The sound of chirping filled the ears of the purple alicorn, forcing her into wakefulness. The air around her was cold, and the ground underneath her was like ice. Still half asleep, she rolled around and searched with her hooves for her blanket. She found none, and didn't feel her soft bed underneath her. Instead, she seemed to be laying on cold, hard tile.
Hoofsteps neared. The mare didn't notice, she just rolled herself into a nearby wall and hugged up against it in an attempt to go back to sleep. The wall smelled of old parchments and ink. The alicorn, relaxing in the familiar scent, sighed sleepily and started to breath softly and slowly in sleep.
"Asleep on the floor again?" a pegasus mare rolled her eyes. "At least I fell asleep on a cloud." As the pegasus walked closer, her cyan color shown brightly and her multi-colored hair stood out. "Wake up! Come on, you'll kill me for letting you sleep this long..." she poked the alicorn in the side with her hoof.
"...ive mow inutes...." the alicorn mumbled, barely audible.
"Twilight, wake up!" the pegasus poked her again, harder. When that didn't work, she sighed. "I have to get out the big guns."
The pegasus spread her wings. She flew up near the ceiling. They were in a large, library like place, but there were more than just books. There were shelves that towered above and were filled with various scrolls, spellbooks, and do-dads. A few windows allowed the sun to shine in, making the miles of dust on everything visible. The cyan mare flew to the nearest shelf and picked up the first do-dad she could reach; a pair of large, circular 'dork' glasses.
"Oh, Twilight, look at this!" she called down in a purposefully loud voice. "An old relic that could be full of magic potential!" She then held the glasses out on one hoof and let them slowly slip away. "Oops." she said innocently. The glasses plummeted towards the unforgiving tile far below. They were sure to shatter if they hit it. They seemed to fall in slow motion, the sun reflecting off the lenses as they slowly flipped about, falling, falling, falling...
Suddenly, they were surrounded in glittering, magenta magic. "RAINBOW!" Twilight Sparkle stood below, now wide awake, glaring angrily up at the pegasus. "How could you? This could be a valuable magical or historical artifact and you just drop it?! Do you-"
"I know, Twi." Rainbow landed next to her friend, a smirk on her face. "I knew you would wake up if I dropped it."
The alicorn gritted her teeth. "Still, this is the Canterlot Archives! You can't just destroy everything in here!" suddenly, the anger faded from her face as she realized what she had said. "Wait, the Canterlot Archives?'
"Yeah, you fell asleep." Rainbow told her. "The others went home, but I decided to stay with you 'cause you would probably want to do more research."
Twilight thought for a second, then nodded. "Oh, thank you. I would like to research a bit more. But why did you stay behind?"
"Fluttershy had her animals to take care of, Aj has a farm, Pinkie has a job, and Rarity has a job and a sister. I'm on vacation from my work for so I'm the only one who could stay." Rainbow explained. Yesterday, the six friends had come to the Canterlot Archives in search of a few ancient spells. They had been there all night, so when Twilight fell asleep Rainbow had told the others to leave.
"Alright then, thanks for staying." Twilight got to work immediately, trotting over to a shelf she hadn't searched yesterday and started looking around in it. She unraveled scrolls and read through the runes, read the old spellbooks, and set aside the enchanted objects for further investigation. There was a pile of enchanted objects on the cloud Rainbow Dash had brought in, gathered there so they would be out of harm's way. The glasses were laid on top as the pegasus took them from Twilight's telekinesis.
How can she already be reading? She just woke up! It takes me an hour to be awake enough to speak properly let alone read this gibberish. Rainbow thought. She gazed out the window, able to see the streets of Canterlot outside. She saw a sign on a building with a mug of coffee on it. she licked her lips at the thought of the caffeine. "Hey, Twi, how about I go get us some coffee?" she asked, turning back to the unicorn.
"Sure." Twilight stopped her search for a second, looking around the room. She saw her's and Rainbow's saddlebags off in a corner. They had both brought a few things as they had expected to be there a long time. The alicorn levitated her saddlebags over and took out a bag of bits, tossing them up to Rainbow. The pegasus nodded, grabbed her own bag of bits, and flew out the window.
Twilight went back to searching. She had already created a new stack of ancient books, and when she turned she accidentally knocked them over with her wings. She cursed and picked them up again. I'm not used to these things. she thought. She used to be a unicorn, but her mentor, Princess Celestia, had given her wings and made her a princess about a month earlier. Twilight had considered moving into the castle, but she couldn't bear to leave her friends, so she stayed in Ponyville and only came to Canterlot for royal duties she couldn't do at home.
