For the Benefit of Mr. Kite

by Corejo

VI - Into the Everfree

Branches cut and brambles clung at Twilight Sparkle as she dove through the Everfree. The voices of her friends and other Ponyville ponies rose over the treetops, angry, out for blood. She could barely hear them over her rasping breath, but knew they were close. She couldn’t stop now.

A gully had been eaten away by a river ahead. A desperate leap cleared the water, but landed her thick in mud that she could likewise give no thought to. It stuck to her hooves and felt as if she had tied bricks to her legs. Behind, the voices trailed off.

She looked over her shoulder, ears swivelling every which way, chest straining to silence itself. An owl hooted. Crickets chirruped. The voices were gone.

Twilight waited an extra minute to ensure they wouldn’t come back. Confident they weren’t any time soon, she trudged to the river for a quick drink and to rinse off her hooves. The mud washed easily away, but the white of her coat wouldn’t. She stared at her hooves, her breathing subsiding. Her heart still raced. She scrubbed, but the white remained glued to her. Illusions could not be washed away like dirt.

The river ran around her hooves, babbling along the rocks and fallen branches. She gazed into it at her reflection, but no part of her brain could convince her that she was the blue-eyed, green-maned mare staring back. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

And yet she was.

She was Mr. Kite—magicless, hated, exiled Mr. Kite.

She lifted a hoof to her chest, to where the blade had pierced her through the heart. The skin was unbroken, unblemished, but beneath it festered a knot. Swollen, blood-gorged, she felt it throb with her rapid heartbeat. Each beat felt like the tip of the blade was being pressed against the wound.

How much of her magic she had lost, she couldn’t measure. She had become acclimated to the sixth sense it gave her. but that had been ripped away with the blade. Perhaps all of it. She felt like a mare with only three legs. If it could ever return—if she could regain it somehow—she didn’t know. The idea only made the knot throb harder in her chest, as if refuting her hopes.

Twilight sighed, shaking her head. Magic or no, she needed to get away, somewhere safe where ponies wouldn’t recognize her, maybe find somepony willing to help. Then she could plan how to reverse the illusions and reveal Kite for what she truly was. When that time arrived, there would be hell to pay.

The stars had begun appearing in the sky sometime during her flight and were now out at about half strength. Twilight was grateful for the clear skies, as she recognized Canis Minor and could orient herself with the river. She concluded it headed south, which would ultimately lead to Appleoosa. A good start. Getting as much distance between herself and Ponyville was her best bet for the moment.

As far as the Everfree stretched east and west, it didn’t reach nearly as far north and south. It couldn’t be much more than a ten-hour hike straight through—certainly a better option than hiding in the forest in the dead of night. Or for the rest of her life for that matter.

Zecora came to mind, but she doubted hiding with her would be safe—if she could even convince her. They’d find her eventually.

No, away would be the best start. She continued on into the darkness.

The only reason she could see beyond an outstretched hoof was thanks to the waning moon. She shuddered to think how hopeless she would have been without it, and whispered a silent ‘thank you’ to Luna. A quick dip of her tongue to the river to cool her aching throat, and she was off like a shadow.

She slid along the bushes that lined the river, careful not to make a sound. Her ears pricked and swivelled for any sign of the search party, or other prowling things.

It was eerily quiet. The scurry of nocturnal animals in the bushes and buzz of insects hadn’t claimed precedence over the night like she was used to. It hadn’t been often that she visited the Everfree, but the creeping loneliness of her previous treks pressed in, all too familiar. And the distinct lack of sound was all the more unnerving. She stopped.

Something was spooking the animals. And it wasn’t her.

Twilight crouched low, brushing her belly against the soft clay. The moon reflected off the waves, bathing everything in a pale blue. Twigs cracked to her right. A warm glow broke over the grasses between her and a thicket of trees, gruff breathing on its heels. Two ponies. One of them muttered something before their hoofsteps receded with the lamplight. She waited until only the crickets and night birds gave sound to the forest.

So they had split into smaller parties looking for her. That would make matters worse. More groups, more chances to get caught. Stay hidden. Keep moving.

Twilight continued along the river, head down, ears alert, hooves low and soft to avoid squelching in the mud. There were tiny illuminations of light—not much brighter than those of fireflies—across the way, her pursuers’ lamplight too weak to penetrate the foliage. They grew and dimmed as they weaved in and out of what must have been dense thickets.

