Twilight ran down a corridor of fire, dodging burning tomes and clouds of choking ash. Ahead of her was a brilliant light that burned the eyes, while behind a lurking menace reached out to her with talons of silver and darkness. The floor was swathed in shadow, but it was firm beneath her hooves and gave her something to run on. She outran the fire and darkness, and found herself in the Hedge, with all its twisting paths and thorny threats, but she kept running, sure that the reaching menace behind her would catch her if she stopped. Two lights rose from the ground: one blue and white, the other purple and grey. They followed beside her, running from the same shadow that lurked behind Twilight, twisting and flying around her like will-o-the-wisps.
A roaring laugh issued from behind Twilight, causing her to run still faster, and soon thousands and thousands of lights whirled around her, alongside her, all whispering her name in voices like wind-chimes. Some, however, screamed her name discordantly, like a damaged bell's last chime before it breaks. These lights burned, they burned her, the other lights, and started to light the Hedge on fire. Twilight wanted to scream at them to stop, but she had to save her breath for running. She wanted to wave them away from the brambles, to keep the fire from spreading, but she had to keep moving.
Time slowed, then stopped.
Twilight realized she didn't have to run.
Twilight stopped running as the thought rang through her. The lights whirled around her chaotically, but the unicorn stomped her hooves, and the burning brambles fell away.
She was in a vast hall, the old Castle of the Pony Sisters, and ahead of her the light still burned, beckoning her to run towards it. But it was impossible, and painfully unattainable. Behind her the shadow loomed, always threatening, but impotent, she realized, unable to touch her. She turned from the light and faced the darkness, to deny it and show its powerlessness to the lights that whirled fearfully around her.
She knew that was where she belonged.
Twilight woke up with a start in Canterlot General Hospital three days later to the steady beeping of the heart monitor. She turned her head and found Rarity sleeping on the visitor's couch by her bed. She felt... Rather bland about that, actually, which surprised her. She pushed it down though and smiled, watching her new marefriend sleep.
Rarity slowly woke and noticed Twilight watching her. The white unicorn sighed inwardly, smiling, not sure how to approach her friend and break the unpleasant news. Princess Celestia had had a few words with her while Twilight had been unconscious, about her worries about her student, and had subtly indicated to Rarity that getting involved with Twilight on a deeper level would be extremely complex and possibly dangerous. Being Twilight's marefriend right now would make her a target for more than paparazzi, and if something happened to her, Sweetie Bell would be left in the lurch, as it were.
The conversation had left Rarity in a thoughtful frame of mind, and had led her to the conclusion that, while she loved Twilight, she loved her as a friend and could only love her as a friend. Still, she definitely had no regrets about the incident at the club; it had been one of her more memorable liaisons, and extremely intense to boot. Great sex though does not a relationship make. Twilight and she had a sort of physical chemistry, Twilight was very attractive after all, but... The vital spark wasn't really there, she told herself, and she was puzzling about how to put the news to her friend gently when Twilight cleared her throat.
“Um... Rarity?” Twilight asked, or tried to, it came out as a raspy hiss until she'd drank from the glass of water nearby. She tried again, “Rarity? How long was I...”
“A day or so,” Rarity said quietly, while Twilight's brows rose in surprise, “The doctors said the mental shock of whatever happened in the council room, combined with residual blood poisoning sent you into unconsciousness.”
Twilight blinked, “Blood po-... Oh, the hangover. Hah, yeah... Some night I guess,”
“Yes,” Rarity said softly, “Some night.” Rarity shifted uncomfortably on the couch as the silence stretched out. Twilight started to say something a couple of times, but the atmosphere in the room was too thick to let words through. Rarity sighed, “Twilight, about that... I... I enjoyed that night. But I can't... Ah... Forgive me Twilight but, while I love you...” Rarity hurried on as she saw Twilight's face beginning to fall, “I don't... I can't love you that way, but,” she added quickly, forestalling a comment from Twilight, “Please, just wait. I can't love you as a marefriend, but... I can love you as a friend, and I'm... I'm sorry, Twilight.”
The silence ticked by, then Twilight said softly, “Why?”
