The sanctity balance in Equestria has broken under Princess Celestia's rule. Crystal, a little blind filly, is caught in the crossfire of an angry nation and the inhabited of the Nexus Relm.
Book 1: Story of a Lives~ When ponies began rioting, Princess Celestia's backlash inevitably forces Crystal into a hunt for a single book that could destroy everything she holds dear.
Book 1: Story of a Lives; Chapter 1: Introduction of the Filly
Crystal White's dreams were just as dark as her days, but the air was full of sounds and sensations that told Crystal a story. Born a hundred percent blind, while her clear irises gave her a name, she never got to experience the worldly unappreciated magic of colors. When her large eyes finally close for the night, she gets to see everything the she missed in the real world, to live life as if she was a normal pony, but she had to wake up sometime.
"Crystal, time to get up."
Noooooo, she was having such a nice dream of adventure with her favorite book character, Daring Doo. Having to get somepony to read for her was like listening to a movie play, but this time, she could understand what was going on. She swung from from rope vines, fought tyrannical zebras (or what she thought zebras looked like), and discovered long lost...
"Crystal!" Her mother's voice was stern this time. "Get up now, or do you want to have me feed your breakfast to the pigs?"
Blinking her eyes to get the drowsiness out with little difference to her view, she gave a small yawn, stretched some tight muscles loose, and hopped out of the warmth and comfort of her bed. This was the problem with going to school after the weekend, your body was still used to waking up at a later time and it was adamant on staying asleep a little while longer. Feeling against the walls, and by memory, she sluggishly made her way to the kitchen without assistance from her mother, who she was sure was watching her.
"Mom, please don't throw my breakfast out to the pigs. In fact, when did we get pigs? I didn't know we had any." She was too sleepy to realize that it was a joke and a way to get her out of bed.
Her mother giggled, "Well, you're just in time."
Crystal heard a chair screech on the floor, the hoofsteps clopping over to her, and felt a hoof on her back. She had felt that tiny pressure on her back so many times that it barely registered in her mind anymore, because it was how ponies directed her to where she needed to go or to where the owner of the hoof wanted her to be. Her father must've come over to bring her to the table.
All she ever heard from ponies was how much she needed help moving around without bumping into other ponies, and how often she couldn't do things on her own without supervision. At such a young age, with all the 'help' she got from ponies, Crystal desired to be left to her own devices and to be treated like she could think for herself and be more of an adult. The mature feelings she felt flowed through her like the currents of a river rushing and roaring over the edge of a waterfall, uncontainable.
She shooed his guidance away like a bothersome fly. "I want to do it myself..." Hearing those words come out of her mouth in such a rude manner towards her father's help scared the unicorn filly a bit and she collected the right words to say to fix it. "Um...I mean, can I try it by myself... I wanna see if I could do it." She heard his hoofsteps moving back, likely to give her some room.
Slowly, but bravely, she let go of the wall. Stumbling a bit with her first couple of steps, she corrected herself quickly. Keeping her concentration on her goal, she walked in the direction opposite of the wall, feeling out with a hoof every couple of paced steps as she managed to keep herself steady and in as straight a line as she thought she was going. Suddenly, she felt something made of wood and cried out with excitement and hope: "Mom! Dad! Did I do it, is this the table!?"
Once again, she felt the hoof on her back which brought her away from whatever she was touching, but she was sure it had to have been a table leg, though it did seem rather large to be one. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," Her father's voice sadly replied. "That was the counter you walked to, not the table. You walked right passed it."
Crystal's joy was thrown away instant, her ears lowering in sadness. A feeling of failure pressed deep inside her, and she wanted to cry out at the unforgiving world, but held those tears inside. She wasn't a little filly like everypony thought and expected her to be, she had to prove to everypony that she was ready to be equal. She couldn't cry. All she replied with was "Oh..."
"Do you wanna try again, sweetheart?" That nickname was beginning to get old fast.
Crystal shook her head and sighed outwardly, "No, but-um... dad...could you please stop calling me 'sweetheart'? Just call me Crystal White...please."
She couldn't see, but both parents exchanged worried glances with one another. "Okay, if that's how you want it, Crystal."
Her father led her over to her chair and helped her get into it, and scooted the chair in closer to the table before silently taking his own seat. She heard her mother setting a plate down beside her and she felt the vibrations of ceramic on wood. Once her mother was finished sitting down, she began a prayer to which Crystal brought her hooves together and silently followed along:
"Oh Faust...we thank you for bringing us together at the table for a wonderful breakfast that you have graciously provided for us, and the day that you created for the Princess to give..." In her mother's pause, Crystal felt eyes on her, which made her feel like curling into a ball to escape, but she ignored it for her mother's sake. "...and i ask that my great and treasured blessing, Crystal, will have a good day at school today."
The end of the blessings gave way to the beginnings of a great breakfast meal, with Crystal feeling around the table for utensils with her magic.
Once finished she and her mother walked out of the house to head to the school that was only a few blocks away. Crystal usually insisted going by herself and that nothing would happen to her and that she knew the way and that she had all her stuff and that she really wanted to go by herself...
But her mom was always worried that she would stumble into the street and get hit by a passing carriage or get foalnapped. This time, she was silent the entire way there. She could feel the magic that her mother used to guide her on her back like a leash for a pet, and this embarrassed her to no end. Could she do anything about it...? No.
Quickly, the pair reached the front of the school, which Crystal didn't even know the name of. She felt her mother's hoof on her back, and pressure that came with it, that was supposed to be gentle and supportive, but was actually keeping her down. The magical leash vanished.
"Are you sure you won't get into any trouble?" Crystal sighed inwardly to not insult her mother, but she worried about her daughter far too much for her liking, so much in fact that Crystal would do almost anything just to have a couple of minutes away from the babying and the overly protective hooves that now held her. What a horrible thought to even think, but it was how she felt.
She smiled reassuringly, "Of course, Mom."
"And you are going to stay away from those bullies, right?" Her mother pressed the answer from Crystal.
"Yes, Mother." Openly showing a bit of her annoyance.
Obviously, the hint sailed over her mother's head , a lot like everything that she did. As an inside joke to herself, Crystal would wonder if her mother was the blind one in the family.
"Are you sure? Do you know where to go if you get into trouble?"
"Yes, yes Mom! You tell me this every day. I just need to go to a supa-supa...whatever that big word is."
"Supervisor." Her mom corrected.
"Yes, so can I go now?" She really wanted to really get away.
"Okay, hunny." Her mother pulled her into a tight hug. "I'll see you after school."
Crystal heard her mother walk away finally and her faked smile fell into a frown. "But I won't," she said to herself with sadness and pity before turning to where the sounds of masses of foals came from, and she stumbled a bit to get inside the classroom before the bell could ring. She liked to be early in case she ever got lost somehow, even though Ms. Wheatmire excused her tardies every time.
%%%
"...because Princess Celestia has to raise and lower the sun and the moon every day and night, this is proof enough to many ponies that the world that we live on is indeed flat." The teacher, Ms. Wheatmire, concluded her day's lecture to the class.
Crystal sat at her desk, listening intently to everything that was being told to her. The students were supposed to take to be taking notes, yet she got to sit and just listen, while a recorder that sat at the top end of her desk did all the hard work.
"Now class, I want you all to get out all of last week's notes and study them for the test that you will be having later today while I help Crystal study. You don't have to take this opportunity to study, but I don't want any side conversations."
Crystal heard that beautifully ugly word 'help' again. She felt her ears lower once again in embarrassment at the special treatment that she got from the teacher. Turning off her recorder, she was led to the back of the room where she was seated in a chair while Ms. Wheatmire sat across from her.
"Ms. Wheatmire?" Crystal wanted to get her teacher to understand the embarrassment that she was forced to endure.
"Yes?"
Crystal pressed her issue with as much confidence as she could muster internally. She had to get somepony to understand. "Is...Is it possible for me to study on my own?" There...she said it. Now she waited with mixed feelings of worry and her overly used emotion of hope. Was it wrong to have hope for everything in life?
She heard a sigh, which dashed those hopes away with a single push of breath. Could she ever not have the weight on her back from some hoof that she knew was trying to give her that hard to pronounce and harder-still to get 're-ashur-ence', but only succeeded in making her more upset with the weight of pity. "I'm sorry Crystal that I don't have the materials or bits to pay for a better educational experience. I'm using these bigger words with you because I know you are a very intelligent filly. But I know how you must feel, you are a mare in a filly's body. You want to have your independence, don't you?"
A candle flame flickered into a torch light of intensity and happiness when she knew that somepony understood how she felt. She had been screaming it out, but she thought that no one heard it or listened, or cared. Frantically, nodding her head in excitement, she made her wants known. But a bucket of water poured out over the fire with the fact that her ind-epend-ence would not be hers.
"W-Would I ever get my ind-e-pen-dence?" She asked, trying to relight the candle. She just felt this word was the best word to describe what she wanted, even if she didn't know what it meant.
"Come on," Ms. Wheatmire chuckled warmly. "Let's get some studying done before it's time for recess."
Princess Celestia always paced back and forth excessively when she was nervous or scared, and she was both right now. She felt the fear creep around inside her like spiders in a network of webs, and it made her nauseous. Celestia's body shook, as if the inappropriate touch of a chill rose and fell along the slight curvature of her spine. She felt her heartbeat throb in her chest to an increased tempo; she could hear it thundering in her ears. A slight sweat had accumulated along her brow as her brain churned thoughts out like a jet of water.
The reason for Celestia's fear was that she had to deny a proposal from the Ponyment to raise the minimum wage from eight bits to ten, to help the apparently struggling middle class with paying the extra bills on time and save a few bits off to the side for recreational use. Celestia knew that this act sounded great on paper and like a sure way to help any who need a little help, a new tax would have to come out of this if she passed it. She knew that the Equestria treasury was limited and that there was a reason why her parents had set the minimum wage to where it was: if too much was given out while too little is coming in, there wouldn't be enough to give out after a while.
Celestia sighed with her thoughts and murmured: "This won't end well." She knew she was just telling herself the truth and hiding nothing, like she did with everypony else in her life. She felt her stomach twist and buckle with worry that any day now, a mob of angry ponies would storm the gates and demand new leadership, because of whatever she had done wrong with so many things; the largest being the agricultural policies she had made and were outdated by a few centuries, causing an unmistakable drop in food production from farms. Instead of fixing these policies, she increased the quota required from the farmers.
She knew she was a kind ruler, but she was an incompetent one at best who constantly needed help or advice, even if this advice and help was just as incompetent as she was. As somepony who was afraid to make any new decisions least she offend or upset somepony, which was why she created the Ponyment, so they would create the laws and all she had to do was accept of deny them, but almost anything that has been made under her rule lately has not worked, and because she is the ruler, she was the one blamed for everything.
