*RING*
The sound of my cell phone ringing woke me from my slumber, and I was confident I wasn't going to like whatever it was. If it was an emergency, I was going to break down screaming. If it wasn't, someone was waking me up for no reason. No, nobody ever likes a phone call at ... whatever time it was in the morning.
*RING*
I forced myself to roll out of bed, sparing a moment to glare contemptuously at the red numbers of my alarm clock. It sat in silence, dutifully informing me that it was 9:38 in the morning on a Saturday, and I was late waking up on my first day back to work.
*RING*
The realization struck me like lightning as I scrambled to grab my phone, muttering curses under my breath. My finger glided across the surface, answering without even bothering to check who was on the other end.
"Hello?" I spoke frantically. "This is Rebecca."
"Hey, you coming?” The reply was calm and familiar. I hadn’t worked in weeks, and I’d forgotten to turn my morning alarm back on. Now my carpool sat out at the curb, waiting.
"Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Chris. I slept in," I replied. "Give me a few minutes to get dressed. I'll be right out."
I had already picked out what I was going to wear the night before, so it didn’t take me long to get dressed and rush out to meet Chris at the curb.
"Hey," Chris mumbled as he shifted the car into drive. The car lurched forward. "I'm sorry for your loss."
I nodded silently. It had been three weeks now since my grandparents died and I was tired of others' condolences, but there was no reason to lash out at Chris for it. He was just being polite.
There was a wrench in my morning routine, however, and my stomach was complaining.
“I know we’re running late, but can we hit a drive thru so I can grab a bite?” I asked.
Chris checked his watch. “My first client doesn’t meet until 11 o’clock, so we should be okay. Sure.”
A few minutes later, I had a breakfast sandwich and a carton of orange juice. I nibbled lightly on the sandwich as I stared out the window, watching the buildings of main street drift past with relative disinterest.
“You okay?” he asked. “I know you have a lot going on, but you seem a bit out of it.”
"It feels like a waste of life," I blurted.
"Huh?"
"It’s just … Riding in a car. After my grandparents died, my family took an impromptu vacation. Mom and Dad just wanted to forget everything after the fire, so we rented a car and drove all the way across the country to get home instead of flying back.”
I snorted, remembering the disaster that our vacation had become. "I have savings, y'know? I really considered just flying home, because I didn't want to be around my family. And then they were all so depressing the entire way home. It feels like the whole trip was a waste of my time.”
"Why play solo when you can join a party?”
“What?” I turned to look at Chris, whose eyes were glued to the road ahead.
“I mean, being at home alone sucks, right? You went with them to be around others, even if it wasn’t the others you wanted to be with, yeah?"
"Pretty much," I muttered.
In hindsight, I felt bad that I'd seriously considered that flight home. Living with my parents and having a decent paying job had allowed me to set aside more than enough to pay for the next year of my night classes at the local community college, so I could have survived on my own for a couple of weeks. I could have been back to work sooner, too - I burned all of my paid vacation time in the first week, so it would have mitigated my financial losses.
But that was all just selfish thinking. My family would have been upset if I’d left on my own, and it wasn’t right for me to put them in that position.
Chris was also right on the mark: I hated feeling alone. Right now, more than ever. Being alone was just a painful reminder of how unimportant I was to the world around me. Rebecca Williams would never amount to anyone. She would never be remembered after she was gone.
After all, my grandfather was an amazing man who accomplished amazing things, at least in my eyes. But even doing those amazing things didn't matter because they didn't impact the world. That was something I knew in my mind, beyond any shadow of doubt. But in my heart, I didn't want it to be.
When Sarah and I passed on, would anyone remember my grandfather's adventures? Certainly no one would remember my contributions to society. I was just another face in the crowd.
A mile marker along the highway caught my eye as it whizzed past. How many people’s memories had died with them, forgotten and left behind, just as that mile marker was passed by every day without any further thought? I laughed bitterly as I realized I didn’t even remember the mile number.
"... So, how was the vacation?" Chris interrupted my meandering thoughts.
“Restaurants, hotels, national parks, landmarks, a couple caves, a zoo and an aquarium." I sighed heavily. "All in all, it sucked. My sister and I fought a lot, because she thought I was being mopey. My mother got on my case because I was latching onto grandfather and wasn't 'upset enough' about grandma. She couldn’t accept that I was just that much closer to my grandfather. And the whole time, my father wouldn't even talk to anyone. It was a lousy waste of time."
"But you weren't alone,” Chris pointed out.
"Right."
I stared at the floorboards.
The trip had been miserable. Oddly, the best part of my trip was when I was alone. Those were the times I would carefully dig that sphere of colors out my bag and just hold it. And every time, tranquil feelings washed over me. It was a short-lived relief, at best; the feelings of peace faded off when I inevitably had to hide the orb away before someone saw it, but it was enough to help me stay sane. And that’s more than I could say for anything else at the time. There was definitely something special about that bauble.
My impromptu vacation was depressing. I needed to change the subject.
"Have you ever lost someone, Chris?"
I kicked myself mentally. Replacing one depressing topic with another was stupid.
"Can't say that I have," he replied.
"It was weird. I know it sounds obvious, but the whole world just moved on. Like my grandparents never existed. It’s stupid, but it felt..." I struggled to express my feelings on the issue, searching for a word that fit. "It felt alien, having this overwhelming feeling of emptiness and no one knew about it. I kept thinking to myself, ‘how am I supposed to move on with my 'normal' life knowing I will never see them again?’"
“Just live your life,” Chris replied. “Don’t fret about the things you can’t change, and fix the things you can. Stop letting life simply happen to you, y’know? Push life in the direction you want to go.”
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My job as an administrative assistant in a small sales office was quite lucrative, given my age and relative inexperience, and things at the office had apparently gone quite smoothly in my absence. Chris was ultimately late for his team meeting, but still managed to make contact with his first client on time. Unfortunately, his client held him through lunch hours, and I was pulled into a one-on-one meeting of my own to go over some things that occurred in my absence, so Chris and I didn’t really get any chance to talk until it was time to head home for the day.
It wasn’t until we were back on the highway heading back home that Chris dropped a bomb on me.
"You know, I would have come over to keep you company if you'd asked."
"W-What?" I sputtered, confused. It wasn’t the first time Chris would fail to make context clear. It probably wouldn’t be the last.
"If you had taken the plane home. I would have come over. Y’know, so you wouldn't have to be alone."
"Oh."
Silence passed between us as I tried to figure out his motive. The opportunity for it had already come and gone - or rather, hadn't even happened in the first place - so I couldn't fathom why he was telling me this now. Was he flirting with me in some fashion? I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything to lead him on, and he never struck me as interested before. There had to be something more.
