A Bitter Almond Cake

by Sparlight_Twikle

5. Your cake is ready

Monday morning

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes and saw that she was in a brightly lit room. She blinked twice to see better and she noticed she happened to be in a hospital room. There was nopony else with her. She turned her head around slowly and noticed thick metal bars behind the window.

She had been lying down thoughtlessly for several hours, when the door opened and a nurse entered. She noticed that Twilight was awake, but she didn't react to it in any special way. She left as fast as she came, and returned several minuted later with a tray with dinner.

Twilight consumed slowly the food, chewing thoroughly every bit, but not because she was enjoying her meal–in fact her mind didn't even register the taste. The mare couldn't even understand what situation she had got into.

She ate her dinner, some time later the nurse came back to collect the tray, and Twilight was left again alone without anything to do. In that case, the only thing left for her was staring at the opposite wall.

When the sun was setting down, the door opened again and revealed three mares with angry-looking faces.

“Hello, Twilight” said Rainbow Dash. “I see you're awake.”

The other two ponies entered the room without saying a word.

“Hi girls. What happened? What am I doing here?”

“You tried to kill herself.” said the pegasus dryly. “I've pulled you out of the river. Now I kinda regret it.”

Memories started to return to Twilight.

“I think I remember now... I'm sorry I made you worry, I fell for Celestia's prank like some silly filly...”

The guests exchanged few confused looks with each other. Rainbow Dash looked again at Twilight, pegasus's face displaying anger.

“What the hay are you talking about?”

“Didn't... we all met at the bridge? So what happened?”

Rainbow Dash launched herself forward with rage in her eyes.

“Wanna know what happened? You killed Fluttershy, you murderer!”

Twilight instinctively closed her eyes and covered her face with forelegs to protect herself against pegasus's assault. When after a while nothing happened, she peeked out to see what's going on. Rainbow Dash was in the air, frantically flapping her wings to move forward, but she was held in place by her tail, which was in Pinkie Pie's bite. Rarity stared at the whole scene with disappointment.

“Dammit, Pinkie, let me go!” yelled Rainbow Dash. “I'm gonna give her what she deserves!”

“Calm down, you hothead.” said Rarity. “You know that violence against anypony, even murder convicts, is an offense.”

Twilight gasped in shock.

“Wait, you said... I mean... now everypony knows, doesn't it?”

“Yes, Twilight” confirmed Rarity. “Every one of your friends–or I'd rather say, former friends–knows now who teleported a week ago from the library to the hospital, carrying a kitchen knife, and killed poor Fluttershy. How could you?” Rarity's voice was becoming stronger and more angry. “How could you ever commit such a hideous crime? We trusted you! Fluttershy trusted you!”

“I'm sorry...”

Upon hearing these words, Pinkie released Rainbow's tail from her mouth. The pegasus sped forward, hit a wall above Twilight's head, fell down onto her, shook her head and stood up on the bed with her left hind leg on Twilight's stomach.

“You're sorry!?” asked the angry pegasus. “You've killed Fluttershy and now you're just sorry!?”

“Dash, you're standing on my stomach...”

“So what! You should thank Celestia it's a hoof, not a knife!”

Twilight desperately looked around, trying to see past Rainbow's body if the other two mares would come to her help, but they were just standing motionlessly, with contempt displayed on their faces.

Twilight felt like if something tore apart in her abdomen under pegasus's weight and released a loud scream of pain.

“Yeah, keep yelling, bitch!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “It won't bring Fluttershy back, but at least we'll gladly listen!”

Twilight screamed again and almost immediately two guards came in, separated two mares and ordered the visitors to leave. Twilight was left alone again.

Several minutes later, doors were opened again and Spike entered the room. He looked like this night he hadn't slept at all. He slowly approached the bed and said:

“Hello, Twilight.”

“Hi, Spike.” said Twilight, grimacing in pain. “So, what's up?”

“Nothing, really.” Spike tried to avoid unicorn's gaze. “When you went missing, I found the bloodstained knife under your bed, so I called the police, they took it to the forensics, and interrogated me the whole night. They said the trial is on Wednesday and you can get life in prison.”

It looked like Spike really took to his heart the lessons on abiding the law. Twilight released a small chuckle.

“So it looks like we won't be living together again anymore. We should say goodbye to each other. Are you going back to Canterlot?”

“No, I'm staying at Ponyville library. Pinkie Pie is gonna take it over. I'm afraid I'm gonna put on some weight.”

Twilight laughed.

“Pinkie Pie? A librarian? She's no librarian, she's a pastry chef! Those two aren't even similar.”

“Crazy, isn't it? But after everything that happened, she totally lost her talent for sweets and the Cakes fired her. She asked the Princess for some help and the Princess appointed her the Ponyville librarian. Tomorrow's her first day. The Princess said it might be either temporary or permanent job, but given everything that's happening right now, I think it will be permanent...”

Smile waned from both their faces.

“So, Spike,” Twilight continued. “What about the interrogations? What did they ask you?”