Realizing what she was doing and where she was going with her woe-is-me thoughts, she pulled herself out of the hole that she was digging herself into and relaxed. Reading the proposal one last time, finding a problem with her grammar, she used her magic to pick up a quill on the desk beside her and scratched out the offending word. She finished by rolling up the parchment into a scroll and tying it off with a red ribbon adorned with the royal seal before setting it, along with others, in a box to be sent back to the Ponyment.
A knock sounded at the door. It was hasty and loud so it had to have been important or the knocker was in a hurry. Over the thousands of years, if there was one thing that Celestia has learned from politics, it was body language and other subtle things that ponies do and their reasons for doing it, and the ways she could use this to her advantage. "Enter." She called out with authority.
A servant-butler came running into the room with his eyes wide with fear, even while still managing to look presentable in the suit he wore.
"My princess!" He breathed heavily as he spoke in broken strands of phrases. "A...mob...has...been collecting...at the gates!"
Wow...she hadn't even sent out the vetoes and the ponies were already rioting, her own inner humor tried to make light of the situation that everyone was in. She felt the tension in the room get strained like rubber being stretched to its limits. The joking aside, she needed to see the numbers of ponies that had managed to get her attention. She rushed out onto her balcony while the out-of-shape butler clutched at his side and leaned against a vanity to support himself.
Looking out, Celestia saw the mob was over a couple hundred leeches latching at the steel gates surrounding the castle. The ponies yelled obscenities at her when they saw her come out of her room. Sighing sadly, she shook her head, wondering what she had done wrong this time?
The butler hobbled to her side. "They all said that they were tired of being hungry."
Tired of being hungry? Sure the policies of agriculture were a little outdated, but not so much that ponies would be starving like this. It upset Celestia that her ponies would do such a thing for something that they could do so easily...such laziness."Then maybe they should go out and do some honest work for food, instead of standing around there going hungry."
She turned toward her companion to see a growing dark spot from his suit on his stomach. The mob hadn't sent a messenger. They sent a message.
"They hurt you." She stated to him with rare anger in her voice.
"It's nothing but a scratch, Princess.” He insisted. "One of the ponies down there had a knife. I don't know which one, there were just too many of them."
"RAIN!" Shouted the princess, and a guard rushed through the half open door.
"Yes?" He asked.
"TAKE EMIL QUICKLY TO THE INFIRMARY, THEN I WANT YOU TO HEAD TO SHINING ARMOR'S BARRACKS AND INFORM HIM OF MY ORDER FOR HIM TO GET THE GUARDS DOWN THERE...I WANT UNICORNS TO ERECT BARRIERS AROUND THAT MOB, I WANT THOSE PONIES TO STAND FOR TAKING THE FREEDOMS THAT I GIVE THEM AND GOING TOO FAR AND HURTING ANOTHER!" ~~~~~ Shining Armor looked irritable pale in the mirror as he dressed himself from the pjs he wore to his officer's uniform. He had been woken up and ordered to start a strange job: arrest the citizens that he he was supposed to protect. To justify these strange orders in his mind, to make him feel better about doing them, he cleared away these thoughts and only thought about how this mob might hurt another pony. With his training in the royal guard, he had enough practice to do this; to focus on nothing else but the job at hoof, and forget everything else until later. He sighed: this was going to be an interesting day.
Unknown to Shining at first, the door to his barracks room quietly opened and his little sister, Twilight Sparkle, personal student and protege to Princess Celestia, poked her head into the room. She saw his quick movements of anger, how he grabbed and pulled objects instead of picking them up, how he threw whatever he held down when he was done using it, how the collapsed face reflecting in the mirror was void of the kindness she was used to seeing from her brother. Twilight was shocked and frightened at how a pony could change so quickly and in so little time to make the change.
The reflection of his sister in the mirror brought his attention onto her. He didn't turn but he did make eye contact with her, and the gaze was commanding but with his love for her still showing through the annoyance. "Don't say anything, Twilight Sparkle. I'm not in the mood to talk right now. Get up to where the princess is, wherever she is, and stay out of the way." Twilight did stay silent but her mind refused to stay quiet. How could her loving brother say such a thing, especially to his own sister, somepony whom he had never fought with once. He had used her full name too, Twilight listened when somepony called her Twilight SPARKLE. She almost tiptoed into the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. She stayed quiet, not wanting to cause a fight with her brother.
After a few tense moments of Shining struggling to get his back leg through his guard uniform, Twilight bounded off the bed with an almost embarrassed merriment. She thought she could help him and maybe he wouldn't be so much of a grump. But before she could help him, a violent cough wracked his body, making his legs go out from underneath him, and he crashed to the floor in exhaustion as his mind regained control.
“Shining, are you okay?” Twilight cried and finished her rush to the unicorn as he continued to cough. The controlled posture and ideal looks of a soldier and a captain vanished, replaced with only a weak, sick looking shell of a young stallion. Once his coughing attack had finally stopped, Shining struggled to get up. Twilight got underneath him and pressed up under his stomach to give him some support.
“I don't need any help, Twilight.” He rebelled like a small foal, but Twilight refused to let him go.
“Yes you do Shining, and I can prove it to you using at least twelve different formulas on stallion personality and health.” With some intense shoving from Twilight, Shining got onto his bed where he hung his head down to get the nauseating swirl of room to slow down to a speed that allowed him to walk correctly. “You said that this was just a simple cold that will simply blow over. That was two weeks ago, and you are still having trouble. I think it's starting to get worse, tell you the truth, and I'm starting to worry about you.”
Her brother waved his hoof at her and raised his head up to meet her gaze with his. She could see the strength that made so many ponies respect him and had helped him in becoming the youngest Captain of the Guard in Equestrian history, it was pushing through the weakness until Shining stood up on all fours. He towered over his sister by a neck and a head, and Twilight had to look up at him to continue their gaze. “Twilight, what does three up and three down mean?” He asked as he pointed to the rank path on his shoulder.
Twilight turned her gaze to the patch remembering how hard her brother worked to get to where he was now. She saw where this was going and felt a bit unease come over her. “Well, Spike would just say 'the end of an inning...' hehe, such a child.”
Shining had the same unamused expression on his face that told Twilight that her attempt to defuse the situation had failed. “I'm asking you what you think it means, not what Spike says as a joke.” He continued to point at the patch.
Twilight, humiliated with herself, a small sigh for her actions pressed. “Captain.” She simply answered. This was like being treated like a foal, and she didn't like that feeling.
“Captain, yes. Did I get this far by being weak?”
“But being sick doesn't mean your...” Twilight tried to get Shining down from the pedestal of light that he was placed upon. Shining raised his hoof and she was silent. “Answer the question.”
“No.” Twilight ultimately said, her cheeks red from embarrassment.
“Right. I have a job to do as Captain of the Guard, the leader of the protectors that protect the citizens. I can't do that if I'm in bed with a simple cold. Many of the colts out there look up to me, I can't turn them down. I know you love me and want the best for me, but I have to do what is best for the ponies of Canterlot.” With that end note, Shining Armor, youngest Captain of the Royal Guards, leader, marched out the door in all of his gilded glory.
Twilight stood back in the room for a little bit longer. The image of her brother acting like that was fresh in her mind and she wanted it out now. She used happier memories of when they were little and played together like there was no tomorrow, not the life that they both had now. Twilight felt so much nostalgia, she smiled widely.
But then she remembered the situation that the castle's inhabitants faced and this popped the bubble to get her back to the present day. Biting her lip, the unicorn uncoordinatedly rushed up to her mentor's room, where she knew Celestia would be looking out from the balcony at the front gates. Twilight had to give herself a pat on the back for being right once again. But her mind conflicted with the happy mental gesture when she saw the princess' emotionless face, the muscles in her cheeks not up or down, her brow unfurrowed, the eyes that were empty as theater with no movie to play.
Walking out onto the balcony alongside her mentor, Twilight saw that the rioters were slowly growing in size from the first time she had seen them through her window of her room on the top floor of the left tower of the castle. She felt in her gut that something was coming, and she turned to find a rock sailing through the air straight at her, which she barely had time to duck under. She found that the mob was throwing other rocks and other projectiles that would definitely do some damage should they hit. Looking to the princess with worried eyes, Twilight wondered why the princess would stand where she could get hit, unmoving from the possible pain, when she noticed a shimmer in the light surrounding the princess and Twilight knew that she had a shield surrounding her.
“If you want to be out here with me Twilight Sparkle, you best stand next to me back here so you don't get hit, I have a shield spell protecting me.” Celestia spoke to Twilight while her unemotional stare continued. The tone that she spoke her words with made Twilight shake, as if a cold draft crawled down her back. It was just so unlike the princess to speak as if she didn't care.
Twilight's pride when it came to anything magic made her one to not rely on others in that department, especially for a simple shield spell, so she created her own. Letting the princess know that she didn't need the help, Twilight was surprised to not hear even a sigh.
This made Twilight press her mental issue that she had with the princess at this time. “Princess, how come you tell me 'revenge is never the answer to the problems we face', but here you are taking revenge out on them for hurting Emil? I know it was a stab wound, but it wasn't that bad.”
Once again, the princess never looked away nor lost the confidence in her speech as she replied: “This isn't revenge, this is prosecution. They stabbed Emil and there are some things that ponies do that cross the line: this is one of them. If they are not punished for what they did, what message does that send others?”
“That makes sense, but wouldn't this be somewhat of an act of war on your own ponies?”
“Not if they know why they are being arrested.”
“Princess, we both know that ponies don't work that way. This would be the first time in how long that you have had to use your forces on your own ponies? They may ignore the incident and only focus on the arrest. This could cause a civil war.” For the first time, Celestia turned to look at the purple unicorn, who saw the look of fear in her eyes. “Do you doubt my rule?”
The sound of that question shook Twilight to the core. It was like the princess was threatening her. She answered slowly and picked her words carefully to still try and get her own point across to the leader. “No, Princess Celestia, I wouldn't do that. But the thought still bugs and even worries me.”
“Twilight, it's better that you keep to your magic studies. I'll worry about politics.” These words weren't comforting. Twilight was unsure if the princess meant them to be or not, but she knew she had spoken when she wasn't supposed to.
“I'm sorry for stepping out of line Princess, I'm just worried about what they would do.” She couldn't help that feeling. If they were willing to hurt somepony and still make the demands they did, then who knows how far they would go, and most likely these ponies were only the tip of the iceberg with many more from around Equestria who would share their point of view. What would they do when they learned that THE Princess Celestia used force on her own ponies? Twilight believed that this was only the beginning.
