Living after midnight
Twilight was having difficulty maintaining her composure.
The last sight of Anon had been him with head down and shoulders slumped, surrounded by guards and being marched off. Then the door had closed behind him. Twilight had kept on staring though, still not fully grasping what had just happened.
When she turned, she found Luna and Celestia both leaning in to one another, discussing at pace, but not loud enough that she could hear anything above a back-and-forth murmur. Twilight suddenly felt very left out and very alone in the world, and couldn’t quite shake that she’d somehow brought it on herself.
And on Anon, too, who must be feeling much worse right at that moment she realised with a lurch.
And they were just sat there talking! And she was standing there like a sinking pudding!
“What was that?!” Twilight blurted out, not really giving it as much thought as she probably should have done. The princesses stopped conferring and looked up at her, which was a harrowing experience.
“A pony has been injured, Twilight,” Celestia said, but Twilight was unmoved. Well, she didn’t like it, but she didn’t think this mattered because, obviously, Anon couldn’t have done it.
“But he wouldn’t do anything like that!” She protested, loudly.
“We agree,” Celestia said, Luna nodding as well.
“Then why - ” Twilight said, but couldn’t think of the right words to finish it with. Something along the lines of ‘Then why did you lock Anon up’ would have worked, but she didn’t really have much desire to say them.
Not that she needed to. The Princesses were ahead of her on this.
“While not as familiar with Anon as you, Twilight, we are aware that violent behaviour would be entirely unlike him. Which is why - assuming it was him at all, which remains to be confirmed - this development is alarming. Certainly, it puts his present circumstances in something of a new light. Whatever it is that is happening to him may be more severe than initially feared,” Celestia said.
“But-” Twilight said, again faltering when she failed to come up with anything else to say. Facing down both of them at once was a lot more intimidating than she remembered.
Anon was right - they really were big.
“Plainly he is already in a state of distress. If nothing else he would benefit from some time to collect himself, while the details of the incident are properly ordered,” Luna said.
How could they sound so calm about this? Twilight felt like she was three steps away from just turning into a collapsing heap of matchsticks. Why specifically matchsticks? She didn’t know. She just felt it.
“Furthermore, given the dramatic and worrying turn events have taken, it would seem to be wise to exercise rather more caution going forward. Particularly with something as delicate as reading a mind. As useful as it might be in clearing up the truth of the matter, it also presents a dire risk. Or might.”
“We should tread lightly,” Luna said, by way of summing up.
The rationale - once explained - made sense, Twilight was forced to admit. Or enough sense that she could see their point. There were a lot of unknowns going around, and now also something rather worrying in the sense of sudden, inexplicable violence, so caution was in everyone’s interests, even Anon’s.
She still felt terrible about it though. Like what had happened to him was somehow her fault. That she should have looked out for him more, done more and done it sooner. But she couldn’t do a lot to shake that. It was just there, in her head, making her feel bad
“Am I allowed to see him?” She asked, the question coming out a lot more forlorn than she might have meant it to sound.
“You are. Though I would allow him a little while to be settled, first,” Celestia said.
Twilight wasn’t sure how much settling could possibly be required but wasn’t going to question this. She’d give him a bit. He’d probably need some quiet time alone anyway.
Or would he need a friend immediately? Twilight didn’t know.
What would she want were she in his situation, she thought. Sleep-deprived, confused, probably hungover, now possibly responsible for injuring somepony else and put into ‘secure accommodation’. She’d want a friend, she decided. As soon as possible. So that was that.
“This is a vexing issue,” Luna said, snapping Twilight out of her thoughts and back to the moment. Luna, though, had been talking to Celestia who nodded and said:
“It is. Unusual and troubling. Something we shall endeavour to see resolved as quickly as possible.”
This was not a definite and clear timeline, this was a statement of vague intent. Twilight’s nerves continued to not be soothed in the slightest.
“Uh, heh, how quickly is quickly?” She asked.
“As quickly as approaching it with all due care and attention allows it to be,” Celestia said.
