The Castle

by Discombobulated Soul

They Bring Me Here

I peek my fuzzy head up over the windowsill, just barely able to reach by standing on my hind hooves. Looking out into the front yard, I can see a quartet of Royal Guards approaching the front door.

They're big, and scary, and mean, and they're going to take me away.

Away from my books.

Away from my friends.

"Pinkie, What am I gonna do?" My pink earth pony friend stares sorrowfully aT me from across the room, speaking in an uncharacteristically-somber voice.

"Nothing, Twilight. They're taking you to The Castle."

I tilt my tiny head at the fellow filly, who trots over, her pink mane deflated and straight as can be.

"What's the castle?" Pinkie taps a hoof against the window, looking quite a bit more natural standing on her hind legs than I do, despite us being roughly the same size. Well, I'm actually quite a bit skinnier, now tHat I think about it. Maybe I really should eat more sweEts. Or food in general. Maybe I could beg for some more? Maybe She'll be in a good mood?

"The Castle is where ponies go and don't come back. They meet Celestia there. She makes sure they don't return."

I tilt my head curiously, watching with the pink filly as the guards outside hastily knoCk on the door.

"Who's Celestia?" Pinkie drops back down to the dirty, cracked tile, sighing heAvily as her eyes stare emptily into my soul.

"Evil, Twilight. Pure, concentrated evil. She's so bad that her badness soaks through The Castle, and evil is all that's there."

"Good luck, Twilight."

And Suddenly she's trotting away from me, and I find myself getting pulled rather roughly away by the guards who barged into the room. I raise a hoof forlornly in Pinkie's direction, but no sound escapes my lips, and she doesn'T so much as turn to face me.

I only catch the faintest flicker of a tear hitting the ground as my friend fades away.

The Royal Guards are scary, and they really are starting to scare me. They're leading me through the building with the leash they attached around my neck. They grin with malicious intent, and I'm almost sure that they have fangs as well.

Other foals watch me from the shadows, stilL as stone. I cry out to them a few times, but I'm always jerked back with a tug on the collar before I can get any response.

Suddenly, I'm lifted and thrown into a carriage. I rub my nose in moderate pain at the rough treatment. Luckily, though, I'm no stranger to pain and physical discomfort, so I acclimate rather quickly.

The closed carriagE starts moving, and I catch sight of its only other occupant, who's staring out through its single barred window.

"Rainbow Dash!" I yell with intense glee, and my friend shifts her head to look at me with a neutral expression.

"Oh. Hi, Twi. I guess."

Excitedly, I leap forward to steal a hug, but the cyan filly pushes me back to the floor. I pop back up immediately after, though, because luckily I'm used to such rough treatment.

Especially from her.

"Dash, are you coming to the castle, too? We can team up! Take it on together!" But the pegasus foal snorts, her nostrils flaring as she leers at me with moderate disdain.

"It's called The Castle, Twi. And no, I'm not heading...there."

I tilt my head again, my entHusiasm not quenched in the slightest. Still, I manage to quell my curiosity, which is good because Dashie doesn't like it when I ask questions. She sighs, her high-pitched voice still as raspy as evEr, sounding nothing like my own.

"Listen, Twi. You're gonna need all the help you can get, because you don't have a lot of common sense."

She points her hoof out the window, letting me catch my first gLance at the fabled building. It's...not as terrifying as I expected, to be honest. Kind of regular, but still pretty pretty.

"When you get in there, you need to watch your insufferable butt, because you won't have us to do it for you."

I jolt at this, staring up at Rainbow with wide, scared eyes. She nods, looking greatly satisfied.

All too soon, she's gone.

And the carriage lands, coming to a Peaceful rest.

M

E

Comments

[MysticMane]

Noticed all the strange words and they spell out “THE CASTLE, HELP ME”

[ABSOL_ute]

This is weird.

But in a way that i want to read more. Into the tracking list, then.