But yesterday, when searching through all the old books she had in the basement of the library she lived in, she found a few pages missing from some old volumes. Knowing that they were copies of books in the Canterlot Archives and that important spells were on those pages, she asked her friends to come with her to Canterlot to find them. Evidently, all except Rainbow Dash had left last night after she had fallen asleep among the books and scrolls.
After stacking the books again and seeing that none were what she was looking for, Twilight re-shelved them and went on searching. "This is gonna take awhile." she said aloud to herself. She glanced out the window Rainbow had left through. "Maybe I should just tell Rainbow to go home. I shouldn't keep her here..."
*ssssssstt*
"Gaah!" Twilight leaped back, spreading her wings and knocking more stacks of scrolls and books off the shelves. "What was that?" The sound, that seemed to be coming from the glasses upon the cloud, sounded almost like a fizzing. A bit like somepony opening an energy drink or the world's most shaken soda. The sound was gone quickly, and silence once again descended all around the young princess.
"Is... is somepony there?" Twilight crept closer to the cloud. No answer, not even a shuffle. "Hello?" she flapped her wings gently and landed on the cloud, gazing at the glasses. The morning sunlight reflected off of them, and she thought they seemed to glow with midnight blue power. Was she imagining it?
Afraid her own magic would disturb its power, Twilight picked the pair of glasses up with her hooves. She carefully placed them upon her face and...
A purple earth pony appeared before her.
"Waaah!" Twilight fell backwards off of the cloud, smacking her head against the hard flooring of the Canterlot Archives and falling unconscious.
Rainbow Dash picked up the two coffees, balancing them on her back in between her wings. "That'll be six bits." the gruff stallion at the counter of Starbits grunted, holding out his hoof. Dash grabbed her money bag and took six bits out of it, not touching Twilight's. The stallion took the bits and nodded for Dash to leave.
Rainbow nodded and left, careful to take both cups in her forehooves without dropping them and flying out of the shop. Twi's not going to be happy if she finds out I paid for her drink. She probably counted her bits again to make sure I didn't. Still, she shrugged and flapped her wings quickly. She wasn't far from the window, where she could just see...
Twilight Sparkle, laying sprawled on the floor with one wing bent unnaturally.
"Oh no!" Rainbow swooped through the window, set the coffee cups on the floor by the wall, and landed next to her friend all in the same second. She looked over the alicorn, and only could come to two conclusions; the bump on the back of her head bent that she had hit her head (probably on the floor), and she wouldn't wake up.
The cyan pegasus, although reluctant to leave the unconscious pony behind, raced out the window again to find help. She could be really hurt, and Dash was no doctor.
"Did she see me?" the earth pony leaned over the edge of the cloud she was sitting upon. Below, she could see the unconscious alicorn. "Is that what scared her?"
She sighed and rested her chin on her hoof. Her darker purple mane fell about her shoulders, and her tail curled around her frame. The cloud didn't react to the pony on it, not even a few puffs sinking in under her weight. It was almost like she wasn't there.
She stared down at Princess Twilight Sparkle, having nothing else to do. She watched as Rainbow Dash, a pony she had seen around Ponyville a lot, swooped in and then back out. "Is that...?" the earth pony suddenly smelled something, seconds after the pegasus had left. It smelled... like something she missed. She looked around, and saw what the source was. Two cups of coffee from Starbits.
She stood and hopped off of the cloud, gently floating to the floor. Neither cloud nor floor showed any signs of her moving on them, and no sound was heard. She trotted over to the cups and gazed at them, magenta eyes wide. The wonderful Styrofoam cups with the great liquid inside. "I wish..." the pony sighed. "I wish I could drink it."
She sat next to the cups, enjoying the scent of what she could not have. Suddenly,
*ssssssssstt*
There was the sound again. The sound that haunted her entire being. She clamped her hooves over her ears, standing up on her hind legs. "Stop it!" she shouted at nothing.
When she stood, her tail moved away from her flank, revealing her cutie mark. It was a bunch of grapes and a strawberry.
"Oooooooww!" Twilight groaned, eyes flicking open. There was a pain in her head and one wing felt twisted. Remembering instantly why she was laying on the floor of the Canterlot Archives again, she reached up a hoof and felt her face. The glasses must have fallen off. she thought. She sat up quickly and looked around, expecting to see the glasses sitting somewhere nearby, possibly shattered.
The only thing she saw, however, was the same purple earth pony. She was sitting under the window, staring at two cups of coffee and holding her head in her hooves. "Y-you're still here?" Twilight stood, leaping back and spreading her wings in case this pony was violent. However, her right wing was stabbed with pain and she realized it was bent. "Oooww." she groaned, attempting to stretch it out.