The river wound its way southward below the great moon and its guiding light. The lamplights faded and appeared, some near, some far. Luckily, none seemed to be on her side of the river yet; though, she had the strangest feeling that something else was following her.

She first noticed it at the fork of the river. She would have taken it for a small night animal if not for the care it gave to avoid noise amidst the grass and muddy bank; fleeing critters cared only for speed. She never stopped moving for a better listen, choosing safety in feigned ignorance over coming face to face. Whatever it was, it remained content simply following—which Twilight prefered, because she doubted her magicless abilities.

The creature was light, not much more than her own weight she guessed by ear. It remained far behind, no less than twenty meters. It was enough distance for her to react should it decide to pounce.

But the creature held its patience. What felt like hours passed in their journey down the river—over eroded ledges, across sandy banks, under broken and gnarled tree branches. Twilight almost became accustomed to the padding behind her, and had to remind herself it couldn’t be friendly.

She came to a log, hollowed and moss covered, nearly as round as she was tall. The trek had sapped her energy, and her jump brought only her forehooves atop the log. The slick moss kept her from pulling herself up. She cursed under her breath before stepping back for a better running start.

A twig snapped. She turned, and saw only a blackness rising to swallow her. Twilight toppled sideways, instinct twisting her around to sweep at it with a foreleg. She connected with something hard in the blur, and she rolled over before gaining her hooves.

The creature’s momentum had carried it into the log, where it staggered to its hooves. Its sleek, pockmarked carapace shone like a blade in the moonlight, its gossamer wings like oil on water. The changeling fixed her with eyes burning hotter than coals and let out a blood-chilling hiss.

They stared each other down, each daring the other to make the first move. The changeling began circling. Twilight did the same.

So this was how Kite wanted to end it: a betrayal-staged assassination in the woods by her very own changeling lover—a fitting irony she would no doubt enjoy poisoning her friends with. How the two loved torturing her, the way they smiled all through their little scheme. Though at the moment the changeling wasn’t smiling. Its lips were tensely drawn, teeth clenched, muscles ready to spring. All the better to beat it senseless.

The changeling lunged at her again, fangs bared. It closed the gap in less than a second, and the weight of its shoulder smashed against her chest, tearing her from the earth. There were hooves at her face and stomach as dirt and twigs pounded at her back, before she found herself beneath the weight of its body.

A blind kick found purchase on a leg, and the weight collapsed atop her, forcing the air from her lungs. She surged upward with her hips to unsettle it and then pushed with both hooves. She rolled aside to regain herself, but a heavy skull cracked her in the ribs, again taking her down.

The world spun for a moment, and she wrestled with both the flurry of punches and a thought in her mind: she must stay on her hooves—stay on her hooves or die. The primal fear was enough to harden her resolve. She pushed away the hooves and somehow planted her own to the ground before Sylissyth pressed the attack.

They came shoulder to shoulder, necks locked together, their forelegs battling to throw the other down. It was a moment’s opportunity to catch a breath, but not one to relent. Though its body was sleek, it betrayed no weakness in the coils that rippled against her chest and pushed her around with ease. She had to take the upper hoof soon if she was to survive.

The changeling snarled an answer to the struggle. It filled Twilight’s ears with the vileness and hatred of its kind and the sadistic yearnings of its master, uncontrollable to the point of drooling on the nape of her neck. Its hooves were like clubs against her own, beating and bruising with all the power it could muster as it sought leverage to topple her. As the struggle reached a crescendo, its final hiss ended in a muffle of sunken fangs and a fire like a cattle prod in her shoulder.

Twilight screamed as the changeling clamped its jaws until its teeth clicked together. There was a buffet of wings and a separation of bodies. The ground hit her hard; a hoof hit her harder.

She curled into a ball instinctively as the blows rained down, before one caught her in the side of the stomach, sucking the breath from her lungs. A weight pressed itself upon her heaving chest to smother any chance for air. She again tried shrugging it off with a surge of her hips, but the changeling had learned and beat the attempt out of her. All she could do was shield her face from the blows.

