Two in Exile

by River Road

Prologue - First And Last Test

“Well, Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight Sparkle stared at the cart before her, a simple wooden construct and yet the load it bore was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in her life. The cart was small enough that she could see over it without stretching her neck, the purple egg on it was barely bigger than her head, motionless and completely non-threatening.

It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

A dragon egg! Hatching an honest-to-Celestia dragon egg was the minimum requirement to get into the School For Gifted Unicorns?! Twilight’s breathing got faster and her vision blurred out everything but the egg and the quartet of test instructors who were already beginning to look impatient with her. Everything sounded like she was hearing it through a large ball of cotton. All the spells and knowledge she’d so readily called upon in the previous parts of the exam suddenly seemed as far away and unreachable as the fiftieth digit of pi. Which, a detached part of her realized, she could have also flawlessly recited on every other day.

The part of her who had pointed this out then suggested hysterical giggling as her next course of action.

“Well, Miss Sparkle?” the same mare asked again, while one of her fellow instructors halfheartedly stifled a yawn. A yawn! All her hopes and dreams were crumbling with this yawn and she had barely even moved yet.

Slowly, she turned back towards the egg again, the purple menhir that towered over her. Every hoofstep felt like lead as she walked up to the cart for what seemed to be an eternity. She took a deep breath, then another and another, then quickly clamped her mouth shut before she would start to hyperventilate again. Her cheeks bulged out as she closed her eyes and tensed her whole body, calling onto that well of thaumic energy that she had spent so many months building and training.

Nothing. There wasn’t even a single spark jumping from her horn. Her magic felt like it was all over the place, taking detours through her hooves, tail and everywhere else except the place it was supposed to go. The few drops that did make it to her horn ran against a wall that seemed impossible to get through. Some of it had apparently gotten into her eyes, as she could feel something hot pooling in them.

The older mare cleared her throat. “Well, Miss Sparkle… I think we have seen enough.” Her pen started writing on a clipboard along with three other pens and clipboards of her colleagues as they quietly talked to each other.

Twilight couldn’t hear them. Her ears were filled with static, her vision was going black at the edges and her whole body was shivering. She had failed, failed completely, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her parents were somewhere in the room, but right now she couldn’t bear to even imagine their disappointed faces, or even worse, understanding and assurances that the situation somehow wasn’t as terrible as it was.

Her legs suddenly started moving, turning her around and galloping towards the door out of the room. She kept her eyes closed, trying to ignore the tears running down her muzzle and the surprised shouts of the instructors and her parents. She barged through the doors and kept running, making turns at random, trying to just run away from the shame and disappointment and never look back.

Naturally, it took her less than a minute to get completely lost.

Twilight stopped in the middle of a hallway, looking around frantically. She didn’t know where she was and she barely knew what turns she had taken to get there. Nearly identical wooden doors lined the walls to both sides and more hallways branched off in the distance. The little filly tensed as she heard hoofsteps coming from behind her, looking around frantically as the voices from around the corner came closer.

“…just like last year. I wish I could see what spells the foals try on it this year to make it hatch.” A group of older colts rounded the corner, one of them pausing and looking around the empty hallway. “Say, did you guys hear something?”

Twilight panted and shivered, leaning against the door. She’d jumped into the first room at random and now she was standing in complete darkness, waiting for the group of ponies to walk by. After taking a few moments to calm down she scrunched and tried to cast a light spell so she could see where she was, but her magic still didn’t want to respond. Instead she took a step forward to try and find a light switch.

“Yipe! Ow! Ooof! Whoa! Ow…” Twilight groaned, lying flat at the bottom of the stairs that apparently led down from the door. She slowly sat up, rubbing her muzzle with both hooves. “Ohhhhh, this is the worst day of my life… I don’t even know how it could possibly get any–“

BOOOOM!

Every muscle in her body tensed in surprise, including her magical muscles. The sudden explosion was shocking enough, but what really hit her was the wave of magic that washed through her without warning, tearing down all the dams she had been struggling against since the exam and even more she didn’t even know about. Magic reserves she didn’t know she had coursed through her body, lifting her into the air in a bubble of purple energy and filling the room with a contrast of light and shadows.

Twilight hung in the air like that for a moment, with glowing eyes. Then she jolted forward and face-first into the wall. Her energy sphere staggered backwards, going a bit too far and bouncing down the second flight of stairs that was now visible, swerving left and right to slam into the wall and railing several more times before she finally reached the bottom. Her bubble sent beams of magic randomly around the room for a few more seconds before it burst in one last wave of energy, dropping her to the floor.