Rarity looked away, “Well Twilight, I just... Can't see myself living a life with you. I thought about it, in the time I've been here, watching over you, but I just can't. You're a wonderful friend, Twilight, and I'm sorry this happened this way, I don't... Usually do things this quickly, I assure you.” Rarity sighed, “I realize I probably shouldn't ask but... Can you... Ever forgive me?” Rarity turned to look at Twilight, who just stared at her for several minutes with tears leaking down her face. Rarity's heart wrenched with guilt while her friend just stared at her. The purple unicorn's burning mane was bluer, more somber, and the words flowing through her mane and trailing off her body seemed to be of lament. After about ten minutes of neither pony responding, Rarity rose and started to walk out.
“Someday, Rarity,” Twilight said softly, causing Rarity to stop at the threshold of the hospital room, “But for now, get rid of the doll. It's cursed, remember.” Rarity nodded, not turning around, and walked out. Twilight very gently curled into a ball and cried softly, consumed by sorrow.
As soon as she was released from the hospital, Twilight set to her work with new vigor. She assembled the image of the killer after finding a spell to help lift it directly from Karat's mind, then had it posted around to the Royal Guards, with instructions to keep their investigations under tight secrecy. Princess Celestia wouldn't say how he had managed to escape her, but it was obvious she was furious with herself over it.
The victim had been a unicorn named Sparkling Vision, a minor noble of some sort that Twilight distantly remembered from the Grand Galloping Gala. Her husband and child had been devastated when Royal Messengers delivered the story of Lady Vision's tragic fall from one of the Canterlot Falls. Apparently, according to the family, Sparkling Vision had gone missing the night Twilight had been partying in Manehattan, along with her two friends. The friends had been found unharmed, but asleep, in the sewers under Canterlot. They had been unable to give a reliable description of the events, as they had all apparently been quite intoxicated.
Sparkling Vision had been flayed, her internal organs removed and the skin from her sides and back pulled into grotesque wing-shapes. Her face had been carefully left alone, and on further examination, Twilight found that Sparkling Vision's left eye had been removed and replaced with a glass replica, on the back of which was etched another poem in a surprisingly elegant script for a murderer.
Seeing is believing,
Soon there will be grieving,
Celestia, I'm not playing,
Eleven, then I'll be coming.
Forensic specialists were frantically trying to find something to shed some light on the patterns of the killer, but there was simply too little data. Somehow the murderer was able to wipe all traces of his passage from the scenes, with a skill that baffled even the best forensic minds. The fact that he left such taunting clues simply made it worse when all the tests came back negative.
Twilight did everything she could to put Rarity out of her mind and keep working on the case, but it became steadily more difficult as days passed. None of her friends ever visited, though Pinkie Pie kept in correspondence through letters that somehow ended up in Twilight's lodgings, no matter where she happened to be staying, periodically inviting her to one of Pinkie's parties, but with her pink friend living in Manehattan, dropping by for a party became a serious problem, especially with all that needed to be done to catch the killer.
Twilight's stress mounted as high as her depression had deepened, until at last she needed to see her friends so deeply it was like a physical force ripping at her that made the whispers of the shadows louder and more insistent. Desperate for company, she started taking Spike with her everywhere, but he had to run the library while she was working so that failed to work entirely. Owlouicious couldn't really provide verbal company, and talking to an owl made Twilight feel a little crazy.
So it was that Twilight walked through dreams to Manehattan, stepping out of a homeless pony's dream of alcohol and a warm bed into the middle of a heavy rain. Twilight sighed, she'd forgotten to check the weather, and this just figured with everything else that'd been happening. The homeless pony beside her stirred in his sleep, shivering a little in the dubious shelter of a handy doorway, and Twilight felt a twinge of pity, looking down at his wasted form. His coat was brown, or possibly covered in muck, and he was bone-thin, shivering in the cold. Twilight frowned in thought, then closed her eyes and focused, whispering to the very stuff of the dream she'd just exited. A moment passed, then she pulled out the rich, warm blanket from the homeless pony's dream and draped it over him. She pumped a little magic into the dream-blanket to make it stay in the real world, then tucked the pony in and, as an afterthought, left a note for him to find that reminded him that the Royal Guards were obligated to provide food to those in need. Satisfied, Twilight set off to find Pinkie's bakery.