Full Moon Fever: A MoonLight Prompt Collab

by TheLastBrunnenG

15 Research by FuzzyFurvert

Research
by Fuzzyfurvert

---

“You girls go on ahead, I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure, sugarcube.” Applejack tipped her hat back as the others turned back toward the castle’s main entrance and by extension, Ponyville. “I’ll drop off Spike back at the Librar - er, castle, I reckon.”

Applejack blushed and rolled her shoulders where a gently snoring dragon assistant lay. Twilight smiled and waved the mention of her old home away. She was still in mourning, but this wasn’t the time to get misty eyed. The Castle of the Two Sisters still has secrets that it had yet to reveal and she was determined to keep searching until it was too dark to see.

“Thanks, AJ, I appreciate that. I’m going to keep looking around and see what else I can dig up in these old ruins.” Twilight gave Applejack a confident smirk. “If it gets late, I can teleport back.”

“Shoot, sugar! I didn’t think yer ranged improved that much!” Applejack laughed. “Alicorn powers must be something else.”

“You got that right.”

“C’mon Applejack, you’re slowing everypony down!” Rainbow Dash flipped in the air overhead and zipped out the door at the end of hall on the heels of Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Fluttershy waited nearby patiently until the earth pony turned and started trotting to catch up with the others.

Twilight watched them go for a moment and drank in the quiet of the old ruins. She could taste the history on her tongue and smell the memories in each breath. The castle here bounced between idyllic relic of a bygone era and creepy shadow-infested hollow, but right now it felt warm and inviting in the later afternoon sun. Twilight spread her wings and flexed her feathers, letting them collect that light and warmth as she turned and let her hooves take her where they may.

Exploring the castle had become a something of a consuming hobby in the weeks after Tirek’s defeat. She was still feeling out her new duties and the new castle was interesting, but it wasn’t home yet. So in her free time, she explored and studied and learned. Sometimes it was like the adventures of Daring Doo when she found some new trap or hidden passage, other times it was more like traditional ‘boring’ archeology.

Twilight pulled in her wings as she entered one of the branching halls off of the main throne room. She stepped carefully over a marked tile that triggered a trapdoor slide and ducked under a partially fallen arch until she found herself just outside the old library. Twilight breathed in the scent of old books and dust but her hooves didn’t feel drawn to that treasure trove. She’d explored in there earlier and already had a stack of tomes prepared to accompany her back to her own castle for restoration and research.

Instead, her hooves kept going past the library and deeper into what they had dubbed the ‘Control Wing.’ Twilight walked wide around a mechanized suit of armor and hopped over an open pit with the help of a wing flap. She paused at the intersection just beyond the pit and looked into the large room opposite her where the huge pipe organ that was connected to the hydraulic system that controlled many of the castle’s traps and puzzles. To the left was a mostly collapsed ballroom where they had come across the remnants of Tirek’s camp from when he was freshly escaped and laying low. To the right was the stairwell that lead up to the tower observatory where the Elements of Harmony had once been stored.

And where she’d faced a goddess of the night and won.

The room was empty now, so there wasn’t any real reason to go there. Perhaps she could find something in the ballroom? Perhaps Tirek had hidden something away in the rubble?

“...”

Twilight stopped at the threshold of the ballroom and looked up, her ears swiveling about. She was certain that she’d heard...something. It wasn’t unusual, the castle was falling apart with animals and plants slowly pulling the place down and the weird Everfree weather demolishing it in slow motion. Whatever it was didn’t repeat and the only thing she could hear was her own breathing and the whisper of a breeze in the hall.

With a flick of her tail, Twilight turned and eased her way into the collapsed ballroom, her horn lighting her way.

---

Bright magenta colored light illuminated the dark halls of the castle as the sun sank outside, only the tallest of the still standing stones bathed in its golden glow.

Twilight emerged from the ballroom and shook the dust and grit from her mane as she tugged a lumpy, motheaten and filthy tapestry from the room behind her. “Another one for Rarity to restore. Not what I was looking for, but so what?”

“...”

Twilight dropped the cloth and whirled around, her horn glow amplifying to light the shadows around her. The stones glinted in the light but nothing moved or made a sound. That didn’t stop the short hairs that ran down Twilight’s neck and along her spine from standing on end.

“Is somepony there?” Twilight turned slowly and fought to keep her breathing slow. It was probably just the wind or some Everfree creature out on a nightly stroll. She probably had no reason to be scared.

Twilight smirked and giggled to herself, as she recalled the first time she’d been out in the dark in the Everfree. Pinkie’s silly advice to laugh in the face of fear had been effective then. And now she was a full fledged alicorn. What could conceivably harm her?

She picked the tapestry back up with her telekinesis and folded it before letting it drop onto her back. She just needed to teleport back to town and she’d have enough time for a shower before dinner with Spike. Twilight started to charge her horn as she did the calculations in her mind to deposit herself and the cloth in her bathroom.

*snap!*

Twilight yelped. The arcane energies she’d collected thrashed in her horn, her careful calculations lost, until it burst out in a harmless flash.

*flumph*

She jumped and screeched, her hooves came down on the loose stones and the next thing Twilight knew she met the floor muzzle first.

---

Her own groaning woke Twilight. She coughed dust and dirt out of her nostrils and immediately regretted the action when she felt suddenly light headed and she could feel blood flowing down her face.

She was sore all over. Twilight grit her teeth and pushed herself to her hooves slowly. Nothing felt broken but she’d be best served if she had a doctor look her over. Assuming whatever had made that noise didn’t stop her.

Twilight snapped her eyes open and lit her horn. The corridors where as dark and empty and silent as they had ever been. Shadows danced whenever she turned her head, but nothing looked out of place. She took a step and turned when something soft and scratchy brushed against her leg. She shrieked and dived away from it, rolling on her shoulder and bringing up her horn primed to blast whatever monster had come to claim her.

In the magenta light of her horn no monster waited to pounce. No beast was primed to strike. The only thing in the hall besides herself and the stone was the old tapestry. It sat in a pile on the floor where she had dropped it and then backed into it blindly.

“Fantastic, I’m just in here scaring myself to death. Not your best moment, Twilight…” Twilight sighed and switched her horn from deathbeam mode to illumination mode.

“...”

Twilight tried to swallow but her throat was dry. A soft breeze blew against her mane and she turn, very slowly and looked at the archway that lead to the stairs and beyond the Elements Chamber. The breeze stirred her mane again and for a moment, Twilight couldn’t shake the feeling that somepony had called her name.

Author's Note:

1st installment of "Haunting Nightmares"

Comments

[BarrenBaron]

This reminds me of that WKUK skit about going to a medium only to find all the ghosts are feeling you up.

[dragonjek]

Congratulations on your haunting, Twilight. It's a girl!

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

that's it. How did this even get in?