"Are you alright?" the purple pony asked, standing and stepping towards the alicorn. "You did seem to hit the floor hard."
"...Who...?" The moment the pony spoke, Twilight realized she was familiar. Had she seen this pony somewhere before? Then the pony turned and she could clearly see her cutie mark. She recognized the pony she had seen around Ponyville so much but had rarely talked to. "Aren't... you Berry Punch?"
The earth pony nodded, looking a little surprised. "So you do know me. I never thought you noticed me, you do mostly keep yourself to your friends." Berry trotted to her side and looked at her injured wing. "Looks sprained. You should see a doctor."
Twilight no longer cared about her wing. She tucked it at her side and continued to gaze curiously at Berry Punch. "What are you doing here? And... were you sitting on a cloud before?"
"I've been stuck here for two weeks." Berry told her. "And yes... I don't really make any sense anymore." To show her what she meant, Berry leaped into the air. She floated around for a bit, gliding about. when she passed Twilight, she didn't feel the resulting wind at all. Finally, she landed on the cloud.
"But... how... h-how did you do that?" Twilight trotted over so she was right in front of the cloud and looked up at the strange pony. "Earth ponies can't fly or sit on clouds..."
"No, they can't." Berry sighed and looked down at the floor. "I don't know why I can. I haven't been the same ever since that one day, with my friends..."
Raindrops giggled and hiccuped, passing the bottle of alcohol to Berry. "So we're at *hic* two bottles, now?"
"Lightweight." Berry said, though she looked much more tipsy than her friend. "It's not like you drank mucha it. Colgate *hic* and I dranked most of it."
"Um... we should get home." Colgate suggested, sounding more sober than the pegasus and earth pony by her sides. There were loud protests from Berry and Raindrops.
"Naaaaaw, Cooly!" Berry waved her hooves, almost spilling the alcohol she was holding. "We promised we would be here all *hic* night!"
Raindrops waved one hoof around, indicating the area in which they sat. They were right under the window, sitting in a large room of the Canterlot Archives. "Nopony's gonna be here *hic* until morning, buddy! You gonna *hic* waste this oopur- oopurtu- chance?"
"Berry has a kid and you have a roommate, Raindrops. We can't spend all our trip to Canterlot in some dusty old archives drinking." Colgate told the yellow pegasus seriously.
"Derpy can take care of *hic* herself!" Raindrops said, nudging the blue unicorn. "She's a full *hic* grown mare!"
"I shouldn't go home to Pinchy drunk." Berry said, suddenly looking sad. "She h-hates it."
"Well then, we'll get you two sobered and get you back home." Colgate took the bottle in her magic and trotted away. "I'm going to be back with some water. Stay. Where. you. Are."
Raindrops and Berry Punch waited until they were sure Colgate was gone, then the pegasus pulled out another bottle she had been hiding."Gimmie, I wanna try somethin'." Berry grabbed the bottle from her friend's hooves and pulled out another bottle of unknown liquid, probably more alcohol. She pulled the top off of both bottles and poured them both together, mixing them up.
"Cool." Raindrops grinned stupidly. "T-that's gotta be strong *hic* stuff."
"The strongest." Berry finished shaking up the mixture. when she took her hoof from it, it fizzed with a loud 'sssssstt'. Without a second thought, she downed the entire thing.
"... and that's all I can remember." Berry Punch's eyes were swimming with tears, but when they fell from her face they simply disappeared. "I heard some screaming, and when I woke up everyone was gone and I couldn't leave this room."
"I...I don't..." Twilight was so confused. Berry was out drinking one night and was somehow cursed the next? What was going on? The only thing she could think of was that Berry had died and become a ghost, like a horror movie Rainbow had made her watch a week ago... no, ghosts weren't real. She was sure Berry was trapped by some sort of magic, possibly in the drink she made. Maybe even some dark magic was in one of the bottles she mixed. She was silent for a moment, before looking back to Berry. "Don't worry, Berry, I'll find a way to get you out of this."
"If there is a way." Berry added. "But either way... thank you. I just want to see my little one again and make sure she's alright and happy."
Twilight was about to respond, when she was suddenly knocked over by a powerful force. "Twi, you're okay!" The alicorn, groaning with pain, looked to see who had knocked her to the ground. It was Rainbow Dash, and at her side was two pegasus nurses. "You looked really hurt so I went to get some help." the cyan mare explained, motioning to the nurses.
A light pink nurse landed next to Twilight. "My name is Joy Heart, I'm a royal nurse. My friend and I are to take you to the royal doctor."
