Tapestry: A World Apart

by Star Scraper

Ch.09: Frost and Flight

Rarity gently walked through the halls of Twilight's castle, a gold peytral with Spike's fire ruby around her neck, underneath her black cloak. Thick, blue wool socks kept her hooves from making much noise if she ever stepped on the crystal floor, though she'd managed to stay on the velvet carpet so far.

She checked again with a quick glance – glad she knew so well how to quickly and efficiently wash all the mud off her socks so she left no tracks on the carpet. Though now that I think about it – I should've put that mud under the carpet. I'm sorry about the mess, Twilight! But I've got far more important things I'm after.

Any sane pony would be asleep at this hour, but given this was Twilight's castle, she still hurried along in a trot. The less time she spent doing this, the less time Twilight would have to stop her. Finally she came to the door to Twilight's library, and fought back a little shiver as she remembered her friend's warnings. How she'd even said the princesses warned it'd kill her when she read it – at least in some way.

“You will cause a lot of suffering, but ultimately it will be worth it.” Discord's words echoed in her mind.“You know what you're getting into, Twilight warned you, and don't forget. ...brace yourself because you're going somewhere terrible, worse than you can imagine. The 'you' you are today will die, but only as the penultimate act of your – and Sweetie's – rebirth.” she felt herself stiffen and freeze as she looked at the door ahead.

I'm so sorry, Sweetie Belle. She didn't cry this time when she thought of her. She didn't even feel like it. Instead she felt a wave of determination. She resumed her quick trot, straight forward. I messed up. You didn't deserve this. I'll make it right, I promise.

She yanked the door with both hoof and magic then stopped it suddenly – a slowly moving door had a danger of creaking more loudly. She squeezed in the opening she'd left, to find herself in the enormous, towering library.

I'm so, so sorry to betray your trust, Twilight. You told us to never read it, but told us you'd hide it here in your library... but where? What section would it even be under?

I can't exactly ask the librarian...

Looking around the walls, she began to wonder. In some secret chamber perhaps? But how would I find it? I can't use gem-finding spells on rooms...

But I can see where the walls are in a castle made of crystal!

She charged the spell and cast it, all the walls around her starting to glow faintly to her magic.

Every wall was thick as usual and led to hallways, or other large rooms she already knew of. Having looked all around, she tried looking upstairs – nothing connected to the higher end of the library – then downstairs, perhaps some secret basement...

There was a conspicuous gap under the rug.

She hesitated before pulling the rug away. Okay, if there's any kind of magical snare or alarm or anything I'll have to act quick...

She threw the rug off, and saw the wooden trap door, latched shut with nothing more than a lock.

No, Twilight would do a better job than this! It's got to be some sort of trap!

Well it's my best bet and I've already thrown the rug off, so if it's a trap I've probably already activated it and I don't have time to look around anymore!

She gripped the lock in her magic, carefully scanning through it by feel. Her entire life's practice was extreme precision and dexterity with magic, so she hoped she might just have a chance – she could feel the tiny pins the key was meant to push in. They were much larger than a needle's point or eye. Even so, working all of them at once took all her focus and a long minute of work, before finally, they all clicked.

She took the lock off and continued, opening the trap door, descending down some steep wooden stairs into the tiny room below, and closing it above her, a gentle glow from her horn now being her only source of light.

Again with telekinesis, she moved the rug back over the trap door. If this hasn't set off any alarms, then that should buy me a second or two...

In the tiny space was a small, unlocked box. She bit her lip, knowing full well how suspicious it was, but with the space void of anything else, and the box being the right size, she had nowhere else to go.

She tried pinging it with her gem-finding spell – a sort of magic sonar – but she couldn't detect any other magic on it.

Maybe that's why there's no magic protections here. None that I could sense at any rate... If Twilight cast some powerful spell to protect it then maybe any good wizard dropping by the library would've found it.

She opened the box, and sure enough, inside sat the granite-covered book Twilight had shown them. Inside the front of the book was nothing but a hoof print on the right, and scribbling in a strange language. As she looked over the scribbles, even though she knew for sure she did not know the language, she understood what they were saying to her. They were instructions on how to use the book. She shivered as it dawned on her just how deep the magic was.

Save her – Discord said this was to “save” Sweetie Belle!

It came to her as quickly as she looked over the text – all she had to do was put her hoof on the print. She raised her hoof, desperation tearing through the concrete wall of her fear.

I'm coming, Sweetie!

She heard the door open behind and above her, and she reflexively startled by whipping around to see Twilight standing above her.