Twilight sighed, staying still with her face on the dusty floor. Maybe if she didn’t move, the day would just forget about her and pass. A soft but bright light in front of her taunted her to look up, however, and it didn’t take long for her natural curiosity to win out over her resolve.

Looking around, she could see that she was in a basement, full of old furniture and various knickknacks. And right in front of her stood a large ornate mirror, easily three times her size and showing a glowing surface of light instead of her reflection.

Twilight’s eye twitched. ‘I’m hiding in a room with a magic mirror and who knows how many other important artifacts. They could court-martial me just for knowing about this room. I could be exiled from Equestria, or locked up in Tartarus, or–‘

The door at the top of the stairs opened. “…telling you, I heard something. You think one of those brats from Magic Kindergarten snuck in here again on a dare?”

Twilight’s eyes shrunk down to pinpricks. She hadn’t been able to properly hear most of the sentence, but what she had understood made her blood run cold. Magic Kindergarten. The worst punishment she could possibly imagine. Being sent to hunt Cerberus through all layers of Tartarus would be better than going to that place.

Her eyes snapped to the glowing mirror. It was a split-second decision, but before she could think about it her legs were already moving.

~~~~~

Sunset Shimmer muttered under her breath, stomping out of the school building into the cool evening air. She had been getting better at masking her intentions and being subtle, but today she had gotten too careless and earned herself a generous detention from vice principal Luna. It didn’t matter much to her, of course, barely more than an annoyance. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do most of the time, and every slip-up like today was just another lesson in the game of high school politics she was now playing. Playing, and already winning.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Something felt off, something odd about the air. Looking ahead, she noticed the pedestal of the school’s statue glimmer and glow slightly, barely perceptible if you didn’t know what to look for.

“What the…? The portal isn’t supposed to open for a good two years yet!” Sunset frowned, feeling confusion and a bit of dread. From what she had learned of the portal before she went through, the only pony who had ever been able to open it outside of the thirty-moon cycle had been Starswirl the Bearded. If Princess Celestia had figured out how to activate it, it stood to reason that she was sending guards to retrieve her errant student and exiled criminal. If Sunset didn’t want to give up what little of a life she had built in this town and run away again, she might have only mere seconds to push them back again and find a way to seal the portal. “I’m not letting you- ooof!”

Something slammed into her right as she had reached the portal, throwing both of them to the ground. Sunset flailed and tried to push it off, sitting up just in time to see the portal ripple one last time and turn back into the lifeless slab of marble it usually was.

She blinked, slowly looking down from the now inactive portal to the little girl in her lap. Grape colored skin. Purple hair with stripes in a haircut that was probably self-inflicted with a ruler and a steam iron. A skirt and a blouse in matching colors, with a burst of stars on the sides of the former. And the whole package looked to be maybe ten years old, twelve at most. Though with the way her own transformation had gone and the misleading age groups she had seen in this world, it was hard to actually confirm that the girl was more than half her age.

As she stared down at the unconscious girl, Sunset’s brain analyzed all this information in less than a second, sorted it into the appropriate folders in her mind, made notes and connections and formulated the most appropriate response to all the data it had gathered:

“…what?”

Author's Note:

And it begins.

Comments

[Naturefang]

Nani?

[narusakufan]

This sounds pretty good. I can't wait for more.

[River Road]

8234011
Thenext chapter will go up soon. Tomorrow at latest.

[Constellation]

Her eyes snapped to the glowing mirror. It was a split-second decision, but before she could think about it her legs were already moving.

I have one question. How did Twilight know that the portal mirror, was a portal?

Beside that, interesting idea. I'll be reading this, I think. Looks very promising.

[twidash1993]

What happens to Spike then? Please tell me he still get's hatched eventually

[Winter Quill]

Well... this is an idea I've not seen before, and a great start too. Looking forward to seeing where you take this!

[KingJoltik]

This reminds me of an idea I once had, but instead of Twilight going in due to fear of the test, I was going to have Sunset use the mirror to get rid of Twilight because she was jealous of her.

[Kind of Brony]

Grape colored skin. Purple hair with stripes

Eh, her mane looks more like a navy blue with a purple and pink stripe.

[josue]

8234024
More please

[Csquared08]

“…what?”

Nailed it

[Pinklestia]

Ah yes "What."

[kitsune_shadow]

8234412
Link to história? Please ?