The Twilit Tower

by Fresh Coat

Interlude: The Magician — Chapter I

The first gleaming, orange streaks of morning were just peaking through the gaps in the mountains, and I pressed my head back against the seat as the train trundled on, relaxing in the orange glare of the slowly rising sun. It had been dark this morning, when I’d boarded, but tired as I was… getting to see such a beautiful view made it all worth it.

“Ticket, Miss?”

“Oh.” I jerked upright, grabbing my phone off the table and swiping through the train app. “Here you go—” I offered her the QR code, glancing up at the ticket inspector briefly; a shiny brass tag on her deep red uniform vest glinted in the light: S. Paid

“ —Miss Paid?” I offered lamely. For her part, the ticket inspector just scanned my phone, nodded once, and tapped something on her tablet.

“All checked in, Miss Shimmer. Have a nice trip.”

“You too.” Oh god. “Uh, I-I mean…”

“I get that a lot,” the ticket inspector said with a smile, already moving on to the next car. The train car door slid quickly shut behind her.

“I need to develop a coffee habit,” I muttered, slumping back in my seat. Maybe then I wouldn’t say dumb things in the morning. My phone vibrated in my hand, and I looked down at the screen in surprise.

Applejack (05:30 AM): Have a safe trip, Sunset!
Rainbow Dash (05:34 AM): AJ what are you doing up so early?
Applejack (05:35 AM): I work on a farm ya ninny
Rainbow Dash (05:35 AM): oi I’m not a ninny
Applejack (05:36 AM): and what are YOU doing up?
Rainbow Dash (05:37 AM): I’m doing my 5-9
Applejack (05:37 AM): your WHAT? You don’t have a job, and isn’t it 9 to 5?
Rainbow Dash (05:39 AM): omg I’m at the g y m AJ, miles don’t just run themselves

I snorted, typing quickly.

Sunset Shimmer (05:40 AM): Thanks, AJ. But girls, stop blowing up the chat. If you wake up Rarity you’ll find out what happens to people who disrupt her beauty sleep. 😂
Rainbow Dash (05:41 AM): Sunset you really need to stop using periods they make you sound mad
Sunset Shimmer (05:41 AM): What? But I’m not.
Rarity (05:42 AM): I am.
Rainbow Dash (05:42 AM): whoops gotta run
Rainbow Dash (05:42 AM): literally
Rainbow Dash (05:42 AM): 🏃‍♀️⚡
Rarity (05:43 AM): Get back in here, Rainbow Dash!!!

I huffed a short laugh, and then sighed. Twilight had shown Rarity how to turn on Do Not Disturb at least twice, but Rarity was always too worried she’d miss a surprise Instagram sale to use it. Those are the perils of always being available, I guess. You could lead a horse to water, something something...

I leaned my head against the headrest once again in favor of watching the sunrise. It was coming up in earnest now, the morning clouds glowing a bright pink that put Pinkie’s hair to shame. The orange intensity of the sun was mesmerizing, and I had to remind myself not to stare straight at it, beautiful as it was. I had always felt a little odd watching sunsets and calling them beautiful, it felt weirdly self-aggrandizing?

Sunrises were fair game, though.

I let the measured rocking of the train lull me into a stupor, and I slowly blinked my way through the sunrise, watching until the sun had freed itself completely from the horizon. The neon oranges and pinks faded to the more sedate golds and blue-y purples of morning, and with a faceful of sun, I finally felt a little more awake, a little more alive.

Maybe if I wash my face… I pondered, but I was already standing and stretching. The water would probably help. According to the ticket, the refreshment service wouldn’t start making the rounds until after eight o’clock, and that was a long time to wait for coffee. I glanced around the empty car, made sure my bag was still stowed securely, and then meandered down to the bathroom at the other end of the car.

“Come on,” I muttered, jiggling the little hook handle. The lock said Vacant, but the sliding door wouldn't budge. “Let… me… in!” I grunted.

As if to say “if you insist”, the door slid open, like it hadn’t just been rusted shut.

