Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 04 Vacuum

Vacuum

Twilight was resting back in her room, it wasn't even 3PM yet and she felt done. The best that could be said about today was "maybe nothing had gone irreversibly wrong, if we're lucky." Twilight unfortunately had to tell Naudia about how things could go irreversibly wrong on an incomprehensible scale.

For the moment she was building up to the revelation, resting her head on Naudia's barrel and trying to figure out how to broach the subject. With each breath, each dip of Naudia's chest Twilight relaxed a bit, and with each inhale she was brought back to reality.

"Whenever you're ready Twilight." Naudia said.

Twilight started up from Naudia's barrel trying to figure out how she knew before Naudia tapped her horn.

"Empath remember."

Twilight took in a deep breath and decided now was as good a time as any: "Naudia do you remember when we had that altercation with Starlight?"

"Yes, am I finally going to hear about what actually happened in there?"

Twilight looked for a way to stall a bit, to delay admitting what happened had even happened to another living soul. She found none.

"Every alternate timeline was empty."

Naudia couldn't quite process this.

"So like barren as the badlands?"

"No. Empty, a total black vacuum, the only thing we could find was the Chattler Anomaly, no Equestria, no Sun, no Moon."

"Remind me again what the Chattler Anomaly is?" Naudia looked as troubled as Twilight felt.

"Infrared stars, it's the reason Luna has to bring out stars at night because for some reason all the stars except ours emit in infrared."

"So… just nothing."

"More than that, nothing in all directions for incomprehensible distances, no ground below us, no sky above, no sun, no moon, a black void."

"And you're certain that the spell didn't… mess up somehow?"

"We checked, we double checked, we quintuple checked. We even stole some expensive equipment from Canterlot's astronomy department to check with that as well. In every one of those alternate timelines Equestria is gone."

"So what have you been researching in the last year?" Naudia almost dreaded to ask.

"Why."

"Have you found out anything?"

"Nothing concrete, we've got a couple hypotheses. And they all revolve around me not finding the elements of harmony or failing against one of the threats to Equestria."

Naudia could only sit and stare at Twilight for a moment.

"Are we in any danger right now?"

"No idea, we don't even know why all this is connected to the elements of harmony. That's why I haven't told you beforehand, I don't even know how much we should be worried. There isn't a way to figure out the break in the timeline with nothing to go on."

Once again Naudia could only stare, open mouthed.

"The worst part about it all is that everybody we've defeated in the last couple years since the elements have been active couldn't have done anything like that, so we're completely out of ideas." Twilight sighed. "And we don't want to show up midway through whatever happens, there would be no way to survive."

"I think this is going to take a while to sink in, I can't tell if it makes this morning look like small potatoes or the most important event in the history of Equestria." Naudia said.

"I already feel ready for bed, how about a nap? I feel like I could really use somebody to hold me." Which sounded like a flirt if you didn't actually see and hear it coming from Twilight's mouth at that moment.

"Why don't we hold each other Twilight, I'm more than a little tired and this hasn't settled in yet, I think I'm going to need that whenever it does."

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Naudia woke up in a warm embrace, like a bath, blearily she opened her eyes and groped for Twilight, but Twilight wasn't there. But it was still warm and she sunk into the warm feeling that wrapped around her.

Idly she pushed a hoof through the warm liquid around her, she must have fallen asleep in the bath, the liquid was strangely viscous and it stuck to her hoof in the most pleasant clean feeling manner. It was strange to say the least.

Gradually Naudia opened her eyes and realized she was still in bed and lying in a puddle of a familiar purple color. A very relaxing purple color.

Assuming she was dreaming Naudia scooped up some of the purple in a hoof and dripped it back onto the bed. It wasn't slimy at all and left behind no residue even though it was sticky. It didn't even seem to soak into Twilight's pillow as it rolled down the side in perfect little gel droplets.

Gradually her senses came back to her and something about the familiar shade of purple clicked, half asleep it was easy for the idea to take hold.

Naudia shrieked and then was sent flying like a rug was zipped out from under her, flipped off the bed and landed on the floor the room spinning around her.

"What?!" Twilight shouted from up on the bed blearily, charging magic without even thinking, head shifting left and right frantically looking for some kind of threat. Nobody noticed at the time but her hair stood up on end and she was actually taller than normal.

There was a long couple minutes of confusion before either of them could calm down. Naudia repeatedly shrieking about corrupted ponies. Twilight literally had to shake her out of it.

Naudia sniffed and wiped tears out of her eyes.

"I thought… *hic* I thought you'd became a corrupted pony," Tears rolling down Naudia's face. "I thought… I might have to…" Naudia couldn't finish the sentence, the thought was to terrible to think about.

Twilight pulled Naudia into a hug, she didn't quite understand but she couldn't bear to see Naudia like this, she could understand after Naudia calmed down from whatever dream she had.

Slowly, gradually Naudia's tears came to a stop but she was still shaking so Twilight began to stroke her hair. It was very relaxing.

That's all that happened for long minutes after Naudia stopped shaking, neither said anything, basking in each other's presence on the floor among the cast off bedding. Relaxing, breathing slowed, leaning into one another.

Then Naudia felt something touch her flank.

It dripped and slid down her flank.

She opened her eyes to the most bizarre sight she could recall.

Twilight was literally melting into her hooves, just as Naudia was watching Twilight's foreleg plopped into her hindleg like a semi-solid gel.

"Twilight," Naudia said, panic creeping back into her voice. "You're melting."

Sensing something wrong Twilight opened up one droopy eye and looked down on her gel form. Almost instantly the eye shot fully open, her other eye shot fully open, her foreleg flipped up and connected itself back up to her shoulder and the melting un-melted back as if somebody had reversed the film. All of that happened so quickly that Naudia could feel the wind from how fast Twilight's foreleg re-attached itself. Just like that Twilight was back to her normal self as if she hadn't been melting into a puddle earlier and hadn't melted back into a puddle last night.

Naudia's mind was working furiously, trying to think of other alternatives than her greatest fear, desperately searching for anything that could push herself from falling into the black despairing thoughts she woke up to. Then her mind latched onto an idea that was so obvious that she couldn't help but laugh.

"Don't laugh, this is serious!" Twilight said peeved that Naudia wasn't taking this seriously.

"I figured it out Twilight, I know what's going on and it's so obvious." Naudia said with a chuckle half amused, half manic.

"You've turned into a slime!"

"Of course not, slimes don't…" Twilight started to scoff.

"Think about it, it all lines up," Naudia giggled, "being able to re-attach parts of yourself, the building block look of your cells, growing your hair back the way you can," Naudia gave Twilight a sultry look, "Melting in my hooves."

The atmosphere lasted all of a second before Naudia burst out laughing again.

"At least take this slightly seriously." Twilight said nonplussed.

"I'm sorry Twilight, it's just such a relief." Naudia confessed, "When I woke up in a puddle of purple goop this morning I thought the worst had happened, the only changelings that can turn into puddles of goop are corrupted changelings. But this, this makes so much more sense."

"Well then how would I have turned into a slime then?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but it fits so well, clearly you can toughen yourself up like we found out yesterday, but now it appears you can melt yourself down." Naudia said. "Maybe you can learn to control whatever 'muscle' lets you do that."

Naudia paused for thought for a moment before saying the magic words that she knew Twilight couldn't ignore:

"Think of it like an experiment."