Also, Twilight couldn't help if there was some ulterior motive to all of this: Celestia had never been this violent before, but the unicorn protege kept her mouth shut.
With the lesson of the day over, and the last bell about to ring to let the students go for the day, Crystal sat at her desk in the middle of the loud and obnoxious chatting fillies and colts who had little else to do but talk about nonsense to pass the time. The noise was so deafening to the blind filly's sensitive ears, she had to attempt to block most of the echoing sound with her hooves as to not be struck by a massive, throbbing headache. She really, really hated this time of the school day, and "really, really" hatred was hate doubled, so it was quite a powerful phrase to be used by such a youngster. Crystal felt such a feeling boil in her insides like a wienie roast when her classmates started to sound like the noises she had heard at the zoo when they had gone on a school field trip there once before. She could just imagine that the other students were doing exactly what had been explained to her by the tour guide that day.
In her mind, the current world around her was just a bunch of colorless shapes that looked like ponies... or rather, what she interpreted the descriptions given to her to be like ponies. It had no background, and these ponies were running around on unhealthy looking, skinny, long legs, jumping from square to square, and making a mess out of everything. Chaos ruled everything and nowhere was safe. But in real life, everypony was just sitting at a desk across from their friends and were talking as if they were outside.
The piercing ring of the telephone surprisingly brought everypony to a polite whisper with impressive speed. Noticing the change, Crystal removed her hooves to uncover her ears before her attention too was caught by another ring of the device. Wheatmire picked the telephone up after its third annoying ring, and the attention for the teacher's conversation dropped completely, and Crystal didn't even listen either. She wasn't in the best of moods anymore from the beginnings of that headache that she had been trying to avoid before.
"Crystal." Wheatmire barked out to the little filly who flinched from both the unexpected call and a bit of pain that flared up in her brain. Crystal managed to avoid giving herself whiplash from how fast she turned her head in the direction she had heard the voice come from as Wheatmire continued with her attention. "It's your mother, she wants to talk to you about something important."
Crystal could feel her cheeks heat red from embarrassment, and the childish "oo's" coming from some of her classmates didn't help with the matter. Unfortunately for Crystal, it was no secret from the entire school that she was babied by her Mom so much, and when the subject arose, she always became the brunt of their jokes.
The joking suddenly ceased before it could really get going when a soprano male voice shouted: "Hey, knock it off!" Crystal recognized the voice instantly as Pitchpatch, probably...no, undeniably one of the most popular colts in the school because he had been the first in the class to get his cutie mark, which according to him was singing. "It's not her fault that her mom loves her!"
Once again, Crystal felt another kind hoof on her back leading her somewhere. She knew it had to be Pitch because he was the only pony in the school who would help her like this. This time however, she didn't feel the humiliation or anger that she usually felt when somepony else would do this. She instantly knew and felt that Pitch wasn't doing this out of pity, but was trying to be helpful. His clear voice, perfect for singing, spoke to her with happiness and eagerness: "Here, let me help you get there."
She was about to throw out what she really wanted for Pitch to do when she snapped out of the goo-goo state her mind had fallen into and pulled herself away from the colt who she wanted as a "friend". Self sacrifice for self gain was needed to accomplish what she wanted, she had to show that she could do things on her own. "No Pitch, I don't need any help." Oh Celestia, she couldn't even convince herself with how she said that. She spoke with a lack of confidence and sadness that made what she said obvious that it wasn't true.
Pitch was silent before giving his answer to Crystal's statement. "Okay, you can do it Crystal!" He agreed, even after her lame performance and him actually helping her before. He did that for her...oh sweet Celestia, he was such a caring colt. But she, once again, pulled herself out of those thoughts: she still had a phone to answer.
"Yes Martha, she's coming right now...Yes, she's refusing any..." Crystal tuned out that conversation and kept her focus on feeling where the desks were. No pony was shouting out directions to her, and she hoped they wouldn't, either: it would give her all the more freedom to get there on her own.
An atmosphere of apprehension created an uneasy feeling throughout the classroom, and everypony there could feel it. They all stood as they watched Crystal begin to move towards where Wheatmire's voice had given her the general direction of the phone, and they all backed her up with silent encouragement that the filly didn't feel.
Crystal kept her concentration on the goal. She took her time moving step-by-step forward, feeling along with her front hoof to make sure that nothing was in her way that she could bump into, and she changed her direction when she did feel something. She could feel the stares were from ponies, and she imagined they were just waiting for her to fail, and the thought of proving herself to everypony goaded her on.
After a few these moments, Crystal felt a hoof press into her shoulder that told her to stop walking. She did when the classroom of foals suddenly erupted up in a spectator-like cheering that told her that she had made it and that her mind was wrong and that her classmates had been behind her the entire time. She had done it. She had walked to Wheatmire's desk by herself without any help from anypony. The teacher had to silence all of her students with threats of more homework as she floated the telephone down to Crystal, who took it with her own magic when she felt it touch her ear.
Crystal wondered what her mother wanted this time, since this wasn't the first time that her mother had called her at school, as she began to speak to her through the phone. "Hi Mom." She called into the voice part of the device with such a soft voice lacking in any confidence that she could've melted any mean pony's stone heart right on the spot, but the magisterial Martha was used to such a voice.
"Come on Crystal dear, speak up. I can barely hear you, much less understand you." Crystal could hear Martha begin to reprimand her and she knew that she should never interrupt her when she began doing that..which she did all the time anyway. "You know? I need to get you to a speech class. Yes! I'll do that. I could see it now, you talking to famous ponies whose names escape me for some reason. Anyway I digress, I called you to tell you that I will be about half-an-hour late picking you up from school, so just hang out there until I get there."
"Okay Mom." Crystal couldn't really say anything else.
"Okay darling, hugs and kisses, I'll see you later." The sound cut off quickly on the other end of the line with a low humming sound, telling her that her mother had hung up.
As if it was planned the moment that Wheatmire placed the phone back onto the holder where it was supposed to go, the final release bell finally wailed out its call of sweet, sweet freedom. The ponies that had been watching the scene all rushed to get to their stuff before stampeding out the door into the cool afternoon.
In the scrambling, one pony knocked Crystal to the floor. She felt more surprise than pain when she collided with the floor. When the explosive sound of ponies running to the door thinned to the outer hallway, Crystal could make out the sounds of a scuffle before Wheatmire's shrill voice put an end to it before Crystal could get up and investigate.
"Pitch! Riot! What in Celestia's name are you two doing!?" Wheatmire's hoofsteps rushed over to where the sounds of violence were located. "Pitch, get off him!" The sounds of struggle stopped completely after this when Crystal stood up from the floor. "What was going on? Explain yourselves." A small pause ensued before. "Yes Pitch?" Pitch must've raised his hoof to answer.
"We were fighting, Miss Wheatmire. You must've known that since you are older than we are." Crystal had to sigh at the same time as she heard Wheatmire do the same because she knew that Pitch would say some smart remark. He was such a clever colt.
Wheatmire's voice was raw with controlled irritation as she spoke back to the most likely proud Pitch. "You know what I meant you little bug, and I won't ask again."
"If I'm a bug, than I must be a big stink bug, huh Miss Wheatmire?"
Before the teacher could retaliate with words to that, Riot spoke up but Crystal could hear his stuttering coming out even worse than usual and couldn't help but feel sorry for the little guy. "I-I-I ac-ac-cid-dently p-p-push-sh-shed C-C-Crystal o-o-over." He didn't like to speak unless it was absolutely necessary so he could avoid the embarrassment of his stuttering, and when he did, it was only but a few words to get his point across.
"And your brother just decided to beat you up because of this?" Wheatmire's voice was filled with uncertainty and incredulity at the brothers.
Crystal decided to move over to where the voices were. Right close by, if not almost half way across the classroom. She lowered her ears at the argument and she just had to intervene. "It's okay, I wasn't hurt." She didn't know how saying this would help anything after she heard it come out of her her mouth, but she had to say something...anything to get her point across to get them to stop without actually telling them to stop.
"Crystal, not now." Pitch shot back to the blind filly, which surprised her quite a bit. Her image of him in her mind dropped a bit from the glowing knight in shining armor (whatever that looked like, but it sounded romantic to her from how it had been explained to her) to one with dull armor that shone like the waters of a murky swamp. But he was still a knight...right?
"Pitch, that is enough. You don't need to yell at young Crystal here." Crystal's thoughts were broken by Wheatmire. "She's tired of this argument and so am I. I'm going lightly on you because you are both brothers and I obviously can't tell you enough times Pitch to not be so rough, so just go."
"Fine by me." Pitch spoke through clutched teeth before he suddenly grabbed a hold of Crystal by wrapping his hoof around her back and directing her to where their bags were. Crystal's bag was there first, Crystal knew this for sure, but Pitch placed his right next to hers. "Come on Crystal, I wanna see the new candy shop that had just opened yesterday downtown. My mom gave me three whole bits to spend there. You can come with me. Here, I'll get your bag for you."
Feeling the sudden shock and surprise from the grab, Crystal jerked and weaved herself out of his hold. It had no tenderness like she felt before from his voice, only a feeling of greed. Telling him the truth, Crystal figured, was the best thing for her to say. "I'm sorry Pitch, but 'Mamma Mia' wants to pick me up late and I don't want her to get mad at me because I was gone. You have no idea how bad..."
Pitch suddenly and rudely interrupted her with his own plea for her company. "Come on, this'll be fun. It's just down the street and around the corner, we could be back before she gets here."
"Pitch, no!" Crystal really, really, really hated shouting. "I can't get 'Mamma Mia' mad at me now. Not when the fall equa-thingy feast is only in two weeks, she'd ground me for sure and I wouldn't be able to go."
Pitch's next question came out of the blue for Crystal, and really confused her. "Do you have a date yet?"
"What? Um...no...I don't."
Okay...I guess I'll go alone...see ya later."
Crystal could hear the slow clopping noise of Pitch's hooves on the wooden floorboards move away to their bags. She could hear Pitch whisper something to his brother, Riot, before she heard the two leave out the door of the schoolhouse. Her head fell as a somber feeling overwhelmed her, twisting her insides into a knot of complete self-regret.
Pitchpatch didn't immediately go down to the candy store like he had said he was going to. While grabbing his bag that he had set right next to Crystal's sky blue bag, he suddenly had an idea that would get Crystal out of the classroom and give him and chance to talk to her without the adults that were always around her. Oh, how Pitch loved that filly: her emerald green coat shined so brightly in any type of light, and her skills in magic were undeniably the best. But the best part was that no pony had taken her as a marefriend, and he planned to be her first.