"NO!" Twilight's voice cried out as her magic seized Rarity's body. She heard wings flap, and they both huffed as the alicorn crashed down over her, sending them both to the floor and pinning her unicorn friend.

“NO!” Rarity screamed back, throwing Twilight off, and twisting around to face the book again.

She could see it in her mind again – Sweetie Belle was standing on a stool, the noose from her boutique around her neck, some dark and malevolent force ready to kick the stool out from under her.

She reached out to touch the hoofprint that would take her there, and in the same moment her entire body was once again frozen solid in Twilight's magic, and her horn as suppressed as her hooves were locked. She felt tears immediately come down her cheeks as she cried desperately, “No – you're not stopping me, Twilight! I have to – for Sweetie Belle! She'll die if I don't! You have to – ! You – you have to let me go!” she plead to her ignorant betrayer.

She felt Twilight's hold waver.

She had no choice. She cried out as she put her heart and soul into one last thrash against her captor, and felt the magic binds on her horn break, even though her body was still locked in place. Her blast was directed to pulling the book towards her hoof – and it responded all at once as she broke through Twilight's barrier.

“Rari-!” her friend called, cut off as she felt the book meet her hoof, then the world around her vanish. Instead of feeling paper on her hoof, she felt smooth stone and her head spun as the world flipped around her. She crashed onto hard cobblestone ground with as much speed as she'd flung the book into her hoof. Groaning, sitting up and blinking, she found herself somewhere else.

She wasn't sure if the world had gone dark for a moment or if her eyes had shut as she threw the book, but her eyes started to adjust to the darkness of the new world around her as cold air settled over her body. The sky was solid black and featureless. She was deep in a city of tall, worn brick and stone buildings bathed in the incandescent light of streetlamps along narrow cobblestone roads. The ponies were sparse and dressed in tattered, old, stained and mostly colorless clothes barely fit for the cold.

She could see breath fogging. Eartips and muzzles were red, nipped by the frosty air.

And they had all stopped to stare and gawk at her as she took a quick moment to check her peytral. The fire ruby was still in-tact – it was undamaged from her sudden fall.

She looked up to see the gawking ponies. She blinked twice, trying to make sense of the sudden new surroundings. “Oh, uh – isn't anypony going to help me up? Where am I? Is this – is this Manehatten?” Her hood closed off the peripheries of her view as she tried to look around, so she pulled it back.

Their eyes went wide, one turned and ran while others shuffled and reared back.

“A! - A horn?” the mare closest to her stammered.

“It can't be! Not here!” the running pony cried, as another hesitant pony who'd only reared back now turned and ran as well.

She huffed. “Yes it's a horn! Never seen one? And what a way to greet a lady! Not even going to help me up!? Hmph!” As she stood up and brushed herself off, the rest of the ponies on the street broke into panicked cries and galloped away.

She remembered the book was meant to have something terrible, so she took no chances. Jumping on her hooves to join them in a gallop, she snapped her head around to look behind her – only to find nothing but a building's brick wall and a few windows.

Rarity looked forward again to a straggling pony falling behind the small stampeding herd. He glanced back at her. His face was pale, his eyes met hers with a wild terror like he stared down his own death. He cried out and doubled his pace.

She glanced behind herself again, double-checking, finally sure there was no terrible monster behind her before coming to a stop. “Me! Are you all actually running from me!? What on Earth is the meaning of this!?”

As if in response, as the panicked ponies came to an intersection and split off different ways, she could hear them yelling down the narrow streets, “a unicorn! There's a unicorn here in the dome!”

She paused to glance at her reflection in a nearby storefront. It was still her usual self. Inside, a clerkpony dashed under his counter.

She sighed. Is everypony in this world going to be afraid of me? Surely I can clear things up with somepony and figure out where in – or beyond, I guess – where beyond Equestria I am. She walked over and pulled the door open, a little bell chiming as she walked inside. “Why is everypony afraid of me? I have all these bits to spend on, uh – ” she glanced around the store to find it full of hammers and tools “ – hardware?”

After waiting a moment and getting no response, she tried again, “I'm just a poor dame looking for somepony to be my hero and rescuer, lost in this strange land... if only somepony could help me...”

After another moment of silence, she sighed. “I saw you duck under the counter. Look, I don't know why everypony's acting like this or where I am, so if you could please at least explain to me why ponies are running for dear life and you're hiding under the counter from me?”