Again, not really a concrete answer.
“Ah, heh, well, how-”
“Twilight,” Celestia said, not sharply, but with enough regal force behind the word to entirely derail anything that Twilight might have been about to say. That sort of thing took practise. “I understand that you are concerned for Anon’s welfare - we are both aware of how close you two are - but you are going to have to trust us in the way we handle this situation.”
“Everything will be well resolved. Be at ease,” Luna said.
Twilight was very much not at ease but also saw that pursuing the issue further would be pointless at best and actively unwise at worst. She bit her tongue and just nodded, doing her best to smile as though she felt that everything was comfortably in-hoof.
-
In the end Twilight gave it a solid twenty minutes before going off to visit Anon in his secure accomodation.
Technically it wasn’t the dungeon. The dungeon was for prisoners. Anon had simply been put into one of the reinforced rooms they had for special guests. The rooms where the doors locked from the outside, to keep the specialness where the guards could keep an eye on it.
“I haven’t had the best day, Twilight,” he said once she’d been allowed in and the door locked behind her. He did not look great. Sat on the end of the bed in the corner of the room, his head hanging down, he’d looked the most dejected it was probably possible for him to look. Twilight had hopped up beside him, getting in close, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.
“You’ll be okay. I promise,” she said warmly, putting a hoof onto his shoulder, going for comforting. Anon was still just staring down at his hands.
“I hurt someone.”
“You don’t know that.”
Anon looked at her sideways.
“Twilight, this seems pretty cut and dry. Not many other bipeds around.”
They weren’t unheard of, naturally, but they were certainly pretty thin on the ground, at least in Canterlot, at least right then. No-one else was said to be on the hook, even if it had only been twenty or so minutes. The guard wasn’t looking for anyone else, Twilight was led to understand.
So she went with:
“You wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Kind of seems like I did, though.”
“It’s not like you.”
Anon sighed.
“Normally maybe, maybe. But I was, well, I wasn’t doing so great. Several reasons. And I’ve been known to do things I regret at times like that. And that’s when I’m not...avoiding sleep…” He shifted, eyes flicked up to Twilight for a moment. “I’m worried. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Twilight found she couldn’t say anything to this, so instead just worked her way in under his arm to give him a hug, putting a leg about his waist and nuzzling against his chest. It did not make her feel good, seeing him like this.
Without raising his head he gave her a scratch behind the ear. He didn’t really think about it, he just did it. He didn’t even notice. Twilight did but decided not to comment.
“And I’m still just so tired...mare of a headache, too,” he said. That last part confused Twilight a little.
“Mare?”
“Sorry, it’s a - thing. Sorry. I’m so tired,” said Anon.
He finally noticed that he’d just been absent-mindedly messing around with his friend’s head and stopped immediately, putting his hands back where they’d been before. His mood had evidently not improved. Twilight did her best to stay chipper.
“Maybe you could try and get some sleep?” She suggested and Anon visibly flinched.
“Oh no, no no no, not again. Last time I tried - I don’t know. I’m not even that tired anyway. No, I’ll be okay. Just have to hold on, right? The big ones have got something in the bag, right? Just got to hold on for that. I can do that,” he said, hoisting himself up and starting to pace around the room, leaving Twilight sitting on the bed watching him. She bit her lip.
“They didn’t - they haven’t really committed to a deadline or anything like that,” she said.
Anon kept on pacing.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It could be a while.”
“It’s fine. I can wait.”
“It could be days, Anon-”
He rounded, and Twilight got a very good view of just how bloodshot his eyes were.
“Look, Twilight, with the best will in the world can you just - you - I mean - last time I got a proper sleep was because I was so pissed I apparently roughed someone up in an alley. And that was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks! No nightmares! That’s the only way that’s worked! And it wasn’t even that good and was only for a few hours. Was something though. But I’m not doing that again, not here, not ever. Not if that could happen again.”