He looked back over at Wheatmire: she was busy looking at the tests of the day and grading them at her desk, so she wouldn't notice. He took up Crystal's bag before he turned and whispered into Riot's ear in a threatening voice that shouldn't have come from a colt of his age yet, yet it did: "Don't you dare even think about telling on me or else you will really find out what that spider you crushed last night felt...understand?"
Terrified, having learned to never doubt his brother's threats or their severity, Riot frantically nodded his head before he followed his brother out of the doorway and into the hall. Maybe he could help stop Pitch from doing whatever his brother was planning. Maybe by going back, saying he needed to get something, and then telling Crystal or Wheatmire. But the nerve was never there to follow up on his thoughts, and all he could do was give one last glance back to the blind filly who never deserved such an admirer.
Not that Pitch was a bad colt: in fact, when Pitch was in a great mood, he was the greatest colt to be around, but when that temper hit...watch out.
The brothers walked outside, where the rocky outline of the mountain city of Canterlot met them in all of its stony glory. While not situated all the way at the peak of the mountain, it was built into many, many years ago, it was quite high up above the valley of green, grassy rolling hills that humped like a serpent swirling and meandering across the ground and the golden farmlands that were rich in produce such as apples, carrots, potatoes, celery stalks, and many other edible goods. Being this high up above Equestria, and more so of the fact that this was the home of Princess Celestia, this caused the city's inhabitants to have a higher value of their home and of themselves than they did for others.
But Pitch was different, as he never thought of himself any better than other ponies. It had helped that he hadn't been born in Canterlot, but from somewhere he didn't remember, that gave him such a positive view of other ponies. It was just that he had been provided with a brain and was glad to use it, while he had the impression that others didn't or didn't care, so it was up to him to do the thinking.
"Come on, let's try out that candy store anyway as we wait." Pitch spoke to his younger 'brother' with little to no emotion.
"Wh-Wh-Wait f-for wh-what?" Riot's stuttering voice questioned his 'brother' like a foal asking his mother for ice cream. It was so full of youthfulness and curiosity, an innocence that Pitch's mind wouldn't allow for him, and in a way, Pitch was a bit jealous of Riot for that.
But Pitch had to stay Pitch and not allow such feeling to cloud him of his goal any longer as he answered his brother: "Wait for things to settle down back at school before we return to get Crystal. I'll use her bag to get her to follow me somewhere and I can talk. Hopefully this way, she'll notice my love for her." The end of the statement was coated in a sadness that wasn't very well to be coming from and Riot noticed this.
"D-Does-s-n't really s-s-sound like-ke y-you r-real-ly have a-a p-p-plan." Riot pointed out as they entered the candy store that had a hoof-carved and brilliantly painted sign above the door that read 'SwEeT's CaNdY sYmPhOnY', and underneath it was a banner in bright spectral colors that read 'GRAND OPENING' in big bold letters.
The inside of the shop was packed full of ponies who wanted to see what the new shop had to offer. A line of them were up along the case, moving along to where they could pay for their treats. Inside the display case, rows and rows of different types of candies were met with stares of longing from ponies looking to buy them.
Their mouths would water at the sight of candy canes in different and unique flavors such as fresh peppermint, juicy apple pie, rich and soft chocolate-filled cherry, sugary cotton candy, and sticky butterscotch. But this was before ponies would see the light and fluffy marshmallows of many sizes and textures, some covered in a layer chocolate fudge, others with mint sprinkled along the shells. These had many foals' gazes filled with a wanting for two of the favorite things to be found in candy. The fruit candy had many inherently sweet and natural flavors that ranged from lollipops of many sizes to jellies. Rich and buttery toffee lay at the end with many other types: nuts, slathered with chocolate, and hazelnut. All these treats could be washed down with a refreshing soda and many more candies were around the shop and couldn't all be described.
Looking at all of this, Pitch concluded that the owner of the store really loved chocolate. The pair got in line to wait for their turn as they looked at their choices, and Pitch answered his brother with a voice of pure sadness that once again didn't sound like him. "I...I don't know what's wrong with me." He sighed, and quickly smacked himself hard across the face with a hoof, making a few bystanders cringe at the sound. Riot was just as surprised as they were.
The sting he inflicted on himself did nothing to quell the chaotic emotions that rumbled through him like a violent quake. The sadness of not being noticed by the beautiful filly...no...the beautiful, stunning mare, the willingness to protect her, and the anger he felt. From where, he didn't know, but they were slowly taking their toll of him.
"I can't control my emotions." Pitch continued as the line moved forward and they got closer to the register. "Your dad said that I should be older before I feel or think such things, but they go through my head anyway... it's not like somepony is telling me this stuff." He sighed once more. "I don't know, maybe Crystal would never like a pony like me." After such a pitiful statement, Pitch leaned up against the glass of the display case and sighed for the third time, which caused the glass near his mouth to fog up when his hot breath touched the cold glass.
Riot didn't like seeing anypony upset, especially his almost bipolar 'brother', who could go from loving and supportive to outright angry and violent. Seeing Pitch like this hurt him inside and he wanted to do something to cheer him up. Unfortunately, Riot wasn't very good at reading people's emotions, which got him in trouble a lot when he said something wrong.
"M-M-M-Mom alw-ways-s said y-you were an-n...ear-rly bloo-oomer." Riot was really trying to make his 'brother' feel better. His Mom always said that it was a really good thing, that he was getting older faster.
Very, very quickly, that anger that Pitch was known to have suddenly flared through the icy sadness, melting away the layer that kept the demon from coming up. Before Riot could react or say anything else in his defense when he saw that look in Pitch's eye that told him that he had said something wrong, Pitch forcefully grabbed a hold of him by the shoulders and proceeded to viciously shake the sense from him. Pitch was shouting at him with a volume not fit for indoors, "SHE'S NOT MY MOTHER!" This was followed by Pitch slamming Riot's body, headfirst, into the display case without shattering the glass, before giving him a full-on punch across Riot's snout. Riot tried to cover his face to protect himself from any blows, but he was disoriented and only managed to fall to the floor, semi-conscious.
At this point, Pitch couldn't have cared less about his 'brother's' feelings right now in his completely emotional state of mind at the moment. The same sentence played out in his mind over and over again as if it echoed through a monstrous cavern from a great number of ponies shouting it: NOT YOUR MOTHER...NOT YOUR MOTHER...NOT YOUR MOTHER!
Before the tormentor could beat up his victim any further, a stallion wrestled him off with a pair of strong forelimbs, keeping the two apart. Even through the pure rage Pitch was feeling, he could still hear the firm and authoritative call from the blue unicorn shopkeeper who went by the name of Sweets. "Hey you, punk, if you wanna do that, do it outside! Not in my parlor!"
So, even through Riot had gone too far with what he had said, because Pitch had thrown the first physical punch, he got off clean. Who did this pony think he was to step into somepony else's business like that?
Pitch turned towards Sweets as the stallion kept him from doing anything nasty physically this time, but Pitch was a well rounded colt with a silver tongue. "You should get to know who was wrong in the struggle before you point your high and mighty hoof at me, the one you think was wrong. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was doing something right?"
"Just get him out of here." Sweets told the stallion, who Pitch felt nod.
"And now you're going to censor the outcry because you don't like it!" Pitch struggled against the jerking hoofs around him, if only to give him some extra time to get his point across. "Yes, I know the word, and I will use it whenever and wherever it is needed!"
Pitch was tossed out of the door and into the ancient brick and stone streets of Canterlot. Landing right beside him was Crystal's bag. He realized he dropped it when he had struck Riot. Looking back through the window of the shop, he could see that little foal being swarmed by ponies. Inconsiderate pricks! Even his own step-brother. Pitch only called Riot 'step-brother' when the moronic backstabber was acting the part of one.
Pitch pushed himself up onto his hooves and placed Crystal's saddlebags onto his back behind his own...how did they manage to stay on? Enough time must've passed for him to return to school. Nothing could turn his mind away from his goal: he had to get Crystal to like him with this very last chance.
He knew that his plan was flawed from the start: how could he know she would chase him, and judging by what he saw back in the classroom, she had trouble walking without help, probably because so many ponies had helped her walk, she has never really learned to keep her balance very well...how would she run? But he felt that he was running out of time and he was desperate for her to at least consider him a coltfriend. Every nice thing that he had done for her had only earned him hugs, and once...a peck on the cheek. Oh, how he had blushed rosy red when she did that!
Of course, Pitch wasn't only in love with Crystal because she was beautiful, he had convinced himself of this long ago when these feelings were being tested to see if they were true. He was truly smitten with her because she never treated him like he was above or below her like the students or the teacher. No, she only treated him like she would any pony. She was so smart, so caring, so kind, and the beauty that he saw in her shining coat and milky white eyes was only the icing on the cake.
When he reached the school once again, he felt strange butterflies tickle in his stomach. He was very dreadfully nervous. But why? Why in all of Celestia's Equestria would he be nervous? His brain's answer to this question stopped Pitch from going any further in his quest. He was nervous because he was afraid that Crystal wouldn't like him. This was his one chance, but he had to take it. He had to at least try, and with what little courage the young colt could muster within himself, he began to move in.
Book 1: Chapter 5: Good or Bad Emotions and Thoughts
Shining would never say this out loud for Twilight or anypony else to hear, but that his sister was right. His sickness was really beginning to take its toll on him as he explained his plan to arrest the mob with little to no difficulty to the commanders surrounding the planning table.
His head throbbed with an ache that made it hard to concentrate on anything that even his own mouth said, as it was still understandable but a little hazy, as if he was speaking through cotton. His vision was like looking through smoked glass and it was beginning to be difficult to distinguish things at times, but it was coming and going. His throat was a bit scratchy and raw: even the least bit of talking was like sandpaper to wood, and anything more than a whisper and could cause an uncontrollable coughing fit. His limbs felt like rubber bands: they had almost no support of his body.
With all of these symptoms plaguing him, the stubborn stallion still believed that he had to keep the image of leadership, so he kept it quiet. Though, just by looking at him there was proof enough that something was wrong, but he himself didn't see it. "Now, here is what I want everypony to do." Shining tried to speak with as much confidence as he could muster, but the coughing and him weakly resting his head upon his forelimb as he laid on the pillow overlooking a map of the city streets made it clear something was taking its toll. In front of the castle gate was a crossroad on three different sides that had a unicorn's magic project a red zone where the three roads met to show where the rioters were.