Still nothing, but by now she could hear terrified breathing from behind the counter. Her horn lit as she reached to pull him out from under the counter with her magic – but the moment she touched him from across the room he cried out, “Please, no! Not magic! NOT MAGIC! Just – just kill me with one of the saws or –”

“Good heavens!” Her magic stopped, “Kill you? I'm not here to hurt anypony! Why would you even think that? I'm just here to, uhm... to see if there's anything I can do to help. I'm both a talented fashion designer and seamstress. I see ponies here don't know a thing about proper clothing!” When she finished talking, she listened, but again, still heard no response.

She trotted back to an open end of the counter, then poked her head behind to find him still cowering in the corner. He cried out and hunkered down even more.

“You're not going to even tell me why you think I'm some sort of monster?” she asked.

He just kept cowering. She sighed again, then made her way to the door. Well if ponies are this terrified of me just for being a unicorn... Maybe I just need to find somepony to be my spokesmare. Surely somehow I can get them to listen.

She began to feel uneasy. But If they immediately assume I'm going to kill them and run, what about braver ponies?...

As she pushed the glass door open and stepped back onto the street, her worst fear was immediately proven. She saw a pair of ponies far off to her right in uniforms. They stopped in place and pointed what she recognized as muskets at her. They looked different, but she didn't take the time to find out if they worked differently.

She immediately jumped back inside as a loud bang confirmed to her exactly what they were. One of the windows to her left shattered in place and bits of cobblestone shrapnel peppered the glass as the air was rent by a pair of snaps.

Her eyes were now as wide as the other ponies' were, her mind frozen, and then kicking in overdrive as she scanned the room – she couldn't bring herself to grab a saw or axe to fight back, but there was a back door. She sprinted for it, quickly running through stockrooms and into an alleyway that led off to different streets.

She had no idea where she could go – only that it had to be far from ponies. Because of my horn! She threw her cloak's hood back down and sprinted out the alleyway.

The streets were empty, windows were shuttered, and a distant bell tower rang out madly. She looked around, trying to find some bearing that could tell her where this was – but there wasn't any buildings she recognized, none from Manehatten, Vanhoover or Baltimare, certainly it wasn't Las Pegasus or any city she knew. The extensive use of stone and narrow, small streets made her think of Trottingham, but even Trottingham chic used wood occasionally, but so far, even the rare window shutters were painted metal, at best.

She couldn't figure out where she was, but one thing was clear; she needed to be somewhere else – somewhere outside the city.

As she ran to another intersection – she saw another group of uniformed ponies take aim at her down one of the streets. They were much further than she'd ever seen any of the Canterlot sporting elite shoot clay discs from, but she didn't care to see how good their aim or weapons were.

Their shapes were strange and needle-like to her.

In the middle of her last leaping stride before turning the corner, a barrage of loud bangs shook the air with snaps like the crack of a whip, and she felt a punch to her right forehoof, knocking it to the side so she landed wrong, sending her rolling in a sprawling crash.

She quickly sprang back onto her hooves, no thought of the injury but an adrenaline-numbed pang as she took to a gallop again. Her hooves carried her at a pace as terrifying as the murderous, terrified city. My hood was hiding my horn! Why did they still shoot!? Why are they trying to hurt me!? What is this place!? This whole world just hates me for no reason?! Is everything here just to kill me!? Why ponies!? The book would try to kill me but why with ponies and not some monsters!? Why are they doing this!? Tears welled in her eyes as she ran.

From her sheer terror came a will to overpower exhaustion, urging her to sprint ever faster. The cold air scratched her throat with every rapid breath. Every corner and turn her eyes would wildly scan every alley, street, corner or roof, making sure no more ponies were waiting to shoot at her.

Every so often, far above a rooftop she saw a uniformed pegasus with binoculars pop up, then fly back down again – but they were always unarmed.

She turned down small, winding, descending roads, across random alleyways – all the while ponies on the street would gawk and shriek at the sight of her, and she would frantically check to make sure none of them wore uniforms or carried weapons.

But she didn't stop. She didn't even say a word – their shrieks told her everything she needed to hear. Her racing, terrified instincts carried her onward and wouldn't stop until she was far outside this nightmarish city.

I saw my reflection! I'm not some monster! I'm just – I'm still me! I'm still just some'ol unicorn – I'm Rarity, not a monster! Stop hunting me!

Her hooves looked the same, her nose looked the same – she felt the same, but cold, terrified, and bleeding.

But they shot at me even with my hood down! Her mind raced for ways to get them to stop shooting.

