Mount Nightmare

by computerneek

Escape

Much time has passed. She doesn’t know how much- and has lost count of the number of rest periods she’s had. She hasn’t been able to sleep, and has had no food or water, yet she can still walk around this cave. Rather fortunately, she thinks, the weakness spell is beginning to wear off.

She’d thought she’d seen some motion outside her cave some time ago, but the Nightmare’s barrier had held her captive.

And now, back by her dirt patch, a hole has formed in the wall- a minor collapse. She’s not sure what caused it; it happened while she was having a staring contest with the opposing wall of the canyon. And winning.

She pokes and prods at the tiny little hole. The rock chips away at her touch, wafer thin around the edges. A larger stone dislodges from the edge, rolling down to the ground next to her, opening the hole further. She pokes and prods harder, with all her energy- not that she has much- and shortly has a hole in the wall.

She looks at it, analyzing what information her mapping spell is offering her, aside from its incessant danger alert. It has, of course, recorded what she can see of the tunnel. It seems to be just large enough for her to crawl up, with a slope just shallow enough she can climb it. It’s round, and smooth, like it had been constructed somehow. She does realize she can actually see trees out the other end- it’s an exit.

Her opening is smaller, still. It’s just large enough she should be able to squeeze through… So she gives it a try.

Two hours later, she emerges from the tunnel unhindered, onto the forest floor. A quick glance around shows her the first new information on the forest in a long time… but she can’t see anything familiar.

Good thing her spell doesn’t care if she recognizes any landmarks; she still knows exactly where she is. She’s just over a hill from the path she’d taken to get here in the first place. She turns to start towards that hill.

Then freezes, looking behind that tree. There’s a small hole in the ground here- no more than a couple feet deep… but the bottom is made of metal, gleaming dimly in the moonlight. She spots some fallen trees around the edges- all fallen into the woods, rather than into the hole. A couple of them don’t even have corresponding stumps, as if they’d been moved after they fell. All of them look fresh.

She turns away, moving faster towards that hill. She pushes herself right up to her limit- which, unfortunately, does not include trotting. Once she gets out of range for the antimagic curse, however, she should be able to at least protect herself.

She gets back to the path she’d been walking before. The bridge is still out, completely missing from its post. The fog hasn’t returned, so the Castle of the Two Sisters is clearly visible… and inaccessible. Mindful of the strange crater she’d seen, she quickly proceeds to retrace her prior path through the woods.

The serpent- Steven Magnet, if she recalls correctly- is not present, but neither are the rapids- and the river is shallow enough she can just walk across.

The trees have no scary faces.

No manticore attacks.

No rocks fall.

The end of the forest, some hundred and twenty-one miles down her path, seems to come with startling speed. She didn’t stop to rest or eat even once; with no magic, she hadn’t been willing to chance it. She had taken a drink from that river, though- that in and of itself had been a long-absent luxury.

Now, she finally walks out of the forest. She’s frankly amazed at how uneventful the journey had been.

As she does, she finally feels the antimagic curse go out of range, and collapse. Her map spell’s alarm goes blessedly silent at the same moment.

She very nearly cries out for joy before she sets out for Ponyville. There’s a dragon she needs to check up on… if he’s still here- or even still alive, for that matter.

Author's Note:

Yes, it's a shortie... But hey, I finally got over my writer's block!

And if anyone notices that my style has changed, that's because it has. Four and a half months will do a lot for a new writer... And as for how Twilight's mood changed etc, I'm chalking it up to the time that passed while she was trapped in the cave.