"Why?" I asked, with a slight bit more bite than I intended.
Chris was silent for a little while longer, no doubt because of the tone of my reply. As I waited, somewhat impatiently, for a response, I realized I had no idea what I wanted his answer to be.
“Because I understand,” he eventually replied. “Kinda. I mean, I haven’t lost anyone close to me, but I do understand being alone. I don’t live with my family - I’m not even close to them. I turned eighteen, moved out without hesitation, and I haven’t looked back.
“But after high school, all my friends moved away to go to different colleges. Now my only real contact with them is through the internet. Sure, we talk every day, but communication through the internet feels different. Artificial. It’s no replacement for real human interaction.”
I nodded in understanding.
Chris and I had carpooled for almost six months, and he talked a lot, but I only just then realized how little I really knew about his personal relationships. Had I really ever thought of him even as a friend?
He was just a coworker who happened to have a conveniently overlapping commute, but even though we had about an hour every day in the car, we never really bonded much. He usually led the conversation, and all he typically talked about were his hobbies, games, politics, and whatever was big on the news. I was content to just let him ramble most days, and I’d never felt it necessary to pry into his home life.
“What do you do when you get home, then?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Putz around on the internet. Lots of video games and late-night streaming TV marathons. The usual stuff I never shut up about.”
“Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t any better than what I did some evenings, particularly since binge-watching movies was one of my go-to pastimes.
Assuming it really was entirely platonic, would I have taken him up on his offer to stay with me? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it couldn’t hurt. But could I have trusted him to keep it platonic?
I was still thinking about it as we pulled up next to my house.
“See you Tuesday?” he asked, as I climbed out of the car.
“Yeah.”
I strode up to the house in front of me. I was finally home, but it didn’t feel like home at all.
The large, white two-story house that I’d lived in for most of my teenage life now seemed as temporary as the hotel rooms we’d stayed in during our vacation. The sky blue trim framed the door invitingly, just as it always had, but something was off about the whole thing.
As I stood there wondering what was wrong with my house, the haunting images of my grandparents burnt out home left me feeling uneasy. The house hadn't changed at all: my perspective had, and now the last thing I wanted to do was spend a night alone with my thoughts.
Stop letting life simply happen to you. Chris’ words echoed inside my head.
“Everything okay?” He called out the window.
The status quo wasn’t going to change itself. It would be a token gesture at best, but things needed to change if they were going to improve.
I walked back to his car.
“No. It’s not okay,” I replied as I approached the window. “My parents are out of town tonight. And my sister is off at a friend’s place tonight. I told you I don’t want to be alone, so ... did you mean what you said? That you would stay with me so I won’t have to be?”
Chris’ gazed into my eyes, and I shivered. It felt like he was reading my thoughts, but I stared back, trying hard not to avert my eyes as I always did.
“Okay.”
The car shuddered to a stop there by the curb.
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Outside the cave, illuminated by the blazing forest surrounding them, Zecora was finally able to see Xin in decent light. Burly muscles and broad shoulders betrayed his otherwise unicorn-like appearance. He was clearly a fighter, but his use of magic indicated a softer, more subdued power within as well.
Zecora looked on curiously as Xin carefully levitated the children up out of the pit and into Lydian’s waiting hooves, marvelling at his kinetic control. She was no unicorn herself, but the basics of magic were not lost on her; moving heavy objects with gentle precision took a lot of effort and skill.
Zebra half-breeds - zebroids - were extremely rare, often born with hideous mutations and defects that prevented them from surviving long outside the womb, much less reaching maturity - and that was just those that survived to birth at all. It wasn’t surprising that Zebrican law forbade sexual relations between zebras and ponies - punishable even by death. While not entirely illegal in Equestria, it was still a massive taboo.
In short, Zecora had never met a zebroid before. And he was both frightening and fascinating.
Xin turned his attention to her, catching her intent stare. She held his gaze, resisting the impulse to look away.
“Is there something wrong, Caretaker?” he asked.
“The colt who does not listen, he cannot be taught. I told you once already: Caretaker I am not.”
“My apologies, Mistress Zecora.”
Zecora shook her head as she felt his magic wrap around her, lifting her up to Lydian’s hooves above. The statue of Sweetie Belle was next, followed closely by the timberwolf. Zecora retrieved the branch it had given to her, placing it at her hooves.
“Thank you, young pup. I wish you well. Go to your kind, and away from this hell.”
The timberwolf whined softly, laying down on the branch. After a strange, wooden clicking sound, it stood again. The branch was nowhere to be seen, and the creature bolted away into the woods.
“Strange creature,” Lydian mused. “What is it?”
“You’ve never seen’a Timberwolf before, Miss Lydian?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I’m sorry to say I haven’t, little one,” Lydian replied with a smile.
“Wooow…” breathed Scootaloo. “You mean you’ve been in the Everfree since before the Timberwolves lived here?”
“Yes.” Lydian peered over the side down at Xin. “Are you ready?” she called.
“I am,” came his voice.
She looked around briefly before trotting over to one of the burning trees right above the cave entrance. She placed a hoof against the tree trunk and closed her eyes, chanting in an ancient tongue Zecora couldn’t place. A green wave of power erupted from her hoof, running up and down the trunk of the tree.
The effects of her magic were immediate and powerful. Zecora watched in awe as the tree began to grow and repair itself with astonishing alacrity. Where the tree was ablaze, the fire was unceremoniously extinguished. Burnt bark was restored. The trunk itself was visibly growing, and the canopy of the tree branched outward rapidly, as if it was aging at incredible speed, and was soon covering the entire area around Gwydion’s End. The root system of the tree also spread out, cracking the ground with long tendrils of wood that splayed out from the tree, searching for sustenance. Several large roots broke through the sheer cliff face of the pit, and spilled forth from the cave entrance itself, blocking the path.
“Excellent thinking,” came Xin’s voice from right behind Zecora. “That should slow Gwydion down, if only for a moment.”
Zecora jumped at the sudden voice behind her and whirled around defensively. How had he gotten out?
Xin chuckled softly and lifted the small statue with his magic again. “How do we get to the Princess, Mistress?”
Zecora turned toward her hut, and Ponyville beyond, and looked at the sky above, darkening even beyond the smoke hanging low over the blazing forest. They wouldn’t be able to make it before nightfall, and there was no way they would be able to protect two helpless fillies against the terrors that lurked in the Everfree’s night. Her hut would be the only safe shelter, but Zecora was certain that Xin would not be easily persuaded to stop.