“Well, various stuff.” said Spike. “I told them you were hanging a lot with Fluttershy recently, that you were depressed...”

Twilight realized that she was hardly any good in concealing her emotions. She kept listening to Spike's report.

“...and finally, that on that day, you sneaked into the kitchen and teleported awa–”

“Teleport! Right!” Twilight yelled excitedly. “Why didn't I think about it before!”

“What? Wait, Twilight, don't–” Spike tried to stop her, but she wasn't listening. Her horn started glowing, the aura started to grow, engulf her head, when suddenly it disappeared in flash of white light. Twilight shrieked in pain and rolled out of the bed on the floor.

“–do that...” finished Spike. “The whole floor is in an anti-magic field, No spells will work here.”

The unicorn sat up, hung her head down and started to cry. The last spark of hope, hope she had in her own magic capabilities, was just destroyed. The only fate that stood before her was darkness of hopelessness, orange suits in female unicorn prison, no more seeing her friends, no more seeing her family, no more seeing Spike...

“I'm a failure of an equine being.” she whispered.

Spike could only think up the stock answer to that:

“Don't say that.”

“I'm a failure! I got overwhelmed by my own selfish paranoia! I understand why my friends all hate me now! I deserve it!”

“Twilight,” Spike tried to reassure her. “I don't hate you. I've been with you much longer than the rest of your friends. You're for me like a family. And I still can't believe you did that.”

Twilight smiled.

“Neither can I.”

Spike hung his head down and left the room, leaving Twilight sitting on the floor, alone.

Wednesday morning

Twilight barely remembered what happened during the trial. She remembered being carried in an anti-magic cage. She saw her parents in the courtroom, crying. On the other side of the courtroom she saw Fluttershy's parents. She also saw Rainbow Dash, screaming some obscenities towards her from the back row. The trial went quickly. The sentence was the highest possible: life in prison.

The cage was carried on a wagon into a dark passageway in the Canterlot castle underground. Twilight was given a bright orange suit and shackles were put on her legs. After that, the guard who gave her the clothes said to her:

“Before we escort you to your cell, you might send one letter.”

Twilight nodded. The guard gave her a sheet of paper and a short pencil. Twilight tried to pick up the pencil using her magic, but it caused the familiar, but this time milder pain and flash of light. She smiled and picked the pencil up with her mouth. She couldn't remember when was the last time she tried to write without using her horn. She proceeded to slowly write her message.

Dear Princess Celestia,

During the last month, I've learned a lot, sadly it was mainly on my own mistakes. I've learned that sometimes friends might ask you for help in doing something bad, and in that case because of the ever-growing fear of others finding out, you might end up doing worse things to cover up the original crime.

Sadly, I've learned this lesson the hard way, and my friends suffered a lot because of my recklessness. I don't blame them for hating me now.

Also let me report to you that my studies on the magic of friendship came to their end.

Your former student,

Twilight Sparkle

“Are you done?” asked the guard, when he saw Twilight stopped writing.

“Ah think tho.” she answered with the pencil still in her mouth.

The stallion passed her an envelope. Twilight focused her thoughts for a moment, and as soon as she remembered what how to address a letter to the Princess when using normal mail, she wrote it down. The guard looked at it and raised his brow.

“To the Princess? Are you sure? You know that most letters sent to her are read by her secretaries.”

“Don't worry,” said Twilight, spitting out the pencil. “I'm sure she'll get it.”

The guard put the letter into the envelope and threw it onto a stash of outgoing mail. The second guard took out keys and opened a metal bar door leading deeper into the dungeons. He gave Twilight sign to enter. She followed his unspoken order and walked through the door, where three other guards surrounded her. She found herself in a dimly lit corridor with many metal doors on both sides. She knew that soon one of those doors will close behind her tail.

“Goodbye, everypony,” she whispered. “I'm sorry.”

Comments

[Evilpresident]

WTF did I just read?

[LurkAllDay]

I actually really enjoyed that, regardless that everyone was seriously OOC.
And the last 3 chapters updated at once? Just made my day

[Dan50]

Damn that was DARK. Poor Flutters. Chapter 4 really threw me off haha.

[BobtheLurker]

The fuck man? The fuck?

[TrinketTheChangeling]

Wow....that may actually have the capeability to kick "Cupcakes"-

Er...bum. Anyway, that was a very dark fanfic, very believable. Have you ever thought of submitting it to Equestria Daily? I'm sure they'd find it interesting.

It gave me an all new asspect of TwilightSparkle and FlutterShy .

Poor AppleJack, I nearly cried when that happened.

And where the buck was Celestia during all of this!? LOL!

Nicely done!

[Simonekitty]

To everyone read my comment on ch.4 and to the athuor WTF

[FluttahShy]

im dead??

why me WHY COULDNT IT BE SPIKE?
oh nvm

[NoMane]

The whiplash was trolltastic.

[Prince Gray]

Wtf...

[Meadow Feather]

https://youtu.be/PlQr4d8nnq4