Sylissyth’s hisses shot to her heart as the last sounds she would ever hear. She couldn’t help but listen, to grasp at the smallest sliver she had left of what it meant to be alive. The pain subsided; sound dimmed. She couldn’t let them go. She had to fight.

Twilight lunged upward with her horn straight at the changeling’s heart. Her horn was no sword, but was sharp enough to elicit a cry and granted the opportunity she needed. A thrust of the shoulder unseated the changeling, and Twilight was up on her hooves, already staggering back to catch her breath.

The forest around them had grown silent in the chaos, listening, waiting to see who would fall first. Twilight listened too, to the changeling’s grunts and hisses. She took in how it stood—head low, eyes simmering, legs ready to spring. It was nothing like the temperament it had shown before in the tent. Before it was coy, taunting, toying. If anything, Twilight expected at least some hint of that, but there was none, only the pure rage of blood-soaked fangs and tense muscle.

It regarded her differently, too. Its eyes, though faceted and omnidirectional like a fly’s, seemed focused on her horn. The changeling began circling again, light on its hooves, wings spread for takeoff.

Twilight spun in place to keep it in front of her. The pain in her shoulder was too great to manage more, and already she felt the darkness creeping into the corners of sight. Why it didn’t press the attack in her state she didn’t know. It continued circling, head low like a wolf. Its eyes flickered in the moonlight, and just like that it leapt in with buzzing wings. It landed short, pivoted on its forelegs with a lightning-flash of hind hooves. and it was back out to its circle as if nothing had happened.

White fire erupted in Twilight’s shoulder as she lay crouched, still reeling from what could have been the last thing she ever saw. Instinct had dictated reaction, and she felt her head a few hairs less for it. She staggered to her hooves, breath heavy, legs like springs, ready for the next attack. Her shoulder throbbed. Blood ran freely from it. The world seemed detached, but she knew how very real the wolf-like Sylissyth before her was.

Another flash of hooves, just across her shoulder. Twilight screamed as the wound was ripped to the bone. Instinct again kicked in despite her need to maintain clarity, and she aimed her horn at the changeling to fire a non-existent spell.

In the blink of an eye, the changeling shot into the air and circled before landing with legs and wings ready to again take flight. Its eyes were fixed upon her horn.

Twilight could only stare back, confused. The moment it noticed her horn it went from brawling and strength-reliant to aloof and dicey, as if realizing she might cast a spell. But it had to have known she couldn’t use magic, even if it hadn’t witnessed the blade with its own eyes. Kite’s plan was too calculated.

The changeling dashed in for another strike of the hooves, but Twilight held her ground. She pointed her horn as if ready to charge a spell. As quickly as it had come, the changeling leapt aside, but undeterred.

The crack of bone split the air as Twilight was launched sideways off her hooves. The blow knocked the wind from her lungs, and refused her a scream in the moments she floated through the air. Her mind shattered like a jar thrown upon the ground when she landed. Bone ground against bone as the changeling’s weight crushed the air from her chest, its hooves about her throat.

Twilight’s head swam with the pain. Her mind yearned for life, yet also for the ease of release—to simply let go. She questioned why it had to end like this, at the hooves of some monster in the darkness of the woods—why she couldn’t have been left in the relative comfort of exile to at least live and breathe until her time would come with dignity. It would have been more befitting Kite to have done so, or had the changeling taken the form of a friend. To stare into the eyes of Applejack or Rainbow Dash as they throttled her to death… They would have been the most believable forms. Kite had slipped up there.

Or had she?

Twilight grabbed at the hooves about her throat. The world grew dim, but she put all her strength into prying them free. They were like a vice and wouldn’t budge as the changeling hissed flecks of blood in her face. She swung at the creature’s belly and found its gut satisfyingly soft.

The changeling lurched its barrel upward to absorb the blow, which was all Twilight needed to wedge her hind legs into position. She launched it head over hooves behind her, and gasped for the sweetness of breath far too long denied her. She rolled over on her stomach to see the changeling buzzing its wings to regain its balance mid air.

Wings, temperament, ignorance. It all added up: another illusion.

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said.

The changeling shot a glare over its shoulder. A hiss erupted from its throat before it charged.