She didn't know any illusion spells – only light cantrips for her fashion shows – but she did know how to lie. Rounding a corner, she crossed under a huge archway with an open chainlink fence gate under it, into a huge opening rimmed by warehouses. An entire line of uniformed pegasi with rifles stood ready in the opening, but behind the buildings behind them there was no more skyline. Escape! She could hear an officer yelling into a radio on a parked metal wagon behind them, “you-mass, now! So tell governor - CONTACT!”

She screamed, “Save me good sirs! The unicorn's right behind me! It's right behind me!”

“Halt!” one of the pegasi bellowed.

Of course she wouldn't. All they had to do was pull her hood back and they'd shoot her on the spot, so she couldn't stop. But the soldiers hesitated for a brief moment, their weapons pointed like a dozen enormous needles ready to tear holes through her.

“FIRE!” the officer screamed back.

She realized all she had to do was point them away. Most unicorns couldn't have dreamed of such precise magic grip on so many objects from so far away, but she'd done extravagant acts of magic dexterity greater than this – her horn glowed along with the muzzle of every rifle as she tilted them down.

In a panic, at the same moment her horn let off a dizzying flash of bright light dancing in complex patterns, finding it even more blinding than she could've hoped for in the darkness of the nighttime city.

They fired as blinded ponies squeezed triggers, but all she felt was a shower of stinging flecks of stone, a whack on her horn and a pinch in her ear like a new piercing as bullets struck just yards from her in every direction.

She ran past the soldiers, only to hear another bang, then furious shouting as dazed soldiers tried to shoot her, but she'd left the opening and turned into a small street surrounded by warehouses before their vision returned.

They STILL shot at me! Why!? HOW!? Her chest started to heave as exhaustion overcame her gallop, despair clawing at her heart as the cold air scratched her lungs. Her desperate attempts were failing. Her strength was running out. Her lungs screamed for more air than she could deliver, making her cheeks, ears and hooves start to go numb from hypoxia and cold.

Rounding another corner, she stopped in a dead end, briefly seeing stars float around her vision as she panted madly.

The street ended in a concrete wall. To her right was a locked warehouse, and to her left, a great steel door with an iron cross bar laid in front of it, but unlocked. She turned back and lifted the bar across the steel door, opened it and ran inside to an alleyway behind another warehouse. The huge concrete wall continued on her right, and dead ahead was a mess of enormous pipes. She could hear the unearthly rumbling of machinery in the building next to her, and feel air was warmer here. She started to sweat under her cloak.

Glancing up, she saw the tall concrete wall to her right ended just a dozen yards above her in a solid void of inky blackness, and it was why the sky was solid black. She looked ahead and realized the black wall leaned over the mess of pipes she ran into, and many of the pipes reached up into it. At first she wasn't sure if she was thankful pegasi couldn't fly over where she was going, or terrified of whatever darkness loomed over her, but when she noticed the entire group of pegasi soldiers in the sky, her mind was made.

She heard a volley of snaps, cracks, and bangs as rounds peppered the concrete ground around her, sending more flecks stinging into her hide. She sprinted faster into the cluster of pipes, thankful for the shelter, and that the pegasi were so far away.

The tiny path quickly turned to a clausterphobic maze of enormous, hissing rusted metal pipes, brick walls and old steel doors. She picked one of the many branching paths and ran down it. She could hear sprinting bootsteps rush in after her. She considered trying to hide in the mess of pipes, but realized even with the pipes' hissing, her breath was wildly out of control and too loud. Tears welled in her eyes as her imminent death and failure jabbed her hoof with every step. She started to see stars again as her exhaustion started to overtake her.

I came to die! I came to die and nothing more! Why did I listen to Discord! Why did I come!? Why does that creepy old book hate me so much? Did it just bring me here to die!? I won't help Sweetie Belle, I'll just die here alone, every pony hating me for being – !

She turned around another corner. It continued forward like a long hall to an old metal door with a great padlock on it at the end and on the right. The mess of pipes formed a roof overhead. She glanced back - then noticed a shadow of a pony rushing after her. Cornered!

She made a mad dash down the hall and immediately set to work, her magic carefully scanning the small lock for the little pins she'd have to push back. She glanced up from her work as she heard a sprinting pony throw themselves against a wall – right at the corner she'd come from. She looked down the barrel of a rifle and at the tip of a bayonet. As quickly as she saw it, the barrel-tip was in her magic, again being aimed away in the same moment he pulled the trigger.