Shining pointed at a group of alleyways nearby, roughly a city block away, and continued: "The earth ponies, under me, would use these alleyways to get as close as we could get to the mob without being seen. The unicorns under Soul Flasher's command would erect barriers here and here." He pointed his hoof at the street opposite of the main castle gate and the road adjacent to it away from the alleyways. He coughed once to get the frog out of his throat but only succeed in hurting himself, so he just had to deal with it.
"We are going to close them off so they won't have anywhere else to run to but straight into the advancing earth pony guard. Observations have shown that there are pegasi there so I want Bright Wing to take care of them if they decide to take flight." After finishing speaking, the last bit of effort to keep his head up was lost as his head plopped down between his forelimbs, and the pressure he felt from his neck and shoulders to keep his head up subsided.
There was a pregnant pause as the semi-leadership of the guard looked upon the plan in their minds before the silence was broken by the pegasus Bright Wing. His blue feathers were ruffled from irritation as he asked a question: "Sir," this word was full of sarcasm and the twitch in his eye showed how much he really did NOT like saying that word to Shining. "If I may be so bold, which you know I am and will be bold, I have to say that this plan is much more complicated than it should be. It..."
"Bright Wing," Shining Armor, whether from his sickened mind or not, rudely interrupted the pegasus. " Are you still refusing to lead the pegasi? Bright Wing, you know it would be good for you public image if..."
Bright Wing cringed and his feathers ruffled even more at the idea of leading the pegasi. Following Shining's grand example of leadership, he interrupted his leader. "I don't think that really matters at this point, sir, but to answer your question...No, I don't wanna lead them."
"Oh well, that's your loss." The way that Shining had said that sentence was with a careless, happy child-like glee that made it seem like he had a little too much alcohol in his system. But Shining would never drink that stuff...it would ruin his image. Bright Wing continued with his original thought, not really holding his tongue. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I don't think..."
"You know what, Bright Wing?" Shining interrupted once again. "That seems a little bit selfish to keep your...leadership skills away from your...own kind." Shining knew that was where it hurt and he was right.
In a flash, one that many ponies in the room had no time to react in, Bright Wing jumped from his position around that planning table with the fury of a caged beast as he tried to smash his hoof into Shining's face. He was only held back by the few ponies who had seen the reaction coming from Shining's brutal comment, and were now shouting at him above his own to calm down. His eyes were cold green steel as they drilled into Shining's own pair, which stared at him with no retaliation, only calmness and grogginess.
Shining's second-in-command, a unicorn by the name of Soul Flasher, took Shining by the hoof like a parent to a child, and then led him out of the room and away from the struggle that echoed through the walls. "I'LL GET HIM! I'LL GET THAT...!" They ended up in another room of the guard's barracks. Soul Flasher sat down, almost just dropping Shining on a sitting pillow laying on the floor as he continued to pace back and forth irritably, moving in quick movements and making quick turns.
Finally after a long, uneventful silence, Soul Flasher berated Shining Armor. "What was all that back there?" He didn't bother with using the word 'sir' at this time. To him, it was just a formality and a title for the kitten to become a manticore with no tail. "You aren't a racist, Shining, I know this for sure unless you've been hiding it well from your trips to the bar with Bright Wing and his gang. So what were you trying to prove in there? Is this the sickness starting to finally get to you, or are you just drunk by any chance?"
"No! I don't touch that stuff, remember?"
"Then what was your problem back there with Bright?"
"Just putting him where he belongs. He shouldn't be trying to step over me like that."
"He wasn't, Shining! He was trying to explain why he disagrees with your plan, and for the record, I have some problems with it as well." Soul tried to reason with his Captain.
At this point, another violent coughing fit racked Shining's body as he turned his head as to not spread the germs that he had. During this episode, Soul ran out of the room, speaking calmly to whoever was on the other side. "Get some water." Before he closed the door a still angry Bright Wing shouted out, "I hope you choke in there, Shining!"
Shining could barely keep his head up as he coughed and coughed with what seemed like no end. When it finally did end, to the relief of Shining and his irritated throat, Soul returned with a cup of water suspended in the midst of his golden magic, proceeding to offer it to Shining.
Shining gladly and eagerly took the cup of sweet nourishment and proceeded to empty it past his gums with greed to stop the scratchy feeling in his throat; it helped a little.
"Are you alright now, Shining?" Soul Flasher asked his commander with complete sincerity in his voice and golden eyes as he laid on a pillow that he had moved with his magic over next to him.
"Sure, I'm okay. Completely fine." Shining lied, his public image on his mind.
"Okay, if you're so sure, I'll let it be." Obviously, Soul was unconvinced by Shining's childish attempts, but he could worry about that later, as he had a job to do to protect the castle and the citizens of Canterlot from trouble...when the citizens were the problem themselves. And if it needed to be, from Shining as well. "But should you lead this defense at the moment? With your sickness, I just don't want anypony getting hurt because of a mistake."
Shining only shook his head stubbornly. "We need as much morale as we could get for this. Do you know how long it's been since the Princess has had to use force against her own people? The ponies need to relearn her might." It was an excuse, Shining knew it was. He also knew that Soul Flasher couldn't do anything with the guard behind his back without Celestia's approval, and she trusted Shining with his judgment.
"But I don't think this plan is a very good one. It doesn't need to be like this." Soul pushed the matter on because he believed Shining had to get his public image out of his mind and get the job done.
Shining held up his hoof, which silenced Soul's mouth but not the gaze. "The plan will suffice. If you're so sure that I'm wrong, tell me your opinion and ideas, and then I'll give mine." Another smaller coughing fit followed that forced him to not move a muscle for a few seconds afterwards.
Soul waited politely for his superior to be ready so he would not have to repeat himself again. "Why don't we just have the entire crossroads blocked off so no pony would have to physically go in and get themselves hurt? It's much closer and easier to just finish them off right there, these ponies are unarmed."
Shining, through his half propped up head, listened, then thought with silence, before he was ready to answer and raised his head once more. "There are flaws in your plan. These ponies are not unarmed: you haven't heard about Emil? He got stabbed with a knife by one of them, my money being on a unicorn. And because these ponies are rioting is because they have forgotten that the Princess can do more than raise and lower the sun and the moon. Plus, having everypony so close would be chaos. Do you want that happening? Ponies would get even more injured or worse."
"So, it isn't all about your public image." Soul raised an eyebrow. "But there are flaws in yours and..." There was a bit of snootiness in his sentence. The kind that could come from a confidence boost.
But before he could get any further, Shining cut him off. "But like I said...It seems that my plan is the one that counts, or do you wanna take that up with the Princess?"
The confidence that Soul had shown never let up with these words, but he didn't answer back so Shining finished the conversation with a nod, before weakly raising himself up to his hooves, slowly returning to the meeting room. Soul kept to himself for a while.
Could he have picked a better set of fools? That Shining was only trying to keep himself on a lit pedestal in the eyes of the youth that he so treasured. But the sickness that he was fighting was ruining the image. Maybe it was poison?
Maybe he should get his old friend Zecora to come down to the castle and see what she could do for the pitiful Shining Armor: she most likely wouldn't mind.
Soul didn't hate Shining: no matter how often he had to be irritated by that stallion for his youth and arrogance, he had to equally respect him for his tact and heart. But this plan...was only the product of the sickness.
~~~
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Crystal felt the excruciating feeling of boredom. It was from deep within, drawn out from nothing to do and all she could do was sit there at the desk and wait. To pass the time, she listened to the clock make the usual ticks and tocks that told ponies the time. She couldn't understand how those sounds could help some pony tell time, since they all sounded the same to her. She had chosen a seat as far away as possible from Ms. Wheatmire, a desk at the back of the room.
She was sitting next to an open window, and she could feel the soft caresses of the wind pet along her mane. It was relaxing to her and helped ease the lonely feeling. Why was she feeling lonely when Ms. Wheatmire was in the front of the classroom? Maybe it was for the same reason that Crystal wanted to be as far away from her as possible.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Bored. Bored. Bored! Nothing to do! She couldn't even draw a picture because of her stupid eyes, or lack of them she should say. For what she had didn't even count because she couldn't even use them. Her eyes are on the sides of her face next to her ears, and that was all she could use to figure out where things were.
But she might have an audiobook in her bag, but smart...she didn't grab it before she moved to a different desk so she had no idea where she put it. She could ask for Ms. Wheatmire to help her, but this wasn't what she wanted. If she wouldn't be able to get it herself, it wasn't worth getting at all. But that would mean that she would have to just sit there and do until her mother arrived. From wherever she was right now.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Hmmm. Borrrrrrrrrred. What would Pitchpatch do at a time like this? He always seemed to have something fun on his mind. It would probably be around getting Ms. Wheatmire angry. How would this be fun? For some reason, Crystal had a small thought of it being fun to make somepony else angry just for laughs, but she buried these. Her mother always told her to be polite and respectful to others, especially the teacher.
Crystal figured that she didn't even have it in her to even be rude to some pony. Maybe she could get Pitchpatch to teach her a few things, but why would she want to? For some reason, making somepony else mad sounded like fun. Maybe the boredom was starting to get to her. Where was her mother?
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
This wasn't the first time that Crystal's mother had done this to her, and she had never forgiven her for leaving he alone that first time. She was just sitting there on a bench at the front of the school after Ms. Wheatmire had gone home. It was getting later and the cold air had chilled her skin and made her shiver a bit. Her mother had never called to let her or the school know, she just left her alone.
Then, a sweet sounding voice had asked her, "Ar-Are y-y-you okay-ay?" She hadn't heard any footsteps coming towards her, how had they snuck up on her like that? Her mother had always told her not to talk to strangers, but this one had asked a question, and she also said that if some pony asked a question, to always answer them.
"I'm okay, just waiting for my mother." She remembered how a quick gust of wind had blown across her back, making shiver her involuntarily.
"Wh-Where's-s your j-j-ac-k-et?" The voice had asked again. Yeah, where was her jacket?
"I don't have one. Never did. I'm usually home by this time." Why had she felt so calm talking to this pony that she hadn’t even known? It just happened way too fast, but that didn't change the fact that it did.
Then she had heard hoofsteps coming in from far away before a smooth voice called out. "Riot, what are you doing?" More ponies to talk to, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
"N-N-Noth-th-thing. I'm-m just t-talk-king to her." So Riot was his name; she recognized that name from class when Ms. Wheatmire would call out the names of two brothers named Pitchpatch and Riot. Maybe these were the same ponies. Did that make them still strangers or not?
"Oh, I know you." The unnamed voice said after it had gotten closer. "You're Crystal, the blind filly from that ogre Wheatmire's class. What are you doing out here so late? The sun's going down and it's getting way too cold."
No, please no babying. Even from other foals her own age ponies would not understand how she would feel. She had just pushed the question away so she wouldn't have to answer that question. "Then why are you two out?"
