch. An’ then you’d be outta double your bits.” The two shared a laugh before Silverstar let out a sigh. “Well, I’ll be leavin’ you to it, Stitch. Got some business back at the station. I’ll start gettin’ word out about this missin’ mare here.”
“Thanks for checkin’ in, Sheriff. Good day to you.”
Twilight heard Silverstar walk to the back corner of the room, where a door creaked open and then banged shut. Stitch whistled a tune to himself, taking up the towel from Twilight’s forehead. Water swished in a basin and then dribbled back down. He placed the towel—newly warm—over her head.
He gently patted her face with a cloth, wiping away a few stray drops of water. It took her all the effort in the world not to twitch. He whispered to her, solemn, sad. “What kind of creature could do something like this to a pretty ‘un like you?” He stopped, and silence reigned for nearly a minute. He sighed, and his hoofsteps followed after Silverstar’s. The door swung open, but no slam came. She knew him to be looking back over his shoulder. He said nothing, but the air felt ripe with well-wishes and promises of a speedy recovery. The door banged shut, and Twilight lay alone in the room.
She counted off ten seconds before lifting her head. The screen door the two had left through would hardly give her a chance to react if Stitch decided to return, but she hadn’t the time for caution. She rolled onto her stomach, and immediately the world darkened, her ears ringing incessantly. Her balance wavered, and she had to let herself adjust to the new position.
Stitch must not have been exaggerating when he said she lost a lot of blood.
Twilight took a breath to settle the sudden beating of her heart. She noticed the IV inserted in her foreleg, and she squirmed, never being one for needles. She looked away, eyes shut, as she slowly pulled it out.
Another sigh as she kept pressure on the site for a minute, and then swung her legs over the side of the examination bed. An unsteady but quiet slip to the floor and she crept for the front door of the room, opposite the one Stitch had exited through, walking on three legs to keep her injured shoulder still.
She gave the room a quick glance, pondering some way to thank him for saving her. There were none she could think of without running the risk of him returning. She settled for a wish of good fortune and a promise to return after all this had blown over before heading out.
The streets of Appleloosa were dustier than she remembered. At least, they looked it, what with how the morning sun didn’t quite glare off any particular surface. The dust clung to everything: buildings, signs, clothes. It kicked up in the breeze, and Twilight had to squint through it.
She brushed it out of her collar, which was when she noticed how much less of Kite’s outfit she wore: a black vest overtop a white short-sleeved suit shirt, the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief neatly folded in its chest pocket. Much more comfortable, she had to decide. Not that she had any room to think about it before. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a drop of blood to be found. The sleeve of her injured shoulder had been cut clean away, but otherwise only the tuxedo appeared missing. She considered ridding herself of the shirt, as having only one sleeve might attract attention. Best hold onto the vest, though. The ponies in Appleloosa often wore some semblance of clothing, and removing all of hers would only make her stand out more.
There weren’t many ponies out—which only added to her reasoning. She had to blend in as much as possible, and so followed through with her internal compromise. That left her mannerisms. Head down, eyes up. Look unimportant. Then plan everything out.
For starters, she had to find Rainbow Dash. Normally, spotting a changeling would have been a difficult task, but Rainbow couldn’t shapeshift. A rule of illusions: they can’t grant biochemical or magical abilities, only take them away through mental limitation. Which meant she was looking for a plain, old changeling. Unfortunately, that meant she would have to find Rainbow Dash, rather than vice versa. Hiding and meeting in plain sight wasn’t an option.
Twilight snuck glances at the rooftops, hoping for hide or tail of her friend. Just that would make everything bearable. She had to form a plan, and fast. There were questions that needed answers, dots that needed connecting.
Kite had claimed revenge as her motive. For what, Twilight didn’t know, but she believed a clue lay somewhere in the illusions. The circus had to have been a façade, a means of setting herself up for everything leading to this point.
Screwing with her friends was meant to get at her, pull strings that would lead her down whatever path Kite desired. That left the big illusions: the false past and the body swap.
She passed by the sheriff’s station, and Twilight did her best to not look its way, for fear of catching Silverstar’s eye, if he happened to be about. Nothing good would come of that kind of attention. She hobbled a little faster.