Still, the fastest path to Ponyville ran quite close to her hut at this distance.
“The forest at night brings inevitable doom,” Zecora warned. “It will not help a soul if we’re fit for a tomb.” Xin chuckled, but said nothing as Zecora continued. “Come now, move quickly, I will lead the way. Don’t tarry or wait, lest we run out of day.”
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I stood in the doorway, looking around my living room, with absolutely zero planning in advance.
“So,” I started, uncertain of where to begin. “Anything in particular that you want to do?”
“Eat food?”
“Believe me, you don’t want me to cook,” I confessed. Cooking wasn’t my strong suit. “Do you want to order a pizza?”
“I’m pretty sure I can make my way around your kitchen,” Chris replied.
He proceeded to do exactly that, pulling out several things and setting about it as if it was his most natural place in the world. Before I could even come up with any other plan for the evening, I was holding a toasted pastrami sandwich on rye in my hands.
Well, on a plate in my hands. I stared at the sandwich in confusion until Chris tapped on my shoulder. I looked up.
“It’s a sandwich,” he said, pointing at it. “Masterfully crafted in your own kitchen.”
He grinned at me. It was a silly grin, one that seemed to shout “cheer up, Rebecca”.
“I know what a sandwich is,” I replied, sticking out my tongue.
“Also, you should probably consider going to the store for more cooking materials. You’re out of chicken and milk, and this is the last of the bread.”
He took a bite out of his sandwich, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. “Damn, this is good, though. I probably gained a level crafting these.” Chris sat down at the table and gestured to another seat.
“Uh-huh …” I muttered as I sat down, suddenly feeling like a guest in my own home. I wasn’t hungry, but the sandwich smelled delicious, so I took a bite. It tasted even better than it smelled. I took another. Then a third.
Okay, maybe I was hungry and didn’t know it.
“So,” I said between bites, “what do you normally do when you hang out?”
Chris looked up from his own sandwich. “With people in general? Or with girls?”
My brain froze. Where do I go with this? Would it be leading him on to say ‘with girls’?
“Just with people,” I decided.
“Well, my buddies and I usually just all play on our computers and talk at each other. Which is kinda like talking to each other, except that we don’t know if anyone is paying anyone else any attention.”
What’s the point in spending time at someone else’s house just to ignore each other? I shook my head. “So, you just play video games together?”
Chris shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Okay then, what do you do when you’re not playing video games together?”
“We play video games alone.” He smiled wide, as if this was the most obvious answer in the world.
“Alone?” I asked, confused. “With friends?”
Chris laughed. “What I mean is that we aren’t playing the same game most of the time.”
I was completely lost trying to follow his insane logic. Why would anyone go to someone’s house - as a guest - to play games that no one else is playing and summarily ignore everyone else?
“WHY?!” I blurted.
“Because it’s better than being alone.”
“That only explains why you visit, not why you do nothing together,” I pointed out.
Chris laughed. “That’s true, very true. We don’t mind doing it that way, but sometimes we’ll do other things. Board games, card games, the occasional movie.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d played board games with anyone but my father. My sister had quit playing them as soon as she was able to get out of the house on her own, and my mother was never interested in the first place. This was a golden opportunity!
“Well, my family has quite a collection of board games,” I declared. “My father can’t get out much, so we play a lot.” I stood up from the table. “Do you have a preference?”
“Umm, not really - as long as it’s something we can play together.” Chris smiled.
I’d never realized how cute his smile was before. He just waltzed into my house, made me a delicious - if not simple - meal, and now he was smiling at me. And it’s cute. Oh god, was I falling for him? Was he trying to flirt? Was I misreading the situation?
“So I’m good for whatever you want to play,” Chris continued. “As long as I already know it or it’s easy to learn.”
I can think of a few things.
And that was the moment I realized my mind was firmly in the gutter. Yep, this was not going as planned.
Focus, Rebecca!
I shook my head, trying to clear it of the perverse thoughts creeping in on the edges, and walked to the garage. All of the board games were tucked away in there. Some were modern games, others were classics, but as I glanced over the collection, my eyes landed on the oldest game there.
I ran my fingers along the wooden box for my father’s Chess set. I had a lot of memories wrapped up in this box. I joined the Chess club in middle school and played with my dad a lot back then. I wasn’t particularly good, but I wasn’t terrible either.
“How about Chess?” I called back.
“Hmm … sure, that’s fine,” Chris replied. “Do you mind if we play with a house rule, though?”
I’ve never even heard of house rules for chess, I thought to myself as I walked the box back to the table. Chris wasn’t there anymore, but it didn’t take me long to catch him in the kitchen again, putting away the plates.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing,” I commented idly as I started setting up the board. “What sort of house rules?”
“Nothing major,” he replied. “It’s just how my friends and I play.”
When he sat down again, a solid thump came from the table next to me. I glanced over to see a mostly-full bottle of my father’s bourbon and two shot glasses. I didn’t really care if he drank my father’s liquor - I’d rather my father not drink it. Dad was prone to, for lack of a better word, excess. But there were two shot glasses, and…
“You do recall I’m only nineteen, right?”
I had tried alcohol before, but after seeing my father drink himself into a stupor on several occasions, it didn’t have much appeal.
Chris shrugged. “This is a private residence, doesn’t matter how old you are. But hey, if you don’t want to drink, we don’t have to.”
“So, how does the bourbon play into your house rules?” I asked, uncertain I wanted to know the answer.
“You take a shot any time you lose a capital piece.”
“Capital piece?” I asked, feeling a bit slow.
“Anything that isn’t a pawn.”
That was a stupid idea. I didn’t know Chris that well outside of work-related activities, and being alone with us both drunk seemed like a dangerous formula.
… Adventure, right?
No. That wasn’t an adventure I was going to risk right now.
I shook my head. “Sorry, I’d rather just play.”
“Not a problem.” He pushed the bottle and shot glasses off to the side. “I’m ready when you are!”
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White.
Everything around Sweetie Belle was pure white.
She wasn’t even sure how long she had been surrounded by the blinding whiteness, or how she’d arrived there. And she certainly had no idea where she was.
“Hello?” she called out. Her voice echoed back to her from some distant point. “Is anypony there?”
Silence.
Confused, she slowly walked forward, craning her head in all directions, trying to find any relief from the blinding brightness of her environment. In fact, the only disruption was from her own coat whenever her body came into view; its normally pristine white appearing dirty and grey against her surroundings.
“Apple Bloom?” she cried out. “Scootaloo? Where are you?”
No response.
