//------------------------------// // Before the Dawn // Story: Valour and Bedlam // by Anfa an Dorchadais //------------------------------// Twilight stumbled and landed heavily, shimmering tears streaking her face as she tried to escape what was chasing her. Her knee split open on the stone, the imaginary feel of pain shooting up her leg as her glasses flew off. She quickly located them and pushed herself back to her feet, running despite the large crack in one of the lenses. She hated this dream. Night after night she ran, sobbing and falling and knowing she needed to keep running, while She chased her, laughing all the while. She knew it was a dream. Every bit of common sense told her that she should be able to wake up, to change it into something better. Why didn’t it work? Why did she still stumble through this unending darkness, purple light flaring where her feet touched the ground? She heard wings beating behind her, could see the shadows flickering around her as streaks of glowing seafoam and deep cobalt nipped at her heels. She was getting closer. Twilight screamed as she felt magenta-gloved hands grab her shoulders, the nails under the silken fabric digging into the helpless girl’s skin. She was roughly turned to meet a pair of lilac irises, sans pupils, set on a background of rabid mint, halos of energy surrounding the wide eyes. “Please,” Twilight whimpered, trying to cringe away. “I-I’m not you. I don’t want to be you. Please leave me alone.” Her quivering voice was meek and broken, nearly cracking from terror. “You don’t get it.” The other her chuckled darkly. “I’ll always be you. I’m there every time you turn around, every time you sleep, every time you breathe, I’m in your head. And I’ll make sure that someday I’ll be free, and you’ll take my place in our subconscious. Got it, Twily?” She laughed, the sharp translucent horn on her forehead close to nicking Twilight’s skin. “Please don’t call me that,” she begged, large tears and watery snot dribbling down her face from fear. Her knee throbbed, scarlet blood seeping from the deep graze. “I don’t want this. I don’t want these dreams. Please go away.” She knew it wouldn’t work. It never worked. Her darker self’s violet skin was suddenly washed with colour, her eyes widening not with madness, but with bewilderment. Twilight managed to wrench herself from the demon’s grasp, falling backwards and looking up at her. The dark Twilight was glaring beyond her, her hands balling into fists as she pulled her legs up, green shoes glowing and the long onyx tail swishing angrily. Her lithe figure curled into a defensive ball, clad in a sweetheart bodice of magenta and midnight that trailed down into an incredibly short skirt patterned with dying stars and belted with fuchsia crystals. Eagle wings of menacing jet filled the air behind her, a trail of glowing mint following the bone pattern on the inside. Twilight still couldn’t believe she’d looked so monstrous. Or that she’d worn something so revealing. Honestly. Didn’t her darker self have any decency? Twilight turned her head to see what had the darker her reacting so violently, fixing her broken glasses on her nose as she squinted, barely able to tell past the vivid, vibrant glow. Seven small objects floated in mid-air, each of them emitting a radiance that masked what they looked like. She had a feeling they were talismans of some kind. She could barely make out colour or shape, but she just had a gut feeling that they were safe, they were good, and that she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. The glow surrounding the seven talismans brightened until she had to look away, the dream fading to oblivion. Dear Princess Twilight. How’s life in Equestria? Life over here’s been pretty good since the Friendship Games. Our Twilight, Dash calls her Sci Twi as a nickname so I’ll use that so you know which one of you I’m talking about, seems to have been settling in pretty well for her first week at CHS. You could probably tell that during your visit though. Some pretty strange stuff has been happening ever since the Friendship Games. Well, strange for here. Ever since Sci Twi and I turned into those super forms, all the magic seems to have disappeared, aside from the portal. We don’t even pony up when we play music anymore. I don’t understand why this happened. I think it’s somehow my fault. I screwed everything up, again. I just don’t know how I did it this time. I sometimes miss Equestria. The magic makes sense there for one thing. Not like here. I wonder sometimes if I should go back. Aside from that mystery, I can’t wait for school to start up again tomorrow. We’ve been on holidays. I prefer being in school personally. I never have any time to catch up with anyone over the holida- Her pen skittered slightly on the page as the light flared out, the teenager groaning as she realised that the power had gone out again. She put her pen and the book next to her on the mattress and hopped off, blindly searching for one of her jackets. Her hand touched the faded leather of her old jacket and she shrugged it on, quickly zipping it up as she embarked on the next problem of trying to find the door. She blindly stumbled through the small room and cursed when she stubbed her toe on the small desk. Her hand fumbled along the fraying wallpaper and she finally grabbed the doorknob, pulling it open and stepping onto the railed walkway outside her motel room. The lights flickered overhead, creating a dull yellow haze that caused the tarnished bronze numbers on each door to gleam slightly. She shivered slightly in the night air and was grateful for her slippers, even if they were a size too big. It looked like the entire motel had an outage, from what she could see. Everyone was coming out of their rooms and starting to congregate around the main office. Sunset walked down the stairs and joined them, deftly moving through the complaining crowd of around two dozen guests to the front. “Pipe down, will you?” The owner of the motel, Halt Bumper, growled. “The power will be back in a couple of hours. We’re not the only ones without electricity. Deal with it.” “I’d expect for you to treat paying guests better than this.” The artist who lived in room 12 barged forward, towering over the motel owner with a disdainful scowl. He crossed muscular arms lined with ink. “How am I supposed to express myself without any light, Mr Bumper?” The owner raised an eyebrow, unfazed in the slightest. He reached under his