Reaching back behind him until his hand found the chair he’d stopped by he turned it around and sat down heavily. This being a chair for ponies it was a lot lower to the ground than he’d been expecting and he landed with a bump and winced, but carried on anyway:
“And if I just try and sleep normally it’ll - it’ll happen again I know it will. And I’m not seeing that thing again. I think it sees me, too. I just - it’ll be fine! It’ll be fine! They’ll sort something out. I don’t mind. It’s fine!”
Twilight felt that Anon was perhaps reaching a few shaky conclusions here but imagined that pointing out some of the holes in his reasoning would not cheer him up. Clearly he’d made his mind up, and his mind did not seem to be in the best of conditions at the moment. Understandable, really.
“Do you want me to stay with you? I can stay with you for a bit, if you want,” she asked, slipping from the bed and padding over to him. He took a second to respond, having apparently drifted into some mental tangent.
“No, no it’s fine. Don’t feel the need to hang around just on my account. I’ll be okay,” he said. He did add: “You - you won’t, like, leave to go back home without me though, right?”
“Of course not.”
He’d looked genuinely worried at the possibility.
“Okay, good. Cool, thank you. I wouldn’t want to be left here,” he said, somewhat forlornly. Twilight put a hoof onto his knee.
“I wouldn’t leave you.”
He put a hand onto her hoof, gave her a smile even if there wasn’t a whole lot behind it.
“Thanks, Twilight. Sorry. I’m really sorry about all this.”
The conversation fizzled somewhat from there, with Anon too subdued and despondent to really add much and all of the important matters having been settled anyway. Twilight had not learnt a whole lot from the visit, and eventually guards brought a meal for him which seemed as good a time for her to bow out as any.
Promising to come back at some point she left, wandering off, deep in thought.
At length her wanderings led her to a random corridor of the castle - there were a lot of them to choose from - where sat on a bench that had been placed there for an indeterminate purpose, knowing that staying still would aid the thinking process.
Her thoughts had been running along towards what she could do right then to help prove that the whole situation was not what it looked like. Working backwards from conclusions wasn’t the best way of doing things, she knew, but the whole thing just seemed so wrong to her, and the idea of sitting on her hooves and letting others sort of it out was abhorrent.
Really, would - could - the princesses object if she helped speed things along a little bit? Twilight was aware that she’d been told to trust their judgement, but what about that stopped her from assisting? Wouldn’t their judgement benefit from a helping hoof? That was co-operation, after all, which was basically friendship after a fashion. It could only be good of her to help.
Her logic was undeniable.
With this in mind she stood, determined, immediately heading off out of the castle.
Time to do a little sorting out of her own.
-
It wasn’t difficult working out where the injured pony had gone, neither was it difficult for Twilight to get there.
Getting in herself to see them, though? Little trickier.
A guard was posted outside the room, which took Twilight a little bit by surprise. Certainly this was a wrench in the works, but nothing she could not overcome. Probably. Hopefully. She could work something out she was sure.
Lurking out of sight of the guard, Twilight took a few minutes to gird herself and think of the best possible excuses. Once she was confident she would be able to handle things she stood up straighter, put on a brave, official-looking face, rounded the corner and went strolling on up as if this was perfectly fine what was happening.
“Hello!” She said, brightly. “I’m here to talk to the patient. You know, followup on the incident and all that.”
The guard looked her up and down.
“The Princesses’ orders were no visitors, Miss Sparkle,” he said.
Could kind of seen that coming. Why else put a guard there? Twilight remained breezy, waving a hoof, smiling wide.
“Oh, they were but then they changed. The orders changed, I mean. Didn’t you hear?” She asked.
The guard shuffled.
“No. I did not.”
“Ah, well, that’s unfortunate. They did though. They wanted me to come see the, ah, patient.”
“Did they?”
“Yes! Followup questions, you see. Like I said. Part of the investigation.”
The guard gave her a very steady look. It was impossible to tell, but inside his head he was weighing up which of the options before him presented the greatest risk to his career.
