//------------------------------// // Chapter LX // Story: Lessons in quirks // by Mike84 //------------------------------// Twilight didn't open her eyes immediately when her consciousness had returned sufficiently for her to understand that she had lost it. A flood of memories of the last hour was rushing upon her, but in no specific sequence and it took her a moment to put them in order to mentally prepare herself for what she would face once she opened her eyes. Princess Luna's royal guard, his attempt to murder Frank, the fight in the town hall's storeroom, the realization that he was an alicorn, the pursuit and their magic duel, and then her fall. Even memories of noticing trees down below and... she shuddered ...fire came back to her. At least she had apparently not hit her head too hard during the fall and unlike in case of some other ponies lately her memories were still quite intact, Twilight thought sardonically. Other than that however, she didn't even have to open her eyes to know that things were not alright. Twilight felt like she had been run over by a train and there didn't seem to be a bone or muscle in her body that wasn't aching. She sternly called herself to order and forced herself to open her eyes rather than giving in to the luring temptation to just allow for herself to slip back into unconsciousness. It took her eyes some moments to adjust from the darkness behind closed lids to the darkness behind open lids, but gradually she recognized some outlines around her. She raised her head and turned it first in one direction, then another. Unsurprisingly, she was lying underneath a tree with a number of broken branches scattered on the floor around her. Twilight groaned as she slowly got up, testing carefully if she could put weight on her hooves or if she had broken any bones. For her great relief this didn't seem to be the case. She was aching all over and in the sparse light that fell through the treetops, she saw that she was covered in bumps, scratches and bruises, but it seemed that there was nothing severe enough to seriously inhibit her. "The earth pony part of being an alicorn", Twilight thought with a grim smile. Everypony was always looking at her wings when thinking of the changes she had undergone during her transformation, but she was rather sure that unicorn Twilight or even a pegasus like Rainbow Dash would have been in worse shape after this fall. Twilight sniffed, she didn't know exactly how long she had been knocked out, but she clearly caught the smell of smoke in the air, and with a shudder she remembered Zecora's warning. No matter how long she had been unconscious, the mysterious attacker was now out of reach, Twilight thought, and it gave her a painful sting. But now she had no choice but to return to Ponyville immediately to raise the alarm. She spread her wings and winced as a twinge ran down her right wing, eradiating as far as her spine. She had clearly not gotten away quite as lightly as she had first thought. Very carefully, she spread her wings again and inspected them carefully. They both looked somewhat ruffled, but not bent or twisted in a way that would have suggested for any bone to be broken. Most likely she had wrenched a muscle or sprained her right wing or both of that. Twilight clenched her teeth. She could not allow for such weaknesses now. So long the bones were intact to support her wings, she just had to ignore the pain and get herself back to Ponyville. Time to mend such aches and pains would come, but for now there was more important stuff to do. She forced herself to not think of the wing or its complaints, gritted her teeth and flapped. She could only just suppress a wail. The rapid movement of the wings had sent a jolt of pain down her spine that made it impossible to focus on anything else. Her vision turned blurry with tears. No matter what, she would not be flying anywhere this night anymore. She was sobbing, not just because of the gradually fading pain, but mostly for disappointment in herself. Failed once again! "Celestia", she murmured, closing her eyes. Ponies said that Princess Celestia could bend tempered steel with her wings and while Twilight had never dared to ask her mentor about this, she didn't doubt the claim. And here she was, her wings rendered useless by a little fall and some branches. Celestia would never succumb to such trifles, least of all when so much was at stake and so many ponies depended on her! "But you are not Celestia!" Twilight cast her eyes open and cast a look in every direction. "Rainbow Dash?" she asked. She was certain to have heard a voice. Or had it been just a trick of her mind? A memory of what Rainbow Dash and Applejack had told her before? There was nopony to be seen anywhere around in the dark wood, neither Rainbow Dash nor anyone else either. But she did believe to see a subtle but ominous glowing in the far distance. The fire was getting closer. Trick of her mind that it had probably been, it had reminded her of something. Not everything depended on her alone. Rainbow Dash had been with her and Frank would tell her what had happened, moreover she had sent Pinkie Pie to get the others. Maybe Spike had even sent a letter to the princesses after he had heard Pinkie's warning call. Unable to fly, the most sensible thing she could do for now was to walk away from the fire and hope that Rainbow Dash would catch up with her soon. Rainbow Dash hadn't spotted Twilight anywhere on her way to the castle of the royal sisters, but flying above the tree tops of a forest at night didn't allow for a very good insight on what was going on below the foliage. A few times she had seen a white flare, sent up by Rarity, to indicate where the others were at the moment. It didn't