desk, dropping a candle in front of the younger man. “You live here, Viridian. In a motel. With an ‘m’. That should do the trick.” He nodded at the candle. “Now go back to bed. All of you. Grab a candle from the box and go back to your rooms. It’s almost midnight anyway,” he grumbled the last part. The box of candles was emptied as the crowd was appeased, disappearing back to their rooms. Sunset came up last, smiling at Halt. “At least there’s plenty of candles for light, Mr Bumper. I swear this is the third outage this month.” “That’s because it is.” He gave her a fond look, his grizzled, bearded face changing dramatically. “And please, I thought we agreed you could call me Halt. Mr Bumper makes me feel older than I am.” He pulled out a pipe and began searching his pockets. “Got a lighter?” She nodded, pulling it from her pocket and offering it to him. He took it gratefully and lit his pipe. “Ta, luv,” he said warmly, handing it back to her. She kept it in her hand, staring at it for a moment. It was a simple lighter, rectangular and black, with a white painted yinyang on the side. She flicked the lid closed as she came to a potential hypothesis on the power outages. “That company is still trying to buy the motel off you?” “Yep.” He puffed on the pipe. “And now that Arcane’s doing construction work on their newest land, they can try to drive away my customers and run me out of business with these bloody power outages.” He went quiet for a while, puffing on his pipe and blowing perfect smoke rings. Sunset enjoyed the silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable or stifling, it was just because there was nothing that needed to be said. She flicked her lighter open and shut, the repetitive motion soothing and allowing her mind to just drift as the rhythm settled in. Halt ran a hand through his rough cut, salt and pepper beard. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?” He asked, shooting her a quick look. She nodded, flicking her lighter shut and putting it in her pocket. “Yeah, but I’m used to late nights. I’ll be fine,” she yawned. His eyebrow went up. “That yawn tells a different story. Off you pop. Get some rest so you can wake up early enough to grab a breakfast tomorrow.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “Alright, Halt. I’ll go back to my room. Thanks for the candle.” She smiled and walked back, noticing a black cat at her door. She smiled and crouched down, resting her elbows on her knees. “There you are, Jinxie.” She reached out her hand to run it over his soft fur. “I was beginning to wander where you were.” He butted his head against her hand with a purr, his mismatched eyes glowing green and gold in the faint candlelight from next door. Sunset stood and unlocked her door, placing her keys on top of the small desk by the door and fumbling with her lighter, kicking the door shut behind her. The fire was almost too bright for her when she managed to flick it on, setting the wick of the tall candle alight and placing it beside her bed. She made sure that the door was locked and pulled her old jacket off, wincing slightly as the tear in the sleeve seemed to grow the tiniest bit, announcing its presence with a slight ripping sound. After suffering a mini heart attack over the state of her poor jacket, she made sure her newer one was completely fine to wear to school tomorrow. Rarity had made it especially for Sunset, giving it to her for no other reason aside from the day being a Wednesday. And possibly as a hint that the other girl’s original jacket was a bit tattered and probably shouldn’t be worn in public anymore. She sat back on her bed, kicking the slippers off, and leaning her head against the wall with a tired sigh. Jinx leapt gracefully up onto the mattress beside her, sitting imperiously on the pillow that they had both deemed his. She picked up her book and looked at the letter she was sending to Princess Twilight. At least it didn’t send until she wrote down her own name, which was a useful spell to make sure she didn’t write anything stupid. Everything after the first paragraph made her cringe. She shouldn’t be complaining. Magic wasn’t native to this world, and it was bound to disappear at some point. It didn’t follow any rules anyway. She shouldn’t bother Princess Twilight with something so mundane. The next paragraph was even worse. Why did she write that? Lots of people had jobs. It wasn’t a bad thing. So what if she wasn’t able to send every second of her time with her best friends? That was life. She tore the page out of the book, chuckling faintly while imagining the cringe that both Twilights would be suffering if they knew. She really needed to sleep. She was starting to hit that point of tiredness where anything was funny. Besides, Princess Twilight was probably busy doing things in Equestria. With Princess Celestia. Sunset scowled slightly. Even though Celestia was right about pretty much everything, like always, that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt. She shouldn’t think about it. It wasn’t worth getting angry about. Besides, Equestria didn’t have anything to offer her. Sure, magic made sense there, and she did miss the adventures she went on as Celestia’s student, but high school was great. And she had friends here. She didn’t need to trade that for anything. She sat the book on top of her backpack and got under the covers, blowing the candle out. Jinx moved under the blanket to join her and she hugged him close, lying on her side. She could feel herself beginning to drift off when she heard next door’s bedsprings begin to creak rhythmically. She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head, praying to go to sleep fast before they added vocals. “Bollocks,” she muttered, using one of Halt’s choice words to describe the situation. Maybe she should try find a cheap pair of ear plugs. Tired violet eyes slowly opened, an amethyst hand extending from under a downy quilt to search the desk beside the bed for glasses. Once they were located and settled on her face, Twilight looked up at the ceiling, the patterned stars that glowed at night almost invisible in the light that crept in between dark curtains. She had managed to sleep through the night for the first time in ages. It was amazing. Her dreams hadn’t terrified her. No, that wasn’t true. They had terrified her. She had been there. But something had made it better. Something important. And for the life of her, Twilight couldn’t remember what it was.