"I-I... Rainbow, I'm not that hurt!" Twilight protested. However, her wince when the two nurses lifted her onto their backs proved different. "but, do-"
Before Twilight could ask anything about Berry Punch, she was flown out the window, which seemed to be the new doorway as of late. Berry Punch just watched them go, then sighed and laid her head on her hooves again, tears falling from her face and vanishing before they hit the cloud.
Twilight sat in a bedroom in Canterlot Castle. Her wing was bandaged up and she was told not to use it for the next few days. She was a unicorn for most of her life, it's not like she needed wings. However, she still was told to remain inside or near the castle until it was healed.
Great. she thought, and if she had said it out loud it would have been a mutter. I can't get those pages in the Canterlot Archives, I can't go home, and I haven't had the chance to talk with anypony about Berry Punch! She rolled over and looked out the beautiful window. The sun shone in, lighting up the room brightly. It would have been Twilight's official bedroom if she had decided to live in Canterlot. The rug had a large, six-pointed magenta star on it with smaller white stars dancing around it. The walls were painted purple and pink, though it was hard to tell because of all the empty bookshelves covering it. They would have no doubt been filled with books if Twilight spent more time here.
Twilight looked over at the door. It was ajar and every once in awhile she would see a guard pass by, covered in armor. She rarely saw anypony else, but when it wasn't a normal guard it was one of the bat pegasi that worked for Luna. Nopony else was really allowed up this far, unless accompanied by a guard.
And that's when she saw a yellow mare trot by, looking gloomy. "Hello?" Twilight called. She used her magic to open the door and got up from her bed. A trespasser was at least somepony to talk to, and if she read books it would just fuel her desire to find those missing pages.
The yellow mare looked back at Twilight. She was a bright yellow unicorn with messy blue hair with lighter blue streaks. Her cutie mark was three blue diamonds, and her eyes shone as bright as jewels. When she saw Twilight looking at her, she looked behind her, as if searching to see who the princess was addressing.
"Miss, do you have permission to be up here?" Twilight asked, trotting out the door and into the hallway. "The fifth floor is off-limits for un-escorted civilians."
The yellow unicorn continued to look around the abandoned hallway. When she saw nopony except herself and Twilight, she gave the alicorn a curious look before turning and trotting away. "Hey, wait!" Twilight chased after her, blocking her way. "I'm afraid you'll have to go downstairs and tell-"
"Stop talking to yourself, Princess." the yellow unicorn told her calmly. She continued on her way down the deserted corridor.
Twilight, confused by this statement, walked by her side. "What do you mean, talking to myself?" she asked.
"It's not like I'm real." the yellow mare told her. "If I was, other ponies would notice me. I've been wondering this castle for seventy years, and I find it unlikely that you're the only one with good eyesight here." She looked Twilight in the face. "But... you seem to have built-in glasses. I didn't see those the last eighty-one times I've seen you."
"Seventy? Eighty-one? Built-in glasses?" Twilight was so confused she imagined her eyes crossing. "What are you talking about?"
"My name's Lemony Gem." the unicorn said. She looked like she was going to stick out her leg for a hoofshake, but thought better of it. She pointed instead to a door behind them. "That's the fifty-sixth doorway on this floor. That staircase over there," she pointed to a spiral staircase not far away, "Has exactly sixty-six steps. I've seen that Shining Armor five hundred times, sixty since he's been married. I've seen you eighty thousand times, eighty-one since you've been given wings. There are thirty-five white guards in the day, forty-eight gray guards in the day. There are forty-eight white guards in the night, and thirty-five gray guards in the night. There are only twenty-nine bat pegasi guards, and the other fifty bat pegasi work as servants around the castle. Do you want me to go on?"
"But... Miss Gem, how do you remember things like that? How did you count it all, and how did you have the time to?" Twilight asked, mouth wide open.
Lemony Gem sighed. "Counting is all I can do now." She turned away from the purple alicorn and made her way towards the spiral staircase. She looked back over her shoulder. "You might want to look in the mirror, by the way. I'll see you again, Twilight Sparkle." and with that, she went up the stairs, counting down. "Sixty-six, sixty-five, sixty-four, sixty-three..."
Twilight just stared after Lemony before returning to her room, completely dumbfounded. She ignored the guards she ran into on her way and stopped by the library to grab a few books. she made sure they were fiction, so she wouldn't be tempted to sneak away to the Canterlot Archives to look for those spells until she was healed.
"Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine..." Lemony paused, stopping on the staircase. She looked down at the bottom, where Twilight had sat just a few moments ago, purple wings spread. Wings that she wasn't born with, but had earned. She looked at her own wingless back and bit her lip. "That... could have been me. That should have been me. What a curse." Lemony whispered.