Insult Celestia by denying a known, favoured student access, thereby implying that said student was dishonest, thereby impugning Celestia by association? Or go against explicit orders by allowing a visitor, even a notable one who is saying that it is okay she be allowed in? Blindly follow existing orders or trust somepony known to have the ear of the princess?
Decisions, decisions. The soldierly answer was obvious - stare ahead and refuse entry. The astute answer less clear. Ultimately, it was all way over his head. Conclusion: he was screwed no matter what he did, and he just wanted to go home.
The guard sighed, and stepped to the side.
“I’m going to regret this,” he said.
“No, no it’s fine, honest. It’s totally fine. You’ll be fine,” Twilight assured him, inching her way into the room. The guard sighed again and screwed his eyes shut briefly, hoping that by the time he opened them she would be gone and he pretend it just hadn’t happened.
“Just go inside,” he said. Twilight did so.
The guard had not been having the best day, all things considered. This episode was just the cherry on top.
Ideally he would have preferred palace duty, where you were mainly expected to stand around looking intimidating without actually doing anything except on the rare occasions when something big and nasty showed up whereupon you folded like a card table. That was proper guard work. That was something he could have sink his teeth into.
But nooo, he’d have to get lumbered with something that involved him having to be vaguely active. Actually having to take an interest in what was going on around him and who was coming to see the pony he was expected to guard. He could have been daydreaming but no, he had to pay attention!
What had he ever done to deserve this?
Meanwhile, inside the room, Twilight found a pony tucked up in bed looking a little bit worse for wear. They were also asleep, or at least dozing. Twilight approached cautiously, heart in her throat. The damage was not as severe as she might have feared but it still wasn’t great. There were bandages and, as she got closer, obvious bruising.
Seeing somepony hurt was never a fun experience and Twilight felt her breath hitch. This small noise was apparently all the pony needed to jerk awake and they groaned, rolling over and blinking drowsily, then clapping eyes onto Twilight.
Surprisingly, they didn’t seem to mind her being there.
“Oh! Hello! I wasn’t expecting visitors. Are you a doctor?” They asked.
Twilight wondered how she looked like a doctor.
“No, sorry. I’m from the palace. I just wanted to talk to you,” she said, finishing crossing the room and clambering onto the chair that had been placed beside the bed.
“Ah, say no more! Talk away,” they said happily enough, grunting quietly and shifting around in bed to sit up better. For somepony who’d supposedly been attacked they were very chipper.
Twilight waited until they’d sat up properly before asking her question.
“How did you get...that?” She asked, pointing to the pony’s face. The pony seemed momentarily confused.
“This?” They asked, only then remembering that they had a whacking great bruise. “Oh, I ran into a wall,” they said.
Not the answer Twilight had been expecting. She blinked.
“A wall?”
The pony nodded, casual, this whole thing plainly a massive fuss over nothing.
“Yes. I panicked a little when I went in and saw, well, something…”
On this they seemed a touch flummoxed, raising a hoof to rub their head and wincing when they brushed the bruising, pulling the hoof away again. They looked to have drifted a little, and Twilight pressed to get them back on topic.
“Saw what?” She asked.
“You know, I don’t rightly know. Certainly not what I expected. I’d just seen that tall chap going into an alley - you know, the chap on two legs? Not from around here? - anyway, I saw him wandering off the street and he looked in a bad way so I thought I’d just go along and see if he was alright, you know.”
So far, so good Samaritan. Twilight listened and the pony continued:
“By the time I’d got there he’d fallen over, poor sod, and from the sound of things he’d fallen asleep to boot. I heard snoring, you see? Moved in to wake up him because an alley is hardly the place to be sleeping but then something, ah, well, there was something else.”
They winced again, the memory either unpleasant or patchy and difficult to dredge up.
“Something was...there...wasn’t there before but then it was. I thought I saw...mist?” They said, only to shake their head. “No, no, not mist. Moved like it though. It was a colour? I don’t know.”
They frowned.
“Really can’t say. Didn’t like it though, not one bit. Probably why I panicked, heh.”