What had happened, anyway? Sweetie Belle tried to remember how she got where she was, but her memory was scattered and incoherent. Something about the Everfree Forest and… a pack of timberwolves?
“I can’t remember!” she screamed with frustration.
Her walking wasn’t getting her any further than her memory. Sweetie Belle sat on her haunches, uncertain of what to do. Nothing seemed to have any meaning here; nothing she did affected her surroundings, nothing could hear her, and there was nothing to interact with.
Defeated, Sweetie Belle laid down and began to sob.
“Hush now, child. Everything is okay.”
The strangely soothing and distinctly female voice had come from everywhere around her at once, startling Sweetie Belle back to her hooves.
“Hello?” Sweetie called back timidly, wiping away her tears. “Is somepony there?”
A golden shimmer of light coalesced into the vague shape of a pony in front of her. The form was indistinct, and Sweetie couldn’t tell if it had a horn or wings.
“Indeed, I am here, child. You can call me Guidance,” the strange figure replied.
“Guidance?,” Sweetie Belle asked. “Like a guidance counselor?”
“One and the same. After all, I have come here to guide you.”
“Guide me?” Sweetie asked, confused. “Where is there to ever go? There’s nothing here.”
“All in due time, child. Tell me, what do you remember?”
Sweetie Belle sat back down and tried to recount events as best she could.
“My friends and I… we were running through the Everfree. From timberwolves. And then… I don’t remember much, but there was a cave. And we… went in the cave? And…”
Sweetie Belle struggled with her fragmented memories, but couldn’t find anything else to share.
“And then your friends were captured,” Guidance replied.
“Captured?”
“Yes, captured. Hold still and let me show you exactly what is happening to them now.”
Guidance’s golden figure gesticulated strangely toward Sweetie Belle, and the blinding whiteness around her faded into a dark scene. A faint orange glow invaded Sweetie Belle’s peripheral vision, but she found herself unable to turn her head to look at the source; she could only stare straight ahead.
A zebra and an earth pony were walking ahead of her. The two appeared to be talking to each other, though whatever vision Guidance had chosen to show her was entirely silent. Occasionally one or the other would glance off to the side, listening or speaking to an unseen third speaker.
The silence of the scene was broken by Guidance’ soothing voice. “Those are the ponies that have captured your friends.”
Suddenly, a burst of color exploded from the sky above, and a lightning bolt that would have made Rainbow Dash green with envy struck the ground. When the blinding flash cleared her vision, a white pegasus stallion with a wild, yellow mane stood defiantly in front of the pair, exchanging some words with the two subjects in front of her.
“That is Star Hunter, a dear friend of ours,” Guidance explained. “He was sent from the Equestrian Aerial Defense Division to rescue your friends.”
Sweetie Belle looked closer at Star Hunter. He wore what appeared to be solid gold wing blades, laced with some form of opaline gems that glowed brilliantly. A gorgeous necklace rested against his chest, similarly inlaid with a much larger opaline gem of some kind. The accesories seemed oddly familiar to her, but she couldn’t put her hoof on exactly why.
“Aerial Defense Division?” Sweetie Belle wondered aloud. She’d never heard of them, but her military knowledge wasn’t very strong. She would have to ask Twilight or Rainbow Dash about it later. The orange glow in her peripheral vision faded as her view of the confrontation suddenly dropped and shifted slightly to the side, removing the earth pony from her vision, which was now focused entirely on Star Hunter and the zebra, instead.
Sweetie Belle looked on with morbid fascination as, after a prolonged exchange of silent words, the zebra attacked Star Hunter. Star Hunter and the zebra fought intensely for a few moments, the zebra taking on a traditional earth pony combat stance, and the pegasus using low aerial maneuvers. The two darted in and out of her vision several times, before Star Hunter’s wing landed a wicked slice across the zebra’s side, spilling a massive amount of blood. Sweetie clenched her eyes shut, trying to shut out the gruesome sight, but even with her eyes closed the vision persisted.
She suddenly realized, much to her confusion, that the zebra had a horn like a unicorn. A brilliant orange came off his horn and a massive fireball coalesced from the air around him and flew at Star Hunter. Star Hunter dove out of the way and the fireball exploded against a tree just beyond where he had been flying, engulfing the tree in flame.
“Why does that zebra have a horn!?” Sweetie yelled, somewhat excitedly.
“That is Xin, the Zebrican God-King,” Guidance replied, unfazed by Sweetie Belle’s outburst. “Imagine a unicorn in an uneducated society of earth ponies that has no exposure to unicorn magic. Wouldn’t you think that pony to be a god?”
“I guess so?” Sweetie Belle knew basically nothing about zebras outside of Zecora. In fact, she hadn’t even heard of zebras prior to meeting Zecora, so she really had no basis to evaluate Guidance’s claims.
The earth pony that had originally appeared with the zebra suddenly charged into her vision again, wading into the fray as God-King Xin and Star Hunter continued to fight. All three of them were soon caked with the blood that was spraying from Xin’s injury. After a brief struggle, the earth pony finally managed to strike a sharp blow against the opaline amulet Star Hunter wore, and Star Hunter vanished into a smoky puff, leaving his wingblades and necklace to clatter to the ground. Sweetie Belle’s vision faded back to white.
“You see Xin’s strength, yes? Even with such injury, he fights without stopping, and his magic is powerful.”
Sweetie Belle nodded dumbly, unsure of why Guidance had shown her such a grisly vision.
“You can see he has already enslaved one earth pony on his quest to kill the princesses.”
“Kill … the princesses?” Sweetie Belle gasped.
“Yes. And he’s using your friends as leverage to get close to them. Observe.”
The vision returned, picking up somewhere around the same point it left off. The earth pony was standing over Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, who were both clearly distraught, tears streaming down their faces.
“Why are they there!?” Sweetie Belle cried out, feeling like she would cry along with them, but unable to produce any tears.
“Because they are friends of the princesses, are they not?”
“Only Princess Twilight,” she replied, weakly.
Sweetie Belle watched with trepidation as the earth pony leaned down over her friends and forced them each to eat… something. Almost immediately, they both fell to the ground and lay there, motionless. Then, she picked them up and rested them each on her back before trotting out of the scene.
For the next several minutes, the vision only showed the aftermath of the scuffle.
“Sweetie Belle, child. Your friends need help. And we believe we can help them, if you can help us. And in doing so, you can save this ‘Princess Twilight’ from Xin’s treachery.”
The vision faded back into white. Sweetie Belle shook her head in disbelief as the golden pony silhouette in front of her faded back into view, prostrating itself before her.