"That didn't answer my question." Pitchpatch said with no difference in his voice. Oh Celestia, why did he have to notice. Oh well, Crystal couldn't lie to him.
"My mother was supposed to pick me up but she has yet to show up. I'm really worried that something is wrong. I'm just waiting here for her."
"Wh-Wh-Wow." Riot had said with as much emotion as the poor colt's stuttering problem could allow. "Then we will sit here with you so you wouldn't be alone. Come on Riot." Pitchpatch suddenly said. "Could you move over a bit? Just so we could sit on the bench."
Wait, this was moving so fast. First, why would anypony allow themselves to be with the freaky blind filly that could do nothing right? Second, why was he so set on doing it? But she didn't complained since it was a nice sweet feeling that she didn't get to feel very often.
She scooted over to give room, but went too far before she couldn't feel the bench underneath her anymore. She struck the ground with an "oof", confused as to how she hadn’t felt the bench's edge sooner.
"Oh my, are you okay!?" She could hear Pitchpatch shout. "Here let me help you. Grab my hoof."
Crystal had reached out into the unseen darkness and felt her hoof touch his. Suddenly, she could feel butterflies tickling in her stomach, and her cheeks get hot. What was is this? The little filly had never felt this before.
In a sense, Crystal should thank her mother, because if her mother hadn't been so irresponsible, she wouldn't have really met Pitch, and then she wouldn't have felt her first crush. From the sound of it, she was lucky, because ponies that used sight usually only fell for others because of how they look, but she didn't have that luxury. Maybe her feelings are more true and unhindered. But Crystal didn't feel any different from what she felt then to how she felt now, and that to her was enough reason.
Five chimes and school got out when the clock chimed three times. She had been sitting at this desk for a long time, and still no mother. Ms. Wheatmire had not once said a peep the whole time, but she knew that her teacher was there from the constant scratching of a quill on paper.
The blind filly never understood how scratching a quill on paper would show information. Her father had explained to her that the quill was dunked into a substance called ink that was then used to write out words on the paper. This made more sense, but how was that easier than speaking? Her father explained further on that ponies forgot many things from life, and writing them down helped them remember those things a lot more easily. That just made Crystal feel even worse because she couldn't use paper and ink to remember things like others could.
The door to the classroom squeaked open, but this was barely caught by Crystal. It would've passed her by had Ms. Wheatmire not suddenly shouted out, "Pitch, what are you doing back here? I told you to leave."
Pitch had returned!? Crystal felt her heart skip a beat in a rhythmic way. That same butterfly feeling tickled in her stomach as always. It happened so many times around that colt that she barely took any notice to it, but it always was there. Maybe he came back for her; she hoped this was so, but maybe not.
"I know you told me to leave, and I did, but you never said anything about coming back, which I also did. But that's not the important thing, though you may think so, really now, you need to get your priorities straight and grade those tests, while I go over here and talk to Crystal about something important."
Wait, talk to her. He wanted to talk to Crystal. A filly whose mind and feelings were taken by this one colt and now that one colt wanted to talk to her. Crystal's mind was on overload, trying to repel those feelings in defense of the possibility that she was wrong and that he wanted something else. But it would be nice if it was so, so true.
Crystal could hear Pitch move towards her as he continued talking, "In fact, maybe this is even more important than your stupid tests. Maybe I should take Crystal somewhere else because I don't want you knowing about this since you would most definitely disagree."
Breathe in and breathe out. Lightly, Crystal told herself in a frantic pace. He wants to talk to her alone. Something that Ms. Wheatmire would not like. This had to be it, Pitch had never told such a secret that it had to be completely away from other ponies.
"Absolutely not!" shrieked the teacher that put Crystal's dream to glass. It reminded the love-struck filly that she had to be realistic with these things. Ms. Wheatmire would never allow that from any pony, least of all Pitchpatch. She had to hide away tears behind one of her hoof.
"Well…too bad." Pitch countered in an unfitting childish manner. But Crystal couldn't get such enthusiasm, because she had to obey her mother who had put her charge with Ms. Wheatmire. Disrespecting the teacher meant disrespecting her mother. Pitch's hooves continued to clop closer to Crystal, with the filly still being confused as to what she was to do.
"Crystal?" Pitch's voice asked her in a soft, kind manner. Not the arrogant or boastful one he normally used, but an emotion-filled one of pure generosity for her own thoughts, and maybe even her feelings. "Would you come with me so I could talk to you about something very important? But you don't have to if you don't want to."
He was asking for her permission. Ohhhhh, that just made the decision harder. Crystal didn't know what to do. He was not forcing her to do whatever it was he wanted, and Crystal found it so, so romantic, and she liked it. Go along with Pitch and possibly fulfill her own crush and ignore her mother's orders... or stay here and risk the chance of being alone in a crowd. Pitch was the only pony who had ever been so thoughtful and helpful throughout her whole school career.
"Of course she doesn’t want to. She needs to stay here with me." Ms. Wheatmire's voice called out from the other side of the room. Crystal didn't even get a chance to say anything. Didn't her voice matter in these things? Because ponies all seemed to know what was better for her than she did. Wait! She was babying her...like so many other adults and foals had, Ms. Wheatmire was babying her. For the first time in a long while, Crystal felt complete anger well up inside of her. A dormant volcano, covered in snow, ready to blow its top. And she did just that with fury that even she had no idea that she held.
"I can think for myself, so you don't have to do it for me!" Why do ponies have to do...that? Crystal immediately felt so guilty for yelling at her teacher that she felt a few tears fall from her eyes. "I'm sorry, I-I don't know where that came from." What was wrong with her? To yell at her own teacher because she was being a teacher. Wait, no she wasn't teaching her math or any academic subject, she was just using her authority to make the filly do what she wanted her to do.
"It's okay." Pitch said comfortingly to her as he wrapped his forelimbs around her. It was warm.
"No, it's not okay. She should never yell at..."
"Hey lady. Shut up! Can't you see that she's crying, or can your black hole of a heart and tapioca of a brain not process what emotions are?"
Crystal didn't listen to their argument, but she could feel the vibrations of Pitch's chest as she thought about things that were important to her. Maybe even more important than obeying her mother. Pitch never babied her. Never once had he treated her as if she was just a blind filly, but some pony that actually mattered. He said that she did the same for him, but she treated Pitch as she tried to treat everypony else, yet Pitch was the only one who returned those feelings. What was so different about him?
"Crystal, it's okay. Just calm down." Pitch cooed in the filly's ear. He calmed her with words alone, like he always did. Boy, was he good with those words, and Crystal couldn't get enough of them. But Crystal knew that what she had done was wrong.
"No, Pitch. She's right." Crystal said softly, almost in a whisper. "I'm sorry for talking back at you, Ms. Wheatmire. But I've told you that I want to be an adult, not just some blind filly...And you agreed with me and..." Wait, that was true. Ms. Wheatmire did agree with what she had been saying earlier that day...She lied! Her teacher lied and didn't care about what she wished or wanted. "You know what, I take that back. You lied to me Ms...no, not even going to call you Ms. because Pitch is right, we're not in school. It's just Wheatmire. I can't stand liars, especially those who lie right to me." Crystal brought her forelimbs up and around Pitch's body, feeling his small, undeveloped muscles, and gave a big hug. "Maybe it would better if I just go with Pitch. I think I'd feel safer."
"Wait, what?" Wheatmire sounded confused all of a sudden, as all the malice from before fell out her voice in an instant. "You lied to me Wheatmire. You brought up my hopes of somepony understanding what I'm going through, and how my mind is tearing itself apart. Only to crush them when your authority is threatened." Crystal had to force herself to not cry anymore, as she had to be strong to prove herself and achieve her goal of being recognized as a mare in a filly’s body. That drive fueled her rebellion against the beliefs forced upon her by her elders to replace her own that she felt in her soul, her very being, was right for her to be happy. To move past the point of no return, the filly spat on the wooden floor of the schoolhouse that only taught conformity.
"Crystal." Pitch stood in and pulled her back with him. Pulled her off of a rising pedestal in her mind that made her feel so euphoric and so in control. It made her feel like a leader. "That's enough, I think she gets the point." Crystal felt the urge to suddenly kiss his talking lips but she heard his voice change direction and point to where Wheatmire was. "See what forcing yourself on others could do?"
There was a cold steel silence that penetrated the room and its three inhabitants with a feeling like the tip of a sword, bringing Crystal back to Equestria and her right mindset. What? She felt the floorboards beneath her vibrating in syncopation to the trotting of hooves upon it and Pitch pulled her closer into his chest as the colt brought them a step back. "Stay back toad!" He yelled out. What's going on?
"Pain and headache is all you give me Pitchpatch. Pain and headache. Just look at the grey hairs that you've given me. Refusing to be educated the right way and instead trying to use me to prove a point. Crystal is not going anywhere, as I've promise her mother personally that I would stay here and watch her until she arrives. Now Crystal, don't make me go over there. Come here now!" Wheatmire's voice was so forceful and rude. Anger flared up from her lips like fire from a dragon's throat, cooking her like a summer chicken. All of the courage that she had felt from before was now gone completely as she wrapped herself in Pitch's arms for the protection that she now so desperately sought from him. But beneath everything that she afraid of at that very moment was a small trickle of that defiance that remained, compelling her to not go back to her teacher.
"No!" She shouted as loud as she could yell out the word of her choice. This was a battle of who could push the other into doing what they want.
"You hear that, don't you? She doesn't want to be around you. Now get out of the way of the door!" Pitch shouted at the teacher. Crystal then felt the warm air of a whisper on her ear. "She's blocking the door, we can't go out that way."
No way to get out then, as this building had only one door that led to the hallway to outside. Crystal wracked her brain to try and think of a way to get past the angered beast that The Wheatmire had become. For once, the filly was really glad that she was blind, as she couldn't see how angry she was. But from the sound of her breathing from all the way across the room, she was furious, and was most likely going to make good on her threat of forcing her to go with her.
But it was then that she felt a slight stroke along her back. Not from a hoof, but something that was velvet and not even solid. A petting along her spine. That was it! The open window from before was open right behind them. That was their way out. It was in the opposite direction of The Wheatmire. She gently whispered in Pitch's ear, "The window behind us is open. I don't think that she notices."
"Yeah, I feel the wind. I'll jump and you hold on, and then it's freedom time." Pitch confirmed a quick plan. Crystal had no choice to go along as she couldn't see where to jump anyway. Her grip on him tightened with love in his strength and gentleness together. Those feelings helped make this whole thing so much better.
