Into the Black

by somatic

1: Bad Dreams

The machine gurgled as it sucked away their magic, brass pumps leeching Discord and Twilight. It gorged itself. It squealed as pipes filled with sacrificed life.

It was not enough.

Knives cut through sinew, separated bone from bone. Wings fell useless to the floor, forgotten in the chaos. She was mortal, now. And Discord was dead.

“Twilight! Twilight!”

“She’s not waking up! Applejack, set her down!” The earth pony heard Spike and gently lowered Twilight off her back, Rarity’s magic helping to lift the unicorn down.

She was sleeping, but she was not resting. Her body twisted as remembered pain traced her nerves, each jolt flexing her limbs into new and agonizing positions.

“Hold her legs or she’s going to hurt herself! Or, no, don't! Just...!” Spike didn’t know if that was what you were supposed to do during a seizure. He just knew he had to do something.

“Twilight, it’s okay! We’re alright!” He ducked just in time to dodge a bolt of lilac magic. She was casting in her sleep. “Twilight, I’m here!” His little hands wrapped themselves around his friend, hoping to surround her with as much love as he could.

Together, their bodies quaked. Twilight threw her neck back, howled at the sky, and gnashed her teeth.

“Twilight!”

Her head fell into Spike’s arms. Her breath slowed. Her eyes opened. “Spike?”

“It’s okay. We’re here. We’re all here.”

One by one, the once-dead girls came close to nuzzle Twilight, each warm touch filling her with a little of the strength she lost in the storm.

One more ragged breath. A few more sniffles. She was getting better.

“Come on, sugarcube. Let’s get you back on my back and the heck outta Dodge.” Applejack crouched down and waited for her.

With Pinkie’s help, Twilight staggered to her feet. “No, I don’t want to be a…” Her knees crumpled under her.

“Missy, you’re a burden I am more than happy to carry. Now swallow that pride and get on me ‘fore I make Pinkie sing her ‘I-Thought-We-Were-Dead-But-We’re-Not’ song again.”

The other girls grimaced. Five thousand years in a grave had not worked wonders for Pinkie’s musical abilities. With considerable help, Twilight clambered onto Applejack.

She seemed fine just a few hours ago, when Spike and the girls saw her for the first time in five millennia, but her adrenaline had worn off, and now she was feeling the pain of missing wings and a magical vacuum pump stealing most of her spirit.

Fluttershy had done her best to bind her injuries, but vines and leaves were no substitute for real bandages. Whenever he hugged her, Spike could feel the squelch of bleeding wounds where her wings used to be.

He had hugged her a lot recently. Every time Applejack carried her, she fell asleep. Every time she fell asleep, she had the same nightmare. And every time, Spike was there to comfort her.

It was slowing them down, this constant start-scream-stop-hug-start-again. The forest seemed no thinner than when they first set out from the ruined cottage, and the night was no brighter. If not for Spike’s dragonfire-lit torches, they would barely be able to see the ground in front of them.

“Do you suppose the forest has grown in our… absence?” Rarity chimed in, her refined accent an odd contrast to the muddy crag they were walking through.

Fluttershy answered. “It certainly seems like it. Oh, I hope we’re out of here soon. It’s very dark, and… eep!”

The pegasus gave a little yelp as she saw a spindly shadow.

“Oh, don’t worry, Flutterbutter! I’m sure that shadow that looks exactly like a twelve-foot-tall poisonous spider is just a scraggly old tree!” Pinkie bounced her way ahead of the group to check, then bounced back.

“Well, Pinkie, what is it?”

“It’s actually about ten feet tall, and I don’t know if it’s poisonous. It does have fangs, though!”

It took the girls a moment to realize what Pinkie meant. It took three seconds for them to bolt a hundred feet away.

“Are y’all… alright?” Applejack panted, Twilight still slumbering atop her withers. A halo of Rarity’s magic had kept the unicorn in place during the escape.

“No boo-boos here!” answered Pinkie, bubbly as ever.

Fluttershy took a few deep breaths. “I’m… I’m scared. But I think I’m okay.”

“Spider’s definitely lost our trail.” Rainbow reported in from above, watching the skies from her hiding place in the treetops. “We lost him a few hundred yards back.”

Spike was next. “I’m fine, too. And, uh, you can put me down, Rarity.”

“Oh, sorry, dear.” She let the baby dragon slide off her back. “Did any branches smack you in…”

“I told you, I’m fine. Thanks for carrying me out of there.” He waddled over to Applejack and Twilight. Much as he hated to admit it, his stubby legs made him quite the liability in a chase.

He brushed a claw over Twilight’s fur, and could have sworn she cracked a little smile when he did. For now, she was sleeping soundly.

“Huh. Guess all it took was a poisonous spider on our tail.”