“Will you help us?” Guidance asked. “Will you help rescue your friends and save Equestria?”
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“Best of five?” Chris offered, extending his hand.
There was no way I would lose a third time. The first two were just flukes. I was rusty!
“Deal.”
“Alright. Before we get started, where’s your bathroom?”
I directed him down the hall as I set up the pieces for another round. The bottle of bourbon caught my eye. One thing I had noticed was that in both games, I managed to take all of Chris’ pawns, while I still had a few left over.
If we played by his house rules, nothing would work in my favor. But what if I made house rules of my own? All I would need to do is take extra care to protect my pawns and focus on taking his, wait for the alcohol to set in, and then win. It would be a cheap victory, but I needed three wins in a row now.
Adventure, right?
I shook my head. Not quite the same as my grandfather, but getting out of my comfort zone was the first step, wasn’t it?
I jumped up and ran to the kitchen, grabbing eight of my father’s black shot glasses and a handful of clear ones. Going back to the table, I removed the pawns from the board and poured a shot into each glass, setting each one in place of a pawn.
“Have you looked outside?” Chris mumbled as he stepped back into the living room.
“Outside?” I glanced out the window to see rain pouring down by the truckload. “Oh, wow. That’s a lot of rain.”
“Yeah, it is,” Chris replied, stopping in the middle of the living room to gaze out at the downpour. “I checked the weather on my phone and it’s not supposed to let up for a few hours. Good chance of thunder and lightning, too.”
“Awesome, I love thunderstorms!”
Chris stared at his feet, and I was pretty sure he was thinking about something. Something unpleasant. It put a slight damper on my excitement.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked back up. “I have to drive home eventually, but I have really shitty tires. Rain this heavy just makes it risky. Y’know, hydroplaning and stuff. If it gets too bad, I might be stuck here later than I’d planned until traffic thins out.”
It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t considered how long he should stay, or even how long I wanted him to stay. Even as I pondered it, I wasn’t actually sure what I wanted.
“Just how late were you planning on staying?” I asked curiously.
“Honestly, I don’t know. Until you kicked me out, or I just decided to leave, I guess. What did you have in mind?”
Without any plan in place, I realized my invitation to stay without a deadline might have been completely misconstrued. I could feel the burning of redness in my cheeks as the implication sunk in.
“Well, at least a couple more hours, right?” I gestured to the rain outside. “If you need the rain to let up, you can at least stay that long.”
“And if it doesn’t let up?”
“Well, the couch pulls out into a bed. If you have to stay the night, you can sleep there.” That should solve the dilemma, right?
Chris just looked at me and shook his head. “I’ll probably just leave around midnight if it comes to that.”
His words cut deeper than I expected and my heart sank, surprising even myself. He promised to stay with me, right…? Did I really expect him to stay the night?
What was wrong with me?
I needed to change the subject and buy myself time to think more. “More Chess?”
He smiled again, but raised an eyebrow as he sat down, eyeing the new pawns I’d placed on the board.
I gestured to the Chess board. “House rules. Are you ready to lose?”
He smiled. “Pretty sure of yourself, there, Rebecca.”
And I was. Until the first shot. My throat burned fiercely as the bourbon went down, and I nearly choked. It was then that I realized my mistake - alcohol doesn’t hit you instantly, and Chris wasn’t a small guy. He already had taken three shots, being just as reckless with his pawns as he had in the first two games, but he still looked completely unfazed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I rasped, gasping for breath. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t drink much, do you? You should be careful.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I lied. Was I that obvious?
If I had to guess, Chris was probably two hundred pounds - not that my estimates were likely to be accurate, I didn’t know much about a guy’s physiology - but that would still be a good seventy pounds heavier than me. And stupid female bodies and their body fat ratios meant that he was going to have an easier time of it anyway. I wasn’t sure how much it would take to affect him, but I was going to have to be doubly cautious with my pawns.
By the time I took my second shot, Chris had taken five and was starting to visibly loosen up. And the second shot went down a bit better than the first.
Maybe my plan might work after all!
The third shot came too soon, though, and Chris hadn’t yet taken another.
Finally, everything came together perfectly. “Checkmate!” I yelled out with a flourish. The table shook as I jumped up excitedly, knocking over one of the pawns and spilling bourbon across the board. I stared in horror at the alcohol that was ruining my father’s Chess set.
Chris was faster on the uptake, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and wiping up the mess as best he could.
Jumping up had been a bad idea, and now I was feeling a bit woozy, and I was struggling to keep myself upright. Thunder had rolled in while we played, and as I tried to steady myself, a crack of lightning overhead shook the entire house. Chris and I both stopped entirely as the roar of thunder rattled everything around us.
“That was awesome!” Chris yelled with a whoop. Apparently, his disdain for the weather had disappeared, or the alcohol had really lowered his inhibitions a bit. Then he gestured to the board.
“If we’re going to to play round four, we’re playing without house rules.”
That’s not fair, I thought to myself, shaking my head. “Yes! House rules! I win with house rules!”
Before Chris could respond, the room went completely dark and the refrigerator stopped humming from the kitchen. Startled, I fell backwards onto the chair under me, but in my unsteady state I tumbled to the side and hit the floor rather hard.
“Ow, fuck,” I cursed as I tried to pick myself off the floor.
“Are you okay?” I heard Chris from above me. I looked up, but he’d turned on the flashlight app on his cellphone and was blinding me with it. I turned away and shielded my eyes with my arm.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just get that out of my eyes.” I pulled myself up using the chair as a support, vaguely aware that I shouldn’t need a chair just to stand up.
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Nonsense. I can drink more!” I could prove it, too. I grabbed one of the still full shot glasses and immediately downed it, choking slightly as it burned down into my stomach.
Chris dropped his phone-turned-flashlight on the table and scrambled to get the rest of the shots out of my reach.
“Hey, now! You can’t do that! What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Cutting you off.”
I stumbled around the table slowly, feebly attempting to stop him. “Why? I was totally ready to take all eight shots if you took all my pawns, but I wasn’t about to let you wi~n.”
“Look, Rebecca, halfway through that game, I got to thinking. Eight shots is a lot of alcohol for a skinny girl like you. I lost on purpose so you wouldn’t take any more.”
I stopped. At least, I tried to, instead windmilling forward and falling on top of Chris. We both went crashing to the floor, knocking the table over as we went down. The shot glasses, Chess set, and what was left of the bourbon tumbled down with us. The sound of glass shattering filled my ears as bourbon splattered across my clothes. I knew I should care, but in my intoxicated state, I didn’t.
Chris lay there, silent and unmoving.