“Jeez!” I exclaimed, stumbling into the little cabin and wrestling the door shut again. “Really make me work for it, why don’t you…”

It was tiny and cramped and unsettlingly green, but it seemed mostly clean, if oddly out of place from the rest of the train's modern interior. Bathroom renovations must cost a lot even for trains, I thought, grimacing at my reflection in the age-spotted mirror. The yellow light flickered overhead in what had to be the most unflattering manner possible, and I sighed, looking away from my face in favor of turning on the tap.

The water was freezing, of course, and I hissed as I cupped my hands under the icy stream and splashed it on my face once, twice, three times.

By the fourth, I felt pretty awake, and by the fifth, I could hear the buzzing electric clinks of the faulty overhead light, so I knew I was awake. I tugged a few paper towels free from the dispenser to dry my face, vowing to never tell Rarity that I had committed such an atrocity.

With my skin sins committed, I balled up the paper towel into a wad and tossed it in the bin. My cheeks felt raw, but maybe I’d be able to do something other than stare brainlessly out the window at the scenery. I grabbed the sliding door’s cubby handle, already considering my options. I could read my book, write a letter, or maybe just scroll through—

The door slid open as smoothly and silently as a curtain.

I blinked.

“What the…?” I didn’t think I’d managed to elbow grease it into submission, I wasn’t AJ or anything. I frowned down at the track, and then at the floor.

Had it… always been carpeted?

I blinked again, but the carpet was still there, neutral and musty, and not the hard plaster I had just walked across. I could already feel the consternation wrinkle forming between my brows as I stepped through the doorway and back into the train proper.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, a strange spinning sensation gripped my gut, like I had just been dropped from a great height, and I staggered forward, clutching the wall. It was cold, clinical steel under my fingers, somehow even colder than the water had been, and definitely not the sleek plastic paneling from before. Something twisted uncomfortably in my chest and I looked up, down the length of the car.

Everything had changed.

The car stretched on, an impossibly long, impossibly dark patchwork of a hallway lined with… strange shapes on either side. They looked like they were supposed to be seats, maybe, or the idea of seats, or maybe just chairs with sheets thrown over them, if the sheets were made of darkness.

I stepped carefully forward, examining the nearest shadowy mass. The beige carpet beneath my feet deadened my footsteps, and the glaring fluorescent lighting overhead did nothing to chase away the shadows. I squinted in the gloom, trying to resolve how it could be both so dark and so light at the same time.

And then the train lurched.

I staggered forward for the second time in as many minutes, instinctively reaching out my hand for one of the dark lumps to catch myself before I fell.

Like I had grabbed a person, insight flashed through my mind’s eye like a movie.

A tiny filly’s hooves, walking ceaselessly up a rocky edifice towards a tower in the distance, one hoof after the other, never getting any closer, finally collapsing and sobbing with exhaustion—

A dusty attic, filled with boxes and regrets and a large dollhouse, everything covered in a layer of grime, a layer of sorrow, a layer of pity and longing and spite—

The aseptic tang of disinfectant under bright lights, in a dated waiting room, in a dark hospital room, in an empty church sanctuary, all underlined by the sound of a heart monitor, the ticking of a clock, the sand of an hourglass swiftly running out—

An unsettling living room, everything perfectly centered and perfectly wrong, with a single tiny, glowing television screen lighting it, its static buzz filling the void, as if the void could ever be filled—

A field of wheat, impossibly still under an unendingly grey sky, with a forlorn little house squatting in the middle of the bleached scene, impossibly clean, impossibly tidy, impossibly echoing with the sound of laughter, or was itsobbing? It’s so hard to tell, why is it so hard to tell—

I wrenched my hand back with an almighty gasp and fell to the floor, panting for air.

Thump-thump-thump.

My heart thundered in my ears as I scooted away from the shadowy mass I had touched, and I could feel the geode around my neck, too warm against my skin, hot enough to burn.

“No, no, no, no, no, not today, not today…” I staggered back to my feet, heart still hammering, and I ran.

With each step, the train car stretched and lengthened, almost chidingly, almost as if to oblige my ceaseless chase. I whipped my head to one side, then the other, but even the windows were useless; they flashed between starry void, absolute darkness, gloomy mist, buzzing grey static, before finally settling on creamy beige, a shade or three lighter than the carpet. Silhouettes moved past, all ponies, all acting out different scenes. My head spun trying to make sense of them, my stomach roiled nauseously, and the train lurched forward beneath my feet again, as if the ground itself was alive.