"What are you two planning?" The Wheatmire asked in a dangerously calm voice. "Crystal, I'm losing my patients. Get over here right now! If you don't within the next five seconds…"
"Do you ever shut up? I think I've told you this before, but she's not going over there, and I'm not leaving her side. We're going to be leaving and there won't be a single thing that you could do about it." Confidence rained from Pitch and splashed onto Crystal. If he was this relaxed about what they were doing, than she should be too.
"And what makes you so sure about that little...thing? I'm between you and the door and from the looks of it, you're surrounded by these desks, so by the time you could even get across the rows, I would be right there waiting for you to run right into my strangling arms to squeeze that worthless life out of you before I go on with my day." Crystal heart jumped at that savagery. Where was that anger coming from? It scared her to think that they were in the very same room as she was. Suddenly, she heard a click coming from Pitch. Like a tape player being turned off. "What was that?" Wheatmire must've noticed it too.
"Oh, nothing." Pitch answered in an overly sweet voice. The voice that told others you had something to hide, but weren’t going to hide. "Just this little tape recorder that had recorded everything that you had been saying. Including threatening our lives."
"Don't you dare." Wheatmire's voice was full of a sudden panic. "Give that to me NOW!"
Pitch clicked his most likely grinning lips with his tongue. "You still don't get it, do you?"
In a storm of vibrations, desks and chairs were thrown from where they were, slamming into each other from a powerful shove. Crystal could feel Pitch's muscles tighten and she held onto him as they took off in the opposite direction.
"Oh no you don't!" Wheatmire shouted at the pair and Crystal suddenly felt weightless. A shimmering sound surrounded her and she instantly knew that she, and most likely Pitch, were caught in a levitation spell. Pitch thrashed and jerked every which way next to her in an attempt to shake off the magic. Wheatmire's hooves forcefully grabbed onto Crystal and pulled her away from her knight. She screamed in a panic and fear of what was happening to her. Her teacher was crazy, she didn't want to go with her.
A powerful tightness rushed to her horn with no warning, and Crystal felt a metaphorical snap, like something elastic had just reached its breaking point. A power, unlike anything she had ever felt before, came cascading out of her, and Wheatmire started yelling a painful wain like a wolf howling to the moon. Then the magic Crystal had felt surrounding her broke off and stopped and she fell, striking the floor and dazing her a bit.
Before she could even think about moving, she felt another hoof pull her back in the direction of the window. Another feeling of lightness on her hooves filled her before they hit the ground. She could heard Pitch's lovely voice shout next to her, "Keep running next to me, and don't stop!"
The Princess sat on her throne while Twilight stood at the window, looking outside at the large crowd. A few were very good with magic and rocks would strike and crack the glass from time to time. The purple unicorn turned back to her mentor and her princess to see what the alicorn would do while her brother Shining and the guard took care of the mob. With nothing for her to help with, she just stood around the throne room in the eerie silence past the echoing cries from outside.
Princess Celestia just sat on the gilded throne with her pale eyelids shut, as if she were thinking about something. She didn't look relaxed at all. Twilight returned her gaze back down to the main gate. Ponies were shaking the bars of the large, magic-protected gate in an intimidating way, like a rabid dog on a rampage or a bull seeing red.
But through all the panic that she felt on the inside, her worries for her BBBFF were overpowering. The sickness that he had was getting worse, and she didn't know how much longer she could lie to the whole of the pony government and the security of the land. Her hair, once straight and uncurled with just as straight bangs across her forehead now had strands sticking out all over the place in kooky ways.
"TWILIGHT!" A young voice called to the mare, breaking her train of thought. Why did everypony have to do that?
"WHAT!" She whipped her head around, irritated to find her assistant dragon, Spike looking up at her with his emerald green eyes flashing in the setting sun's light at her in an inquisitive stare with a hint of worry in them,which made Twilight rethink her approach. "What is it Spike?" She asked again, in a much more normal manner.
"I found that book you wanted." He looked from Twilight to Celestia apprehensively and he began to fidget a bit. "You know...that one...you...told me to...get."
"Thank you, Spike. I'll get to it as soon as I can." Twilight replied quickly, once again turning her eyes back onto the Princess with her heart beating in her chest, and she gave a silent breath of relief to see that she still had her eyes closed and no muscle had moved an inch. She turned back to her best friend. "Spike, could you come with me to my room? I need to get something."
The baby, purple dragon raised his eyebrow with a confused look. "But how will we get there if the grounds are too dangerous with those ponies out in front?"
Oh Spike, who always paid attention to detail, but never looked close enough to see the true answer. Twilight lowered her front frame from the windowsill and began to walk with him to the doorway to the hall that wrapped around the whole of the castle. She leaned into the dragon's ear and whispered, "We'll take the underground tunnel there. No pony else knows about it as far as I know.
But before the pair could get out the door, Celestia's firm but kind voice called out from behind them: "Twilight, before you go, could I have a moment with you alone? Spike can wait outside the door."
Twilight held her breath for a second before letting it out to calm herself. She turned to the Princess. "Of course. Spike?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." The dragon said with a smart tone on his lips as he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him as he went. Only Twilight and Celestia were left in the room.
Twilight took a few small steps forward, "What did you want to talk about, Princess?"
At first, Celestia didn't answer. She only stood from her throne and steadily walked to the windows to look out of them. When she did speak, it was breathy and mysterious, "I would really appreciate it if you didn't try to learn magic outside of what I'm teaching you."
The purple unicorn felt small and insignificant. She was shocked, but not surprised that she knew what she and Spike were doing behind her back, now in front of her muzzle.
"Don't act so surprised, I knew you were doing it from the beginning. I monitor that section of the library very closely." The Princess' hardened gaze was brought upon the little Twilight, who shrunk even smaller under its weight. Oh, now she was going to get it. The Princess would probably finish the lessons she had been teaching Twilight and knock her back to magic kindergarten for acting like such a foal. "The book that you had Spike pick up for you was a book I had plans to take out of the library before you had a chance to get to it, but my royal duties, plus trying to please everyone, had taken my attention elsewhere. Twilight, that book's magic should not be learned... as to why it is in that section, it is because only myself and those I choose are permitted there." Her gaze softened. "But I'm not mad at you. You didn't know about what that book contains."
Twilight shrank even smaller, if that was even possible at this point. Her head felt heavier and she looked at the carpet across the floor, trying to count the individual arches of cloth, as she tried to come up with words to say...What could she say other than the truth? "Actually, Princess. I did know what the book contained. I've been trying to build up my magic to try and tackle that magic."
The guilty unicorn looked back up to see her obviously disappointed teacher take her turn to look at the carpet. That eerie silence followed once again, but was much shorter than before. "Just go." Her voice was full of sadness for a type of betrayal that was between them only. "I'll think of something to do with you later, after those ponies are dealt with."
Not to waste a moment, Twilight took off running to the door. Her magic threw it open and shut behind herself as she left. Her breath was shaky as she tried to hold in the tears that she felt threatening to come out. A sudden hand on her shoulder surprised her, and she jerked up to see that it was only Spike, who looked with just as much sadness in his face. "Twilight…"
"No Spike... please don't say anything. There's a change of plans, let's just go to the barracks and wait for Shining to return." She began to slowly walk down the hallway; not even the thought of seeing her own brother was making her feel any better. That sickness was probably because of it.
"But what do you want to do with this book, than?" Spike asked as he held the book up.
Twilight turned to look at the book, and then back up at her assistant. "Just leave it at the door. The Princess will get it later."Nothing more was said and she continued on her way.
Spike looked back down at the leather-bound pages in his clawed hands with a bit of fear of leaving it behind. But he did as he was told and carefully sat the book down in front of the door before he ran after his best friend.
Shining Armor's coughing fit worsened, rumbling violently and uncontrollably in his chest, and his magic held a wet rag to his mouth to muffle the sound. The group didn't want to be noticed just yet as they all hid behind the wall of the alley. He finally got his orders out to his team. "When I give the signal, Soul Flasher will erect the barriers and we will march down the street side-by-side because it looks intimidating, and it will show off our superior numbers to them. Maybe it will even break their spirits. I want Golden Ray to take to the skies with his team to stop any escaping pegasi, because I don't want anypony leaving this crime scene."
Shining leaned against the brick wall and took a peek around the corner, making sure that no pony was looking in his direction before looking out further at the buildings that surrounded the front gate of the castle. He could just make out through his blurring vision the hiding unicorns that were going to use their magic and unleash the barriers.
Everything was going according to the plan. Until a huge pressure of a very large cough began to unexpectedly fill his chest. Shining panicked and reached as quickly as he could for the rag, but it happened so fast that he didn't have anytime to fight back, and a loud coughing fit roared and echoed through the alleyway. It just wouldn't stop and he just kept coughing and coughing, as the pain filled his chest that begged for it to stop before his heart did.
"OWOWOWOWOW. THAT WAS NOT FAIR AT ALL!" He shouted in more annoyance than pain. A pair of earth ponies silenced any further wailings with their hooves and shushing him to quiet.
One pony even whispered, "Be quiet. You want them to know we're here?"
Soul Flasher was looking down upon the mob from on top of the building he was on. But even above the yelling of the crowd, he could still make out coughing in the direction of the alleyway. Oh no, he was afraid this would happened. Some of the ponies below must've heard it as well as they began to investigate over in that direction with pointing hooves. This was not good. Well, at least Shining's plan was versatile. "Erect the barriers." He simply said.
"But sir? Shining has yet to give us the signal." One unicorn said with confusion written on his face.
"He did, in the form of a coughing attack that has just revealed his position. Do it!" Soul was not about to let this chance go to waste. He had been under Shining's dark shadow for far too long. But that sense of duty to his commander still boiled within him and he needed to get Shining out of the mess that he had found himself unknowingly in.
The unicorn's magic crackled to life, and a giant wall of shimmering rose colored magic was conjured, as tall as the building they were on, blocked half of the road while a unicorn on the other side did the same. Two others blocking another road and now the mob ponies had no where to go but one way.
"It's the guard!" A pony shouted while pointing up at the unicorns. A few rocks were thrown up at them, but none even came close. Soul looked to the barriers and their creators. "Keep at ‘em. I'll be right back."
Soul teleported in a bright flash of white light over to where Shining's group was in the alley. "Shining! The mob is on to us!" He shouted. The blue-colored unicorn was about to give an order when another coughing fit covered his throat. Growling, Soul took command. "Golden, get your pegasi into the sky, come on ponies, let's protect our Equestria!"
With roaring and shouting, the guard of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi took off after the mob down the road. The ponies were frankly surprised at the number of ponies Celestia was willing to use to beat them back and restore peace. They clashed when they met. The earth ponies were tackling those who got in their way, unicorns fired knockout magic, and pegasi swooped down like birds. It was complete controlled chaos, but the fighting kept surging.
