A Study in Twilight

by The Master Whoovian

Awakening

It was cold…

That was my first thought. It was cold.

The freezing air blew through my fur as a laid on the ground.

My eyelashes followed with the wind, creating a somewhat rhythmic movement, almost like waves moving along through the ocean.

I laid there… hoping to regain some of the strength that I had left, but I couldn’t move a muscle, I felt too weak.

All I could see was white, with a hint of brown (or was it black?) lying under it.

My legs looked like slumped over logs, and my hooves were cracked and rugged, almost as if I marched for years in the Royal Guard.

My forehead was aching. The icy cold weather didn’t help satiate the pain, as it slowly began to spread throughout the rest of my head. It was painful, as if somepony pulled my mane so hard, the scalp began to follow suit.

I attempted to lift my fore-hooves so I could feel for the location of my pain. Maybe I just had a bad headache, or fell on a rock and bruised myself. Yet, neither of these things could have caused this much pain.

As my hooves moved across my head and through my mane, I finally made it to my horn. As soon as my hoof made contact with it, I writhed in pain. I felt a long crack moving from the base to the tip of my horn. When I reached the top, the tip broke off, and I screamed in pain.

At least, I thought I did, but my voice was completely muffled. My vocal were strained and all I could really make out was a cough. As I did this, I saw red joining the different shades of color that were placed before me. I was coughing blood.

That’s when I realized the other pain I began to feel, which was localized in my chest, and on the left side of my back.

The pain in my chest was probably the cause of a broken rib. Sadly, it appeared that it could have punctured a lung, which would explain me coughing up blood.

My back pain, however, I had no explanation for. It was a stinging sensation, which was probably because of the cold.

I finally regained the strength to life my head, though my neck was still very stiff and felt somewhat uncomfortable. Of course, when you lie on the ground for an undetermined amount of time, the pain was unsurprising.

I craned my neck to get a good look at my back, what I saw ran shivers down my spine (and that wasn’t the cold). My left wing was completely burnt, the feathers almost completely gone and the skin charred, giving off a horrible smell. This made me very sick and it didn’t help the already painful headache I felt in my cranium.

I tried to move it, but the bones cut through the remaining flesh and muscle I had left on my wing, and I that was when I finally heard myself scream in pain. Though my voice was raspy, I could still hear my screaming, louder than a wolf howling at the moon.

I collapsed once again, the pain making my strength dissipate.

After waiting for a few minutes, I tried to move the entirety of my body once again, this time avoiding the sight of my mangled wing.

I was slowly able to rise onto my hooves, but the intense headache I experienced blurred my vision as I rose, making it very difficult to see.

I stood motionless for a couple of seconds, until the blurriness subsided from my eyes.

I began to look around, hoping to get a lay of the land, but all I saw was snow; lots, and lots of snow. This, of course, probably explained the extremely cold temperatures.

I knew only one place could match this description, the Frozen North.

I then began to wonder how I came to arrive here, and, more importantly, why my horn and wing were virtually destroyed.

I used every ounce of strength I had to walk, but my hind-legs didn’t contribute to my movement. In fact, I couldn’t move them at all. They must have frozen over.

I decided to drag them along with me, like how a dog moves with two broken legs.

After moving along like this for about fifteen minutes I saw a light over the horizon, which soon began to get brighter and brighter, until I saw grass appearing at my hooves. At this moment, I began to feel elated.

Over the hill ahead, I saw the shining dome of the Crystal Empire, and the gleaming civilization that prospered beneath it.

I hobbled slowly towards the warmth of the Empire, my strength finally growing with every inch I took towards the warming glow.

When I arrived to the arch that lead to the castle, I finally regained control of my frozen hind-hooves, and then realized that one of the m was broken. Great, another injury to add to my long list of them.

Two guards galloped towards me. One of the guards was gleaming like a shining diamond, and the other was a guard with orange fur and a blue mane. “We need a medic over here now!” The crystal guard yelled. “I’ll go get him,” said the other, and he soared into the sky at break neck speeds, making Rainbow Dash seem slow in comparison.

As I slowly began to succumb to exhaustion, the crystal pony lifted me up on his back and began to run towards the hospital near the base of the castle.

As we made our way into the hospital, doctors and nurses crowded around me, hoping to keep me stable. As I was being pushed through the halls of the hospital, I saw a familiar pony not so far behind me. He began asking for assessment of the damage and gave tips on how to treat me.

The doctors shut doors between me and him, and began to put me under anesthesia.

The last thing I remember was when the doctors asked me what my name was, to which I replied, “My name is Twilight Sparkle.”