“Venomous.” He barely heard her whisper.

“Twi? Are you awake?”

“Venomous.” Her mouth scarcely moved as she spoke, and Spike was half-sure she was talking in her sleep. “‘Poisonous’ is only if its flesh or skin is toxic. If it has toxic fangs, it’s venomous.” Her eyes finally opened. “You should know better, Spike. I’m sure I made you take a zoology test sometime.”

Spike started to frown, but he couldn’t stop his lips lifting into a smile. “Yeah, I’m sure you did.”

“Are you all a-okay, Twilight? I hope you are, because you were really scaring us, or as Rarity would say ‘giving us an awful fright, dearest,’ but it looks like…”

“Yes, Pinkie. I’m okay.”

Fluttershy came in for a nuzzle. “No more bad dreams?”

Twilight hesitated. “A… a little. But getting better.”

“Better enough to get off my back?” Applejack craned her neck to look at the pony she was carrying. “Not that I want to rush ya, but my legs are getting awful cramped after that little rodeo.”

“I can take her!” Pinkie slid next to Applejack and waited as Twilight crawled over onto her. She might not be a farm girl, but she was an earth pony, and she was strong.

“Thanks. No bouncing though, Pinkie. I don’t know if my spine could take it.”

So the girls set off, Spike striving to keep pace and Rainbow Dash watching from the sky for any venomous—or poisonous—monsters.

“The trees are thinning out! We’re almost there!” Rainbow had scouted ahead again, zipping back and forth between the girls and her lookout locations.

“Thank heavens! This swamp is mayhem for my complexion, and I doubt it can be doing Twilight much good, either!” Rarity’s magic reapplied her friend’s bandages while they trotted. If only I had my needle and thread, I could stitch that wound up, but alas, the afterlife truly did not let you take it with you.

“I’m okay, Rarity. Just not okay enough to walk, I guess. Sorry.” She jiggled gently as Pinkie trotted with her on her back.

“Oh, hush, dear. You’ve done so much for us. Especially… recently.”

“About that… you don’t remember anything from when you were gone?”

Applejack snorted. “You can say dead, sugarcube. And no, we don’t. I’m sure you would love to write it down in one of your research notebooks, but I can’t recall much of anything between you hugging me as I coughed up my lungs in the hospital and you hugging me again in the ruins of that there cottage.” She adjusted her hat as she thought. “Sure been an awful lot of hugging going on.”

“It’s not that, I just wanted to know… if it hurt you. Being ripped back to life like that… I’m sorry.”

Fluttershy saw the tears creeping out of her eyes and reached her wing over to her. “Oh, don’t cry, Twilight. We know you meant well… even if…” She caught herself and shut her mouth.

Discord had offered her immortality, all those years ago. She’d refused it then, and she wasn’t so sure she wanted a new life now.

But this was not the time for anger. Fluttershy’s friends needed her, needed her alive and comforting. That mattered more, she reminded herself.

The others always mattered more.

A shout from Rainbow derailed her train of thought. “Hey, does that look like Cloudsdale to you?”

“Quiet, Rainbow! We don’t want yer voice drawin’ any more of them…” Applejack stopped as she lifted her head to look. Now that the branches had finally cleared, they could see it.

Hovering over their heads sat the largest airship they had ever seen. More of a city than a blimp, the ship was a stormy mass of gray clouds and muted rainbows, a floating foundation upon which stood barracks, guard towers, artillery emplacements, and concrete barricades.

Illuminated by harsh arc lamps, it did look almost like Cloudsdale. If Cloudsdale were made of gunmetal and barbed wire.

Twilight watched the ship slowly change course. Even from below, she could see the flurry of activity aboard the vessel. Thunderhead cannons crackled with electricity as pegasi scurried over the flying fortress, hauling lightning cloud munitions to and fro, checking the pressure valves, drilling for battle.

And aiming those cannons at her.

Twilight flinched as a magically-amplified voice boomed from the sky.

“Twilight Sparkle, this is Captain Muzzle Flash of the Royal Armada. By order of Princess Celestia, you are under arrest.”

Author's Note:

In case you were wondering, Spike was wrong. You should not hold a person down during a seizure. Also, please don't take medical advice from a My Little Pony fanfic.

Comments

[Iron Comet]

I wonder if Celestia knows what Twilight did or just suspects. And how angry will she be that she is no longer a Princess or she broke the barrier between life and death? And mist importantly, now that they have died already, cam they die again? What if resurrection also inferred immortality on the new bodys.

[Dragon of Shadows]

“Hold her legs or she’s going to hurt herself!”

during a seizure you do not want to hold someone still because the muscles will break the bones if they cannot move. you want to clear an area and then call an ambulance.