… Actually, laying on Chris was surprisingly comfortable. I laid my head down on his chest and wrapped my arms around him, closing my eyes. With my ear pressed against him, I could hear his heart pounding. It was… nice.
“You think I’m skinny?” I asked, incredulously. I knew I wasn’t obese, but I’d always felt fat because of my sister.
“You are skinny,” he repeated. “Now, would you get off of me?”
Despite his request, Chris wasn’t making any effort to forcefully move me. “There’s broken glass on the floor, and the bourbon’s soaking into my clothes,” he complained.
He thinks I’m skinny, I thought, ignoring his pleas. A warm feeling of relief washed over me, and tears squeezed out of my eyes as I lay there, rising and falling with his breathing.
“Chris?” I mumbled into his chest, wanting to confirm something. “Truth or dare?”
“What? Rebecca, we need to clean up.” Chris finally began trying to shove me off of him, but I held on tighter.
“Truth or dare?” I repeated, ignoring his objection.
Chris stopped struggling and went silent. We laid there for a little bit, serenaded by a distant rumbling and the pitter-patter of the rainstorm.
“Truth, I guess,” he finally replied.
I’d always felt inferior to my sister in the looks department. Right now, more than ever, an intoxicated me needed the reassurance. I wanted to hear him say it. I needed it.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” I hugged him a bit harder as I waited for a reply.
“Rebecca, you’re one of the most attractive girls I’ve ever spent time with. Of course you’re pretty.”
I choked back a joyful sob. “Does that mean you like me?”
Rain and a distant peal of thunder filled the silence as I waited for his reply.
“I don’t really have an answer for that,” he said slowly. “I think you’re physically attractive, but even after all this time, I don’t actually know much about you.”
That was strange; how could he not know about me? We’d known each other for quite a while!
“You know plenty about me, Chris. We’ve been carpooling for six months.”
“And that was six months of talking about … what? My hobbies. My politics. My life. I love to talk about me! But you? You haven’t talked much about you. At least, not before your grandparents …” he trailed off and I felt him tense up.
Silence passed between us. Rain pelted the window relentlessly as we both lay on the floor, Chris soaking in spilled bourbon, and me listening to his heart beat. I had never been more confused in my life as I tried to sort out the bizarre feelings that were stirring inside of me. The more I thought about it, in my alcohol-fueled stupid, the more I realized I wanted Chris. Not just as a friend, but as something more.
“Rebecca?”
I jumped a little bit as his chest carried the vibration right to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“Truth or Dare?”
I wasn’t ready to confess my feelings just yet. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Dare.”
“I dare you to go out with me.”
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Hours passed as Chris and I sat out on the back porch with the late summer storm roaring all around us. After I’d agreed to go out on a date with him - a decision I wondered if I would regret when I sobered up, but one that I was happy with for right now - we decided to just talk for a while about our dreams and important memories that inspired us. He told me about his dream to be a video game designer, and the rock band he’d formed in his high school years. I told him about my hopes to get a degree in business administration, how I wanted to start my own business some day, and my experiences as captain of high school tennis team.
Unsurprisingly, we didn’t find much common ground in hobbies. We were both competitive, but I was more physical; more action-oriented. He was more studious and subdued, preferring competitions where he could leverage his mind to his own advantage. But we both shared a love for dogs and a distaste for cats, so that was good. At least, it was good after the fact; in my drunken, emotional state, the subject had only come up because I remembered how my puppy died when I was younger, and how tragic it was that the dog died at the age of eighteen, which was even younger than I was now.
And with nothing else we felt like talking about, the subject ultimately came around to our newfound ‘relationship’, if you could even call it that yet. And as is wont to do, the subject of sex came floating around. If I were totally honest, I probably would have been okay with sex that very night, as drunk and horny as I was becoming, but Chris said he ‘wasn’t interested in bedding a girl without a serious emotional connection’. That didn’t help with my desires, but - being much more sober than I - he stuck to his principles even when I tried leading him on. It was infuriating and endearing all at the same time.
Chris ultimately decided to turn in for the night, pulling out the hideaway bed in the living room and making himself comfortable. I waved goodnight to him and stole a brief kiss on my way through, though it was far too chaste for my liking. Once in the hallway, I stepped quickly into the bathroom, stripped down to just my underwear, and then looked at myself in the mirror by the light of my cellphone. The alcohol hadn’t done me any favors, but I fixed myself up as much as I could and stepped back into the hallway.
I was hoping Chris would notice me and might change his mind since I was mostly naked, but when I stepped into the living room cautiously, hoping we could at least make out a little bit before bed, a loud snoring buzzed my ears.
I will never understand how some people can fall asleep so easily, alcohol or not. With a sigh, I left the living room.
Sullenly, I pushed the door to my bedroom open, bathing me in colors. My eyes widened in shock and I stepped into the room with wonderment. The walls and ceiling danced in hypnotic patterns of color that took my breath away. The orb really did know how to cheer me up, just when I needed it most.
It never occurred to me that I hadn’t actually taken it out of the toolbox. If I hadn’t been drunk and awestruck, I might have considered it really strange that the orb was, in fact, floating entirely on its own accord in the middle of my bedroom instead of sitting, tucked safely away under my bed. Or I might have found it strange that a ghostly purple ribbon of light seemed to trail off of it toward the mirror, which crackled and shimmered with mysterious energy.
Instead, I slowly reached out and touched the floating trinket. The ethereal ribbon wrapped itself slowly around my finger, warm to the touch. Like a curious animal, the tendril explored my hand and began a slow crawl up my arm, and the bubbling energy of the mirror began to die away as the light began to coil around my entire body, filling me with warmth. And then, as it crawled up to my head, I blacked out.
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Zecora quickly cleared a path to her cot, ensuring Lydian could carry Xin without interference.
“I told you not to over-do it,” Lydian chided.
“... I know,” he groaned in reply.
Lydian lowered him gently into the cot, making sure not to put any weight on his injured side.
Zecora had brought emergency medical supplies and Lydian was trained as a field medic, so between the two of them things could have been far worse. His bandages were holding up quite well for a field-dressed wound, but even to Zecora’s untrained eye, it was obvious they weren’t going to be sufficient for long-term care.
Silence reigned in Zecora’s bedroom for several long minutes as Lydian worked tirelessly over Xin’s prone form, interrupted only by Xin’s groans of pain and Lydian’s requests for the next herb, fungus, or root she needed for whatever she was doing. Zecora watched with fascination as Lydian worked, trying to observe as much as she possibly could without getting in the way.
Finally, after a tense half hour of working, Lydian sat back with a sigh. “There. How does it feel?”