“Panicked?”
“Well, wouldn’t you? One moment I’m expecting to be rousing a tired and emotional fellow only to be confronted with all this...stuff...that kind of just made my eyes...ache? Couldn’t look at it. And it was just there! Flowing all around the poor sod!
“What was it?”
“No idea. Not my wheelhouse! I haul bricks for a living and write saucy poetry on the weekends! Far above my paygrade,” the pony said, jovially. Twilight wasn’t letting this go, though.
“But what was it like? Please, it’ll help,” she said, and the pleading edge to her voice got a response.
“Hmm, alright, if you say it’ll help. Let me think…”
They tapped a hoof to their chin.
“You ever had one of those moments where you have a blindspot right in the middle of what you’re trying to look at? Just a big splotch of fuzzy nothing that you can only see around? It was rather like that, actually, now that I think about it. But it was moving, and wasn’t in my eye but in front of me. Something actually there. That’s the best way I can sum it up. Does that help?”
It didn’t, not really, but it was still something. Twilight gave the injured pony a thankful smile.
“It does, thank you. You should probably get some more rest now.”
“That’s what they keep telling me! I’m quite alright though, really don’t get what all the hubbub is about. Ah, how is the big chap, by the way? If you know?”
“He’s...fine…” Twilight said, thinking about how best to sum up Anon’s circumstances at that moment. Amazingly, the injured pony entirely failed to pick up on the strained pause or Twilight’s consternated look, and took her words at face value.
“Glad to hear it! He looked to be in a bad way, what glimpse of him I got. Give him my best regards! Ah, assuming you see him, of course.”
“I will,” Twilight said, leaving them to their own devices and heading back on out the room. The guard gave her a grunt on her way out and then stepped back in front of the door again, but Twilight wasn’t really watching him or, indeed, anything around her at that point. She was thinking.
Wandering again without really paying a whole lot of attention to where she was going, Twilight chewed over what she’d learnt.
Bit light on details as it had been, it really did paint the whole thing in a completely different light. Certainly, things had not gone the way she’d feared they had, what with a drunken Anon just lashing out - as painful as that might have been to picture, she could well imagine it happening. Very glad it hadn’t, very confused about what apparently had.
Whatever it was it sounded like magic. No idea what kind, but clearly some kind. Right?
Had the injured pony been interviewed already? Did anyone else know what Twilight did now, that they hadn’t been attacked but that something else entirely had happened? Would it be a good idea to bring this to the princesses, or would her meddling do more harm than good? They were likely waiting on the same information themselves, delivered through rather more official channels. Could it wait though? Twilight was rent asunder with uncertainty.
For her though there was one overriding point that kept bobbing to the surface, and that was that, at the very least, Anon had not actually done anything wrong himself. Apparently. He had been present, yes, but something else had happened, and something that sounded suspiciously close to magic and so that something was obviously nothing he could have done with intent.
Famously, Anon was not magic. Humans had no affinity for it, he said, and certainly he’d never demonstrated any, and the tests he’d very patiently sat through for Twilight had confirmed this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Yet, that alley...
Something was clearly, obviously, really wrong.
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I wasn't tracking this! Such egregious oversight! And such good fortune that I happened by and saw the update in the feed.
9694868
For shaaaammmmmeeee
9694870
Not to worry, this error has been corrected with all due alacrity, everything is right with the world once more.
That was clearly a description of Void magic, or something of the void. You can't perceive what does not exist, even when it's standing right in front of you.
It's the second time I see this analogy in your fanfiction. For some reason it gets funnier every time
9697348
Totally not a line from Dirk Gentley's Hollistic Detective agency.
He said, tugging nervously on his collar and glancing to the door...
9697355
Fate brought that line to your keyboard.
Darker, yet Darker.
The Color out of space? https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/lovecraft/images/2/2a/Colour_Out_of_Space_%28Ludvik_Skopalik%29.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/720/height/900?cb=20190803180224
I'm hooked