“An illusion,” Twilight said, “is only as strong as the illusee is observant.” The changeling stalled, regarding her warily. “That means something to you, doesn’t it?” She took a hesitant step forward, like a child trying not to scare off a small animal. “Illusions, Elementary. It’s a wonderful book, isn’t it? Illusion stuff is pretty cool... even though you can’t do any of it.”

The changeling had taken a step back, confusion wracking the fight from its eyes. Its wings held fast to its sides, and its hoof was raised for another step backward.

“You said those words to a certain somepony, Rainbow Dash, and you said them only to her. You enjoyed reading that book, even though her usual sciency stuff is ‘way’ boring.”

The second phrase stole any wind left from the changeling’s sails. It flattened its ears back and glanced briefly over its shoulder toward Ponyville.

“You came out here to get revenge on the mare that hurt your friend, because you stick up for your friends.” Twilight was on the verge of tears. “But Rainbow Dash, you only walked right into her trap. She changed appearances with me. And she cast an illusion on you, too.”

Rainbow Dash hesitated before glancing down at herself. A moment passed in disbelief before she hissed a gasp and scrubbed at her hooves. Her panic subsided instantly with a fierce glare at Twilight, a low growl, and a threatening step forward.

“And then she sent you out here to kill me, Rainbow—or for me to kill you and then have to live with that for the rest of my life. That’s the kind of pony she is.” Rainbow Dash took another step forward. Twilight took her own, backward, the tears making it difficult to see. “And I can’t remove these illusions and prove it to you because she stole my magic from me, Rainbow Dash. She stole it with that evil knife she framed me with. I know you can see it...”

Twilight began shaking. She couldn’t keep it in any longer, couldn’t fight to survive. Enduring meant nothing at the price of her friends.

She whispered, hollow, “Rainbow Dash… it’s me… Twilight.”

Her name hung in the air between them like a leaf caught in an updraft before sweeping away into the darkness. Twilight fought back the sobs, praying for a miracle to strip away the magic that bound her in this vile form. There was only silence, then Rainbow Dash lunged, roaring.

“Rainbow!” Twilight cried.

She felt the hard keratin of her chest collide with hers like a battering ram. Her body staggered in some direction—she didn’t know which—desperate only to keep her hooves beneath her as the force continued to push. A turn of the head forward and she crashed face first into the mossy log. The force pushed harder still, bending and squeezing her already cracked ribs.

“Rainbow Dash! Please!” A hoof plunged itself into her gut, and the only other noise she could make was a desperate wheeze. Twilight crumpled to fall, but another hoof pinned her up against the tree. She struggled with the blinding pain, trying to suck wind and shield her stomach from the swinging hoof. Her eyes could hardly focus, only the blurred, chitinous skull and faceted eyes drowning out what little she could see. Beyond it, like a ghost, was Rainbow Dash’s true face and its winning smile, the very one she saw the first time they met.

“The R-Rainblow Dry,” Twilight heaved. Rainbow Dash stopped. “Do y-you remember your Rainb-blow Dry—when w-we first met? You cr-rashed into me and got me all m-m-muddy. And then, and then messed up my mane.” Twilight tried cracking a smile, but everything started moving far away. “You almost… almost died laughing.” It was getting darker. “And, when App… Applejack let go… you were there to catch m-me.”

The nighttime noises had gone, and the changeling was nowhere to be seen. Only Rainbow Dash stood before her, bold, brave. “You… saved me...” Twilight reached out for the smiling, keen-eyed face, but felt nothing. Without a support to hold her weight, Twilight let herself fall into the spiralling darkness that reached upward with welcoming embrace.

Author's Note:

And we're back! This is a buffer chapter I had in rough draft form a while back. Here's a weekly healthy dose of Twilight for you all. Thanks to Belligerent Sock for his help in this chapter.

Onward and Upward!

Comments

[Black Hoof]

Nice to see this back on tracks. Twilight sure will need a friend's support to go through this ordeal.

[Hap]

Seriously? Only one other person has commented on this?

I'm sure Rainbow Dash is going to figure it out and, once she manages to convince the others... assuming that the others are really themselves, and assuming they don't see Rainbow Dash as a changeling, and assuming that...

[Twilight Shine]

Hopefully rainbow dash would realize its twilight, and carry twilight on her back to pony ville. And tell everypony its twilight and not kite.