The bullet made a crack as it shattered off flecks of the concrete floor, and the ricochet made a terrifying ping as it made a small dent in the pipes overhead before landing at her hooves.

She quickly went back to work – she'd felt the pins, so she quickly felt them again and pushed them in, rotating the shaft and unlocking the padlock. As she slid metal against metal, she heard more mechanical noises. She looked up again to see him pull a lever back on the gun, and a small brass piece fling out. She tore the lock away at the same time he slid the lever forward again, pushing it down and to the side.

Then she flung the door open into the alleyway towards her, letting in a flood of thick, noxious, icy cold black smoke at the same moment he pulled the rifle up to his shoulder to take aim at her.

She had no idea what mechanical contraption his weapon was that could load itself again, but it was obvious that was what it'd done – and that he intended to quickly unload it again on her. She hid behind the metal door and the soldier held his fire.

The door to cold, smoky hell was straight out of a nightmare – a strange city where everypony tried to kill her, a labyrinth of brick walls and metal pipes and doors, and a door holding back a torrent of black smoke – fear began to overwhelm her. It smelled thick of industry and the sharp tang of machines and oil. She couldn't imagine what kind of monsterous grinder of machinery she'd be jumping into if she went inside.

The putrid smoke began flooding the alleyway and her lungs, making her cough violently. She steadied herself by leaning her back against the door she'd just opened.

“It'll be much quicker this way. Come on. Step out and it'll be over in an instant!” he taunted.

She began shaking, fresh tears started flowing down her eyes – whether from the smoke or the nightmare she was living, she couldn't tell.

She fought her coughing long enough to squeeze out some words, “I – I just –” She jerked as she felt a loud bang smack her back through the metal door she was leaning against. She shook even harder and felt her back with a hoof. She pulled her hoof back – only now seeing her injury from earlier for the first time; a horrifically torn hoof and a bleeding foot, but above that, it was dry. No blood from her back – just her foot. The door had stopped the bullet.

The soldier cursed and cried for backup. Then he let out a charging yell as she heard bootsteps storm towards her.

In a single moment, her mind ran like lightning, stretching the three seconds into a short eternity. She knew she was cornered – no matter what she did, she would die. So she wondered, why not simply die to this soldier's bayonet, now – a single clean stab in her heart, instead a horrid nightmare of jumping into machinery?

She then realized – she had no idea what was through the door. It was truly the pinnacle of the nightmare, but she didn't actually know for certain it would kill her. In the two seconds she had before he reached her and stabbed her, she wondered if she'd rather face its unknown, or the soldier who just tried to shoot a hole through her chest. But is it any better? It burns. It burns!

She could see in her mind’s eye yet again – beyond the black smoke, Sweetie Belle was tied up and on the stool, a noose around her neck, and she was the only pony that could save her.

So she jumped into the unknown smoke. It burned her eyes like any campfire's smoke, but far thicker and with the acrid tang of industry and acid in her mouth. She clenched her eyes shut to protect them, but couldn't keep from fighting for breath. It tore at her lungs as she panted and galloped, but not through them like a bullet would. So she ran with the hope of finding something else beyond it.

Every rapid, panting breath stabbed to her chest. She could only barely tell there was ice under her hooves, and the air was biting and numbingly cold. The pain of the cold was lost in the agony of every breath ripping apart her chest until her body begged her to stop breathing – yet her driven lust for breath wouldn't relent, forcing agonized pant after pant of the tarry death as she galloped blind in the burning, cold and black abyss.

She choked on her own breath, her tingling hooves didn't land right, the world spun around her again as she collapsed onto the hard, cold ice. The burning of her mouth, nose, eyes and lungs gently numbed as she felt the fire ruby bring a flicker of warmth to her chest, soothing some of the pain.

Maybe... Maybe I'll just wake up in Equestria.

But nightmares never hurt this much.

She couldn't feel the ice under her any more. Just a vague coldness, and one more thought. I'm so sorry, Sweetie Belle. I did this, and now Mom and Dad will lose both their daughters.

Comments

[Lexiebommel10]

Finnaly we see the other side
Im really liking this story but some placements of sceans seem a lottle odd not bad just odd is this thing gona be hellas long if so you better not have bit off more then you can chew cus i love this so far and if you abbandon it ill be coming 4 u

[Star Scraper]

9254203
Well, I've been working on it for like six years and the initial draft, at least, for the entire first book is already finished, so...

It's still a struggle to keep up, though, because there's a lot to do with the draft and I'm at college... Getting this next chapter out on time is going to be particularly challenging.