The illusion of her past had been constructed perfectly. Everything had matched to the smallest detail—even her parents’ nuances that no one would have known except her—and how it was staged to be the day of her entrance exam. No Sonic Rainboom. No Ponyville. And Kite showed her face as Celestia’s protégé, just to push her buttons—or perhaps the idea held more water than it seemed. She had mentioned revenge, after all. There had to be a specific reason the illusion was of her entrance exam and not some other memory. And come to think of it, she had been rather pushy on the subject of her princesshood, and all the fame and responsibilities it entailed, at their first meeting in the tent.
Jealousy and entrance exams-turned revenge nightmares. Princess Celestia came to the forefront of her mind, and there she stayed as if awaiting a friendship report in person. Suddenly, revenge seemed all the more plausible. High time she paid Canterlot a visit..
Ponyville was out of the question, and nowhere else had been alluded to in her limited interactions with Kite. She had come to Appleloosa to escape her friends. A lateral motion, if anything. A side step. She needed to move forward, and that meant taking a gamble on the breadcrumbs of Kite’s hubris.
She suddenly noticed a couple of ponies standing before her waiting for a cart to pass at the intersection, and stopped before bumping into them. She blinked herself out of her stupor, noticing something off about the cart. The painted trimming was not a style of Appleloosa—far too colorful—and the wheels were thin, weak things meant for better-paved roads. Within were a number of stallions.
It rounded the corner, heading past Twilight. She followed it over her shoulder with her eyes to where it stopped outside the sheriff’s station. The stallions stepped out, looking none too happy. She recognized one of them: Bright Light, from the Ponyville candle shop.
She took off across the street at a brisk walk.
Her shoulder complained—dull but there, still masked by whatever painkillers pumped through her. She ignored it as best she could; a healing wound meant nothing if she was caught.
A train whistled somewhere in the distance. She perked up, ears swivelling toward the sound. The station wasn’t far, just past the town square. Another quick glance at the sheriff’s office and she ducked through an alley.
Her shoulder throbbed at her exertion, and sweat trickled down her face. She had forgotten how hot the desert-plains of Appleloosa could get. The sun beat down overhead, casting thick shadows from the tops of the building. She noticed a blob of shadow run its length. A silhouette peeked over the roof at her, the sun directly behind. It all too suddenly leapt down at her, and she found herself backing up against the wall to make room.
The dark chitin shell glistened in the sunlight, apparently the only thing the dust couldn’t or hadn’t bothered clinging to. Rainbow Dash grinned sheepishly at her, fangs just poking out between her lips, ears flattened back, faceted eyes reflecting a million Kites back at her. She took a hesitant step forward, and Twilight met her more than halfway, wrapping her in the largest hug she could manage with her bad shoulder.
“Thanks, Rainbow,” she said.
Rainbow Dash cooed, throwing a hoof around her. Strong, but restrained—head not quite leaned in toward the hug. Still guilty about the fight.
Twilight released her, but shifted to meet Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “Don’t worry about anything. I’m just glad you’re on my side.”
Rainbow Dash nodded weakly, but Twilight could tell every little hexagon in her eyes gravitated toward her shoulder. She clicked and sputtered some unknown language. Guttural, but remorseful.
“I can’t understand you, Rainbow Dash. The illusion’s making you speak like a changeling. At least, I think.” She’d have to read up on changeling linguistics sometime. She shook her head. “But that’s not important right now.” A quick glance over her shoulder. “There’s ponies here from Ponyville looking for me. I have to get out of here.” The train whistled again, just around the corner.
“I’m going to take the next train for Canterlot. I have a feeling the only place I’m going to get the answers I need is from Celestia.”
Rainbow Dash jerked back, alarmed. She made a high-pitched hiss, wincing, biting her lip.
“I have to. It’s the only way I’ll figure out what Kite’s motives truly are and how to expose her. How I prove that I’m not Mr. Kite and get rid of this illusion—our illusions.”
Rainbow Dash looked down, ears still laid back. She chittered, low, unconvinced.
“Look,” Twilight said. “I have to get out of here before I’m caught, and you need to hide. I don’t think they know you’re out here, too, just me.”
She put a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, giving her a heartfelt smile, one her friend hesitantly returned. “I’ll leave you a sign on which car I’m in.” She leaned her head into Rainbow Dash’s, smiling. “Follow, but stay out of sight. I don’t want you to get hurt. Just trust me. Okay?”