“It’s fine now,” Xin replied, wincing. “And I am sorry, Zecora.”
Zecora shook her head. “There is no need for apologies, child. It is not your fault that your friend had grown wild.” She would be able to replace her cot later.
“No, I mean for the children,” Xin continued. “They are suffering because of my mistakes. Apologize to them for me, please.”
Zecora looked over at the other two fillies, dozing fitfully in the corner, resting against each other. Their faces were streaked with dried mud, made only more noticeable by the distinct lack where the tears had washed it away.
“Will you not apologize to the children yourself? Or do you place yourself too high upon your shelf?”
“It isn’t that. I just fear I will not be able to continue with you any longer. I must not keep you behind. Lydian, take the children with you and go; there is no need to tarry here on my account.”
It was bad enough that Xin’s injuries had forced them to stop and rest, but since Xin was unable to continue channeling magic for the time being, they’d been forced to abandon Sweetie Belle. The statue was just too heavy to move without his magic.
And of course, when the statue stopped moving, the children wouldn’t budge. Lydian had mixed together an unfamiliar concoction of herbs from Zecora’s pack and...
“The children, Oh Goddess, I drugged children,” Lydian shrieked, suddenly realizing what she had done. “Oh, Master Tal would be furious if he knew.” She slumped against the wall and slid to the floor in a heap.
Xin scoffed. “Are you feeling guilty, now? Equestria’s top assassin would suddenly develop a moral compass?”
“That’s different,” Lydian replied. “That was my job. This was…” she trailed off with an uncertain expression.
“Necessary to do your job?” Xin suggested. “Lydian, our job is to stop Gwydion, at all costs. Those children are just a hinderance. We can’t afford to waste time and effort protecting them. We need to be rid of them as soon as possible.”
“Our job is also to serve the crown,” Lydian reminded him. “If Zecora’s claims are true, then these girls couldn’t have been left behind. I just wish that… That we hadn’t been forced to abandon the statue… no, that we hadn’t needed to abandon their friend.
“You cannot afford to doubt your heart,” Zecora told her. “If you can’t trust yourself, you can’t do your part.”
Lydian nodded. “I do trust my heart, but my heart tells me this is wrong. Besides, I couldn’t live with myself if I just abandoned children in this forest! You aren’t blind, Xin, I know you’ve seen the creatures lurking in the shadows.” Lydian buried her face into her forelegs.
“This isn’t actually about the children at all, is it? It’s Star Hunter, am I right?”
Lydian didn’t respond for a moment, but when she looked up her face was streaked with tears. “What?”
“You didn’t just drug the children. You killed Star Hunter, your long-time friend and comrade, and you’re feeling guilty about it. Don’t. We Guardians died the moment we sealed Gwydion away.” He coughed violently and stopped for a moment, wincing in pain. “I never expected we would live again, but even so, we don’t belong in this time anyway. And neither did he.”
“I know,” Lydian said dejectedly. “I just never expected Gwydion to use our friends against us as weapons, and now Star’s gone… But how are we going to seal Gwydion again without him?”
“We can’t seal him away, no matter what happens. Without Merlin to cast the binding spell, and without Andromeda to fix the Conduits, I’m not sure we could recreate the spell anyway. But you are missing something important.”
“Something important?” Lydian asked, confused.
Xin shook his head. “Gwydion may have been able to defeat Celestia in our time, but he is weakened now. I’m sure Celestia’s power has grown in the intervening years, and perhaps his hold over Luna is now broken. And if Zecora’s claims are true, even without Luna, there are three princesses that can bring their wrath to bear against him. What chance does Gwydion have to survive against them all?”
Zecora nodded in agreement. “All four together would a fearsome foe create. Friendship alone is terrifying irate.”
“I suspected as much,” Xin replied.
“So, we’re not going to seal him away?” Lydian asked.
Xin shook his head. “Of course not. We cannot let history repeat itself. This time, Gwydion will join the rest of his kind in death.”
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I’d never had a hangover before. Sure, I had a rough idea of what it should be like, but nothing could have prepared me for how I felt when I finally came to.
I was face down on the floor, which didn’t really surprise me considering last night. A headache pounded in my forehead so strongly that I thought it might actually burst outward. My entire body ached, too, as if I'd done a full-body workout right before being hit by a bus. I tried to recall the events of the night before, but nothing surfaced. I'd been with Chris all evening, and we played games and talked, but … everything beyond that point was muddy. What happened?
Wait, a full body workout? Pretty sure that didn’t happen? Or did it? I could vaguely recall coming on to him pretty hard…
I opened my eyes slowly, but the room was completely black. That was strange enough already; my room was never that dark. Even at night with the curtains drawn, the street lamps outside provided a fair amount of illumination.
Was I blind? I remember vaguely hearing that you could be blinded by alcohol under the right circumstances, but the details in my mind were sketchy at best.
Suffering in agony as I was, I didn't feel like moving, so I simply lay there. Nothing but silence greeted me.
Maybe I was dead. Was this how eternity is spent? Blind, distressed, and in agony? I was only nineteen years old! There was so much life left to lead, how could I possibly be dead?
... For that matter, if I was dead, what killed me? The alcohol?
No, wait, I thought to myself. Back up a bit.
I couldn't make that many assumptions. Suppose I wasn't dead. That was likely, but how could I prove it? Well ... I wasn't disabled, was I? If I could just stand up, wouldn't that be proof that I was, indeed, still alive? Or at least that there might be more to this afterlife than it seemed?
I mean, either I was alive, or my grandfather was here somewhere, right?
My arms felt rather stiff as I slowly propped myself up. My hands felt ... not entirely numb, but the tactile sensation was strange. It was as if the ground wasn't really there, even though something was clearly supporting my weight.
It unsettled me just a little bit.
When I tried to put my legs beneath me to stand, something went wrong. My legs were straight, like they should be if I was standing. My feet were flat on the floor, like they should be if I was standing. But my hands were still touching the floor. It was an utterly, inexplicably alien sensation, like I was standing up straight and crawling all at once.
But as I tried to figure out what, exactly, was wrong, something brushed lightly against my butt. The sudden sensation - the first real external stimulus I'd noted since regaining consciousness - startled me. With a yelp, I threw my leg back, reflexively kicking at the sudden violation of personal space. My foot came into contact with something solid, and a loud cracking noise filled the air around me, accompanied by the tinkling sound of fragmented glass falling to the ground.
What did I just break?
I still may have been blind, but my confidence was growing that I wasn't dead. I listened intently again, wondering if I would hear anything else.