As if it could feel me watching, and didn’t want me to look too closely.

I wildly swung my head back forward, and I could see it, I could see my seat, there, at the end of the car! I just had to reach it, I just had to reach it.

And then?

The thought whispered through my mind, unbidden, unhelpful.

The floor stretched, faster now, like it wanted to push me backwards, push me away, and I didn’t dare look behind me, even as thoughts of a cavernous darkness, a monstrous maw lined with too many teeth flooded my brain. Everything in my body screamed at me to run, ever hair standing on end, my jaw clenched to stop my teeth chattering. I forced my legs to move faster, to sprint, but it was like moving through molasses, like moving in slow motion, worse than standing still.

But I was almost there, only a few more feet, a few more—

And then?

“Shut up!” I cried.

The train shuddered, and stopped stretching, like it had actually listened. I sprinted the last few inches, really sprinted—and pulled up short.

There was a small, child-shaped shadowy mass huddled on my seat, crying softly.

I opened my mouth, licked my lips, but it was dry, and I couldn’t wet them.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!

My heart picked up, impossibly faster despite the fact that I was no longer running.

And I could feel it. I could feel the lump’s sadness, her sadness.

I reached out my hand towards her. “Are you…” I rasped, tried to clear my throat.

The lump stilled, her sniffles abruptly cutting off.

“Are you okay?”

She was quiet. And then she turned her void face up at me, her sightless eyes.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t scream.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

I blinked.

Like a dream, the scene dissolved between one heartbeat and the next, and I was back on the train, on my train, the one I was supposed to be on, the one I had bought a ticket for and boarded while waving goodbye to my dads, and I was standing right next to my seat row. I turned, and the ticket inspector was behind me, S. Paid, her brass nameplate so bright and warm and refreshingly real.

I let out a great, shuddering gust of air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“Y-yes, yes. I’m alright.” I shakily stepped to the side, and gingerly sat down on my seat, where the shadowy little girl definitely hadn’t been a moment ago.

A hallucination? Or maybe sleepwalking?

“Are you sure?” the ticket inspector asked, frowning down at me with concern. Her dark blue hair complimented the red of her vest, and her white skin was clear and bright and made sense. “Are you feeling sick? Do you need a bag, or the bathroom?”

My stomach jolted as she said ‘bathroom’, but I forced the sudden spike of fear down, and instead I sighed, a shaky thing, and then reassuringly smiled up at her, or at least attempted to.

“Yes, I’m alright ma’am.” More doubtful staring. “Really. I think I’m just… tired.” That had to be it.

“If you say so,” she answered dubiously. A beat of silence. “I’ll make sure the coffee cart comes by you first.”

“...Thanks. I appreciate that.”

The inspector walked briskly down the car and into the next, her unmuffled steps purposeful and loud and oddly relieving.

Before silence could take over, a new sound filled it: buzzing.

My seat was vibrating.

I yanked my phone out of my pocket, but it was silent. The time, 6:14 AM, stared back at me for three seconds before the screen went dark, and still the vibration continued. Another hallucination?

“The journal!” My mouth realized before I did, and then I was scrambling for my bag. I tugged it onto the seat next to me and yanked my journal out. It was vibrating, which wasn’t altogether weird on a normal day with a normal message from Princess Twilight, but the symbol on the front, the one in the shape of my Equestrian cutie mark…

It was glowing a deep, forbidding red.

My geode responded in kind, warming under my sweater as it had earlier, as it had what felt both like moments and hours before, and my heart, just starting to calm, picked its earlier pace back up right where it left off.

Thump-thump-thump.

Heart beating in my throat, I pulled my journal onto my lap and carefully opened it to the most recent page.

There, in Princess Twilight’s familiar script, was a simple message.

Sunset Shimmer, I need your help.

Comments

[Seaquestria2121]

Was starting to worry that part 2 wasn’t coming. Strong start to the new arc, seems really promising.

[Oreng Pingvin]

I wonder which one of Twilight writes?