It took a moment for Rainbow Dash to muster a nod. Twilight knew she asked the hardest thing in the world of her—telling her to hide, to do nothing. Let somepony else handle it. She herself had problems with the same thing, but Rainbow Dash was the most action-oriented of her friends.
They stood there enjoying the company of one another for a long moment. Two friends lost in a hostile world, soon to be separated.
Twilight drew back, Rainbow Dash likewise. A moment, then a gust of wind. Twilight shielded her face from the dust. When she lowered her hoof, she was alone.
Things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. She put her hoof to her chest, breathing in. Release, hoof out. Forward.
Out from the alley, the station stood just beyond an open field. The wood and windows of its face she knew well, and seeing them gave her heart a flutter. Steam rose from the other side, and ponies shuffled to and from the large, open doors. She followed, doing her best to conceal her limp.
It was cool inside. The high ceiling magnified the conversations of those around her. On the other side of the long glassless windows stood a train and its conductor, just stepping onto the platform.
“All aboard for Dodge Junction! Final stop: Vanhoover!”
That could work. The Vanhoover train would run through Canterlot. Plus, Appleloosa would soon be off limits to her, assuming the Ponyville stallions had come looking for her. The earlier she left the better. She started toward the train, but stopped upon seeing the first boarding passengers.
The conductor stood steely-eyed before the only door to the train, checking everypony for their ticket.
She had no ticket, nor any money.
Missing this train ran the risk of getting caught by the posse at the sheriff’s station. She looked between the coming and going ponies, and wondered how easily they would notice her hopping the train at the last minute. A step toward the train reminded her of her wounds. It had already been enough of a struggle getting to the station. She hadn’t a hope in the world of running alongside it on startup. That left her with only one option.
Ponies continued filing past her. She eyed their pockets and purses. Some flaunted their wealth through lacy frills and bulging waistcoats, while others had little to show for themselves. It was amazing what she could glean off a pony just by sizing them up—their attitudes and social statures given voice by mouthless cues, which ones might be too busy to notice a little something missing. Her heart beat faster just thinking about how many morals she would be breaking, her stomach churning something fierce. She had read books on tourism and safeguarding belongings, but never believed she would find herself on the other end of the situation.
No. She shook her head. It was wrong. Stealing was wrong.
Out the corner of her eye, she noticed the carriage stallions enter through the front doors. A shiver ran down her spine, a pitted sensation in her heart. She turned fully forward, praying to Celestia they wouldn’t notice her. Stay calm. Stay natural. Forward. The station teemed with ponies, and she would have to rely on the chaos to blend in. But the station was only so large. She had to get aboard the train, and she had to get aboard it now. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes to whisper a silent prayer for forgiveness, and opened them.
She eyed out one stallion in particular. His stride concerned itself with nopony else; and his tie had a sheen to it that no other stallion’s in the station had. Silk. A wealthy one, from Canterlot or Baltimare. Alone and oblivious. He’d be the easiest.
Twilight stepped in line behind him for the ticket booth. One book she had read mentioned that thieves would often bump into their target as they swiped money from their pockets, the victim’s attention on the bump rather than on their coinpurse. She had no experience with such a thing and couldn’t see how she would pull that off. A snatch-and-run wasn’t possible, either. Manipulations with magic could get pretty creative. Desperate hope raised her hoof to her heart, to the knot resting beneath her chest. It pulsed quietly, as if asleep, too tired to trouble her today. Perhaps she wasn’t as disarmed as she thought. She had to test it.
Her focus rested on the yellow and orange polka-dotted kerchief in her vest pocket. What was once a subconscious action—wrapping her magic around an object—felt like trying to lift Canterlot Mountain. Pushing her magic to her horn also pushed sweat to her brow. It didn’t feel bottlenecked like it had as a filly, rather a lack of pressure. There was magic in her, but minutely so.
The line moved up, and it was soon the stallion’s turn. She listened to him speak with the teller. He had a rather boisterous voice, one befitting the business stallion he claimed to be. A stuffiness rose to her collar, fresh sweat trickling down the back of her neck—his bits or her life. She repeated it in her head. His coinpurse came out. There was her chance.
As he opened the clip, Twilight strained to give it a little magical tug. The purse slumped to the ground, and the ring of coin silenced every turning head.