A light suddenly flickered to life above me, bathing the room in a soft glow. I could see! I wasn’t blind! But...
I wasn't in my familiar bedroom as I last remembered. Instead, I was in a small, square room that by all appearances seemed to be carved out of wood. Now, I was no carpenter, but the lack of apparent seams in any of the walls, floors, or corners was a testament to the skill of a masterful artisan.
The lamp that had just come to life above looked like a typical gas lantern, though that appeared to be cosmetic choice; the light within didn't waver like a gas lamp, and the way it had flickered to life was more like power being restored after a storm than the ignition of a gas lantern.
A few scattered boxes were piled around the room, with no apparent organization apart from a stack of boxes filling the only door that served as an exit. The boxes themselves sported a company logo and stylized lettering that spelled out Strings and Things.
As I turned to explore the room, my eyes came to rest on a broken mirror, shattered from a single point of impact, cracks splitting outward. Several pieces of the broken mirror lay on the floor nearby. A strange, lavender-furred face with large, sapphire-blue eyes stared back at me from somewhere beyond the surface.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, convinced I must have been seeing things. When I opened my eyes again, the strange creature was still there. Cautiously, I raised a hand to touch the glassy surface, and a fuzzy lavender appendage raised up into my vision.
I jumped backward with a start. The creature in the mirror did the same. Slowly, I turned my eyes downward.
My arms were covered in lavender fur!
I shook my head and tried to quell my rising panic. The shaking motion was reflected in the mirror, cementing my response. I fell back onto my butt, and a sharp, unfamiliar stinging erupted from my tailbone as I hit the ground.
I screamed, jumping around like a little girl who had just seen a mouse, but my unfamiliarity with the strange body I now occupied left me flat on my face in short order. Cracking an eye open again, I found I was staring at myself once again in the broken mirror, this time from another angle.
The body of the lavender creature (my body?) was roughly the shape of a horse, but with wildly inaccurate proportions. The neck was too short, the legs too thick, and the head too big. A spiraled horn sprouted from the forehead, the same color as the coat, while two similarly colored ears and a darker purple mane sat just above the horn. Two adjacent streaks accented the mane just off center, one a lighter shade of purple, and the second nearly pink. Moderately large feathered wings lay dormant on either side of the torso. At the rear, a tail, colored exactly like the mane, hung limply.
I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision, but the strange creature was still there. I turned my head to the side, and the creature's head moved with me.
"What... the hell?" I asked aloud to no one in particular.
Sifting through my memories for anything that explained the creature in the mirror, several things came up. A horse with a horn would obviously be a unicorn, that much was clear. But unicorns didn't have wings. I frowned, noting fragmented images in the mirror frowning with me. A winged horse? I couldn't recall the name, but there was one of those in some mythological story. Was it Roman, or Greek? I always confused the two. I shook my head.
Again, the reflection in the broken mirror emulated my movements and my eyes widened in recognition. This was really happening. That creature in the mirror was actually me.
Was I perhaps lucid dreaming? Everything seemed too real to be a dream, especially the throbbing pain in my head.
Maybe I was actually dead and this was some sick and twisted afterlife? But if so, why was I some sort of bizarre horse-thing? What cruel god would do such a thing? And supposing I wasn’t dead, then what happened to my body?
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The boxes in the doorway wouldn’t budge.
I wasn’t sure how long it had been, but it felt like I had spent well over an hour trying to find a way to move them. It was clear that they were jammed against something, and they couldn't be pushed out of the way no matter how I tried. Without my human arms and opposable thumbs, there was just no way to do it. Pulling would have been the perfect solution, but I couldn't find any way to pull on the boxes with my new body.
Trapped.
That was my ultimate conclusion: I was trapped. Trapped in this twisted body. Trapped in this strange room that teased at escape but offered none. Trapped in this… this purgatory between earth, heaven and hell. Which I guess was just normal purgatory.
I laid down and sighed, awaiting whatever would come next, if anything.
Whatever arrived in short order: My stomach growled.
Hunger seemed like an odd sensation for an afterlife. Once again, I found myself questioning the nature of my predicament. I was hungry, but there wasn’t anything that looked like food.
Should I scream for help? If I wasn't human anymore, who else - or what else - lived here? Here I was locked in a room with no exit. Was I imprisoned by those outside? If so, would they feed me? I scoffed as I realized I was being held in by an impossibly simple method: a stack of cardboard boxes. Could this really pass as a prison here?
As I lay on the bare, wooden floor, I stared at the broken mirror. Many of the fragments had fallen out of the frame, scattered on the floor, but the vast majority of the mirror remained in place, held together by the pressure from the other pieces. Cracks radiated from a single impact point, a clear hoof print just right of the center. I idly wondered if the mirror could have been some sort of portal back home; a portal I had broken on accident. The idea seemed ridiculous, but it crushed what little hope I had left. Tears spilled from my eyes and I put my head to the ground.
I wasn't sure how long I had lay there, quietly crying to myself and longing for my mother's cooking, but after a while, a feminine voice called out, interrupting my misery.
"Twilight?" It sounded like a query.
Should I respond? I wondered. Perhaps I could get her to help, even if I was supposed to be locked in here. Maybe I could get food, at least.
“Twilight?” the voice repeated, slightly more desperately.
“Be careful, Sister. Something is wrong.” A second, more subdued voice joined the first.
“Yes, even I can tell that much,” the first replied, clearly much closer now. “Spike would never let Twilight stack boxes in the hallway like this.”
Twilight was a name? Wait, it sounded like the boxes shouldn’t be there! I seized the moment.
"Excuse me? Can you help me out?" I called."I'm stuck."
“Twilight?!” both voices called in unison. Before I could even respond, the boxes in the door were tossed aside by some unseen power and before me towered a massive creature of white - unquestionably feminine and unfathomably intimidating.
And strangely familiar. Her body was much like my own - a twisted incarnation of a winged unicorn, with odd proportions that were different even from my own.
My eyes were first drawn to the soft blue glow surrounding the massive white horn protruding from her head. The horn was probably a foot long and sharpened to a wicked point, far larger and sharper than the one I saw reflected in the mirror. At the base of her horn sat a golden crown, adorned with a large purple jewel that brought to mind thoughts of royalty and power.
Emphasizing that point was a massive golden neck piece adorned with an even larger jewel, and golden shoes on each of her hooves. Her wings were spread ever so slightly to fill the entire door frame.
She was an angel of white, an agent of God himself, and she gazed directly at me with piercing magenta eyes that seemed to be reading my very soul.
I am dead, I realized with a growing horror.
And this was judgement day.