take her long to reach the castle ruins. "Twilight?" she called. "Are you here?" She heard but just her own voice resounding from the crumbling walls. "Do you hear me, Twi?" No response. Rainbow Dash circled the castle, scanning the ground and even dived down into the deep chasm that surrounded the castle like a moat and on the ground of which the Tree of Harmony was. The Tree was there, but Twilight was not. There was something else that struck Rainbow Dash though. The suspension bridge leading across the chasm, allowing for visitors who couldn't fly to reach the castle, was broken. With a twinge of nostalgia, she remembered flying across that chasm before and fixing the bridge in defiance of the allurements of Nightmare Moon. When not too long ago she and Applejack had gone to the castle as part of their ongoing competition, the bridge had still been intact. Perhaps Twilight had entered the castle and torn the bridge behind her to stop that mysterious attacker from pursuing her? Then again, it appeared that this attacker had been flying... and magically dueling with Twilight. Up to this point, she hadn't really given much thought to the attacker, but the combination of the ability to fly and the ability to use magic seemed like a rather sinister prospect when referring to such a fiend. And what was it that Frank had let on towards Princess Luna? Something like an alicorn type of changeling? And what was it with that talkative colt having turned so tight-lipped to the point that AJ was growing wary enough of him to implicitly make yellow lights a signal for Frank to turn into a different kind of emergency? Rainbow Dash shook off the uneasy thoughts and focused on the search for Twilight again. Though the thought of walking through the creepy old castle alone made her feel more uneasy than she would have ever admitted to anypony else, she had to check out if Twilight was there. In fact, it would seem very much like Twilight to be sitting in the old castle's library now, trying to find the answers to all the questions in some tome of long forgotten lore. Rainbow Dash landed on one of the towers above the part of the castle closest to where the old library was. There was another white light above the forest, so the others were on the move but hadn't found Twilight or encountered any danger. Rainbow Dash decided to hurry as much as she could to check out the interior of the castle, feeling uneasy about the possibility of missing any light signal while she was inside. "Twilight? Are you there?" She shouted as she descended the tower's spiral stair. No response. She reached the great library hall. In the darkness, it was almost impossible to recognize anything and for a moment Rainbow Dash envied Twilight and Rarity for being able to just magically switch on some light, no matter where they were. "Twilight?" she shouted as she wandered through the darkness. The echo ominously resonated from many corridors and it sounded almost like the echos themselves were producing even more echos. In any case, Rainbow Dash could be certain that if Twilight was anywhere in this castle, she would have heard this call. Considering Twilight's insistence that libraries were supposed to be quiet, Rainbow Dash couldn't help thinking that this library made for a very good resonating chamber. Just as she thought it, she tripped over something that gave a clinking sound and fell hard, uttering a rather undignified stream of curses to resound from the walls. Stylish as some of the old armory in this castle might look, so long it was too dark to even see it, it was just a pain in the... Rainbow Dash didn't finish the thought. As she turned and groped for some old helmet or the like to kick it away in an act of revenge for tripping her, she clearly felt that it wasn't a helmet she had tripped over, nor any other piece of armor for that matter. "Great!" she thought sarcastically once she had recovered from her surprise. "Why don't I ever trip about bags full of bits when there is nopony else to rightfully claim them?" Straining her eyes and counting five bags tightly filled with coinage, Rainbow Dash had no doubt that she had literally stumbled across the missing booty from Filthy Rich's Mansion. For some moments Rainbow Dash stood beside the money bags, giving each of them a slight kick, producing the sound of clinking coins from each one of them. She didn't really know what to make of this, but then she focused. It was Twilight she was looking for. Since Twilight wasn't here, there was no point in lingering around and she would have gladly let all those money bags disappear into thin air if Twilight had appeared in their stead. She made for the stairs of another tower to return to the others and further reconnoiter the surroundings for Twilight. As she was ascending the stairs, there was a distant booming sound from the direction of Ponyville, like a deep voice, though Rainbow didn't understand the words. Was that Princess Luna? A gust of wind hit Rainbow Dash as she stepped onto the platform of the tower, making her close her eyes. As she opened them again, her jaw dropped. She was certain that she had been inside the castle for just a few minutes, but the image that unfolded in front of her eyes was rather different from that when she had entered the castle. There was a howling sound of wind whistling across the castle walls and the same wind had driven the fire far across the forest, multiplying the area aflame within the short time she hadn't kept an eye on it. The glowing of the flames seemed to be reflected by the clear night sky and there, close to the castle and close to the approaching fire, a flare was going up that had nothing to do with the raging flames nearby. A magical flare of glaring yellow.