Luckily for the stallion, the majority of those around him were of higher society and weren’t about to pounce upon his coin like hungry wolves; those of lower status refused by mob rule.
Luckily for Twilight, he didn’t notice the five bits beneath her hoof while racing to recover the rest, and the stallions at the door had dismissed the scene too quickly to notice her standing right in front of them, their heads already sweeping the far-reaching crowds.
The business stallion regained himself, grabbed his ticket, and stormed for the platform, eyes very forward, as if it would make up for whatever social faux pas he thought he had committed. Twilight stepped up, watching him go. Her cheeks felt red as fire.
“One ticket to Vanhoover, please,” she said to the visored pony behind the ticket window.
He rolled his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Two bits.”
She tossed them in the tray. The stallion took them and slid out a ticket.
“Have a good one.”
Twilight nodded stiffly, pocketed the remaining coins and ticket, and headed for the platform. The sun beat down on her for a minute as she awaited her turn in line for the conductor’s approval, staring all too forward as the stallion had.
He took her ticket and nodded. “Welcome aboard.”
She found a window seat and stared straight ahead. No other ponies entered after her, leaving the carriage relatively empty. There, in the silence of the train car, her daring theft and evasion behind her, the last vestiges of mental fortitude finally withered. She heaved a sigh as she slid down her seat. Her hooves shook like leaves clinging to a branch in a hurricane, and she felt light headed.
The cool wood beneath her felt unreal, as if there was no possible way she had managed getting this far. She let it sink in, opened her eyes to prove to herself that she was indeed on the train and safe from the hunting party. Another deep breath and she regained her seat to look outside.
That left flagging down Rainbow Dash. A maintenance ladder climbed the outside wall between her window and the one behind her. She wrapped her kerchief to one of the rungs and gave it a tug. Nice and secure.
A final whistle, and the train started rolling. The familiar chug of the engine began its rhythm beneath her hooves. The station started crawling its way behind her as she shut her window.
The carriage stallions stepped out onto the platform, staring at the train as it gathered speed. One of them met her eyes, and he paused briefly, as if not expecting the very thing they were searching for. “There she is!” he cried.
They ran along the platform, shouting down the conductor. Twilight pressed back into her seat, hiding her face from the window. Her heart beat loud in her ears against the chug of the train and the shouts of the stallions.
She had been found, and they were going to take her back to Ponyville. Or worse. The deserts south of Appleloosa were famous for their myriad of deadly animals and insects.
She listened to the steam engine chug, the pistons push and pull beneath her. She gripped her seat until it hurt, jaw clenched, neck stiff as a board. Just keep moving. Just keep going.
There was a thud against the side of the traincar. Another. Hooves. “Stop the train!”
they shouted, their voices muffled behind the pane of glass yet clear as day in her head. Twilight closed her eyes, feeling her legs tremble. Don’t stop.
The sounds fell away as quick as they had come. The click of the tracks approached a steady rhythm, and Twilight knew the station was far behind her.
She breathed in a slow, trembling sigh, one she almost couldn’t will, so shot were her nerves. It came out just as broken, but she managed to recline in her seat and hold back tears of relief.
The trials and terrors of the last two days rushed back upon her. She still didn’t understand Kite’s plan. There was little to go on, and less to trust.
All she had was her hunch: Kite had claimed revenge as her motive, and if it had any merit, the only place she would find out was Canterlot, from Celestia herself.
That didn’t sit well in her stomach. The mere thought of her mentor and the inklings of her situation reawakened the Kiss and Tell as a knot in the back of her tongue. Meeting with her meant doing so not as herself but as Mr. Kite, and whatever past demons that entailed. She would be walking into a manticore’s den, except this manticore could be infinitely more ferocious if things went south.
Or if they were already south to begin with. Just what Kite’s history could be with Celestia kept her eyes unfocused, staring out the window. All she knew was that it was her only option for obtaining the information she needed, and her window of opportunity already grew thin.
She needed a plan for confronting Celestia. A game of words to weave around both the Kiss and Tell and any history between them in hopes of dispelling the illusion for at least one more pony. The most important one to convince.
But that would be then. Now, here on the train, the world weighed heavy on her shoulders, and heavier on her eyelids.
Twilight rested her head against the window sill, closing her eyes as the wind reached full roar, the last thoughts on her mind before sleep crept in that everything would most certainly get worse before they got better.