The mob had finally gotten their bearings and had begun to fight back, even as a voice shouted over over the mayhem. They beat, fought, casted, and did just as much as they could do to get the guard off of their backs. Never before in so many years of peace had such an intense battle been fought.
Soul ran along the outside of the pounding to throw his own magic at the ponies, not really caring about where they hit. He saw Golden Ray dropkick an earth pony out of the melee onto his back out cold. Soul looked up at the setting sun before continuing his barrage.
Ponies panicked and screamed before they were silenced. Punching and kicking were favored, Curses were preferred over speech. Ponies on both sides of the mash felt bruises throbbing, bones snapping, skin pierced and bleeding, as they fell to hooves above their darkening vision. They bounced to and fro, back and forth like dancers in a play while the ending scene is underway. But none of this was make-believe as one earth pony's teeth were knocked out of his gaping mouth. There was no time for thinking, only for doing what ponies have had not done for so many years.
Pitch was confused and frightened beyond his wits at the violence that he found himself in. No matter how many times or how hard he struck open space, his hooves refused to go through the light the blocked his way. Crystal was right behind him and must've been even more confused at the loud noises surrounding her. Why wasn't this letting them out! Stupid magic!
Pitch had planned this all out. Even though he hadn’t really needed the part about taking her backpack, he had been planning to ask Crystal for a date, but now from the curiosity that he had felt when he had heard the ruckus, he became trapped here. It was school all over again!
Scrambling around while dodging ponies left and right and pulling Crystal along behind him, he looked for a way to get out before he noticed a road that was not blocked by a barrier. Freedom was in sight, it must be. The alleyways were in that direction. He could get both of them out of there to safety.
Pitch ran, dodging and weaving his way around dancing legs and ducking under a blast of magic before he finally reached the edge of the ponies fighting. He rushed around the corner of the alley, only to barrel right into Shining Armor. "I'm really not going to get a break." Shining complained about his luck.
Pitch's world spun around and around as stars twinkled in his head. What just happened? But before he could get anything else out of his scrambled mind, somepony grabbed him and lifted him up off the ground. Pitch never let go of Crystal's leg. He held steadfast as a brick wall.
"What are you two kids doing here?" A voice asked them before a cough exploded out of his words.
Pitch's heart leapt in his chest and for the first time in his life, he didn't feel confident about what was going to happen to him.
Shining jerked his body roughly into the turns, as he carried the fighting foals in his magic down a short flight of dimly lit stairs. His movement was on autopilot, created from honed muscle memory and direct second nature, as he had gone this way many times before. He could feel the strength of his magic pulse wildly from the dance-like wiggling that the two made in vain. Their annoying grunts and groans of struggle distracted him. This, and his cold, had made his job a bit more difficult...but not impossible. Problems pushed aside, Shining walked with a veil of confidence through the halls of the soldier's barracks and down into the holding cells.
His every step echoed across the old stone walls and metal cages. Many guards have said the sound had made them weary and scared to go back down here, especially when they were jailing somepony. They usually stuck them in a cell closer to the door. Shining could never see what made them feel this way. He personally would prefer to walk all the way last cell in the block to dispose of the criminals temporarily, but unfortunately the criminals were scarce and mostly too stupid to make a challenge. To him, the echos sounded like the thundering applause of a crowd congratulating him of another job well done. The cameras clicking his poses. Civilians were excitedly shouting for his autograph. "Let us go, now!" Shining's images melted away from his vision. He desperately reached out to cling to it with his magic, but it disappeared completely.
Foals should shut up! His head felt clearer for some reason suddenly. No slight strain on his senses. His magic had stopped. Hooves could be heard stomping away quickly down the hallway back towards the doorway. Shining just stood there shocked, not knowing what to think or do. They wouldn't get very far.
"What?" A little, quiet voice asked from below him. Shining looked down to see the filly hadn't run off. Instead, she laid there on the cold stone ground, all sprawled out and looking around, as if she were in a daze. "Pitch? Pitch!? Where are you?" How scared she sounded. Her breathing quickened and became shorter. The sound was small, yet the echo it created carried. "Stone blocks?" She continued, most likely talking to herself in a slight whisper, yet Shining could still hear her. "I should've listened to mother." Shining wasn't going to say anything.
"Put! Me! Down! I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just being foal handled by those bigger than me and I don't like it." The colt's voice called out from where he had run off to.
The filly gasped. "Pitch!?" She began to get up, just as a guard carrying the frantically fighting colt came around the corner before him. In a swift cast, the filly screamed piercingly in his ear as she was brought up alongside her partner. Shining wiggled his ears to get the humming sound out of them, as he motioned for the guard to follow him, and the two made their way further into the depths of the cells.
They now stood at the back of the cell block, facing a brick and cement wall covered in mildew. The air was thick and heavy with trapped stale moisture. Shining's throat clenched from his sickness and the mustiness around them, forcing him to cough once again. This hacking was more of a gurgle deep in his gullet that loosened some flem than a bark of air, which he cleared with an ahem and swallowed.
"These two cells." He pointed with a hoof and spoke, gurgling a tiny bit more, aheming again to clear the remaining flem.
"What about cells?" The filly asked. She sounded scared and confused. "Pitch? What's happening to us? Where are we?"
Shining almost stomped his hoof on the stone floor from a burst of light anger, but held that impulse in check. He wasn't talking to ignorant commanders under him, but to civilians. He calmly asked: "You don't know where you are? The big fight? Why do you ask what's going on when you've seen it happen with your own eyes?" He brought the floating filly eye level with him and close enough that she wouldn't have anywhere else to look.
He heard the colt mumble something under his breath. Without moving the filly, Shining looked with annoyance at the colt who had a playful, devilish smirk on his lips, yet vengeful anger flashing in his eyes older than the colt was himself. "What did you say?"
"I called you stupid. You know why? Of course not, you wouldn't have figured it out, so let me tell you, and make it easier for you." This colt spoke with complete arrogance and confidence, contrasting what Shining had seen before. "Can't you see that Crystal's blind? This is why I never saw what my classmates see in you." That look in his eye never once left. Shining didn't feel an ounce of fright from it, yet he was weary of it. It was the same look that Bright had given him before. One of sightless anger, and of no doubts as to what they wanted at that moment.
"That's quite a silver tongue you got there in your mouth. Those with it usually become politicians and natural-born leaders. Knowing which words fit where in a sentence with the greatest effect." Shining paused for a moment. The possible words flew through his mind. "Maybe the two of us are no different."
The colt flinched wildly at that thought, shaking his head just as violently as his body. "No...never! I could never be like you! I would never hurt all those ponies! Why would you even think that!?"
Shining shrugged. "I don't know. Just thinking out loud." He turned to look at the little filly floating in his telekinetic grip. "I have to admit though. I couldn't tell that you were blind."
"Big surprise there." The colt added sarcastically, now off on the sidelines.
Shining didn't say anything about that: instead, he spoke to the filly. "So, your name is Crystal?" He asked, trying to start off a conversation, but the attempt sounded forced. Crystal's head slowly nodded anyway.
“Crystal! You don’t have to answer anything that he asks!” That colt was just about the most irritating thing Shining has ever seen and heard, and that’s saying something. He was about to tell the disrespectful little brat to be quiet when, surprisingly, the quiet, little filly beat him to the punch.
“I can decide that for myself. I told Wheatmire that, and now…I-I’m asking please.” Crystal snapped as she turned sharply in the magic field. She didn’t yell at him, she only sounded slightly peeved. Yet, coming from a seemingly quiet foal, this was a lot more intimidating to Shining than that colt’s expressions had been.
From the looks of it, the colt felt the same way. Shining could see him cowering into his shoulders pitifully. “Yeah, you’re right.” He managed to squeak out. “I’m sorry about that. I’m just trying to protect you, I guess.” He spoke, no longer with confidence, but a tone of submission.
“I know you are, but I can take care of myself.”
A lifting feeling overcame Shining there. He wasn’t new to it, yet at this time and place, it was strange. It was a feeling of respect for this filly named Crystal. Shining had no idea why.
The guard stepped forward in front of Shining with large eyes widened. “Sir, shouldn’t we be getting them into the cells now?” He asked unexpectedly, looking around uneasily.
Shining looked back behind him at the wall again. The cracks in the plaster and bits of mold were everywhere. “Yes, but not here.” He said quickly, craning his head to the foals. “Let’s return up front. No more talking.” He ended on that note, and the group moved back to the entrance.
As they made their way back, another gold dressed guard marched noisily down the stairs towards them. “Sir.” He saluted his officer. “2nd Cap. Flasher is requesting to speak with you. From how he was talking, it sounded like it was important.” “Okay. Just- Just tell him I’m busy right now and have him meet me in my room later.”
“Yes sir.” The guard respectfully retreated back up the stairs and out of the room.
Shining suddenly felt his magic tremble uncontrollably. He looked at the blind filly to see that she was shaking violently. “Pitch?” She asked, sounding scared once again. “Where are we?”
“Um...well.” Pitch looked unsure.
“Pitch!”
Shining took over and decided to be honest.
“You're in Canterlot Castle’s dungeon for your part in the destructive mob that had almost claimed a life.”
Crystal reared back in shock at this, and then she began to tremble before visibly starting to panic, to Shining's chagrin “Wait...what!? Mob? W-What mob? Pitch!” She screamed. “Pitch!!! Where did you take me?”
“Just put them in this cell together. We’ll interrogate them with the rest when they get here. Doubt she’ll give us anything, though.” Shining ordered the guard who nodded.
The door of the cell opened, and the two foals were thrust into the cage. The magic released them onto the floor, and the door closed behind them. Crystal continued to shout out to the colt Pitch, but he didn’t answer her. Instead, he slowly crawled over to where she was, to hug her ever so tightly.
Book 1: Chapter 9: Complete and Utter Loss of Words
Shining's walk through the hall of the barracks became strangely difficult for him when his head began to swim with a fuzzy mist. A throbbing pressure built up in his temples. He found himself having to lean against a wall, rubbing his forehead, trying to relieve the pain.
"Oh Celestia." He whispered breathlessly, taking long, deep breaths in and out shakily. "I don’t know how much longer this will last."
He slowly stumbled to his room. As before, Shining paid no attention to his surroundings till he reached the door he wanted. He found it open so he just slinked in weakly, leaning his body against a bedpost. His thoughts flashed through his mind, so fast, he couldn't even tell what they were. The world melted around him like hot ice cream.
A voice called out from the mess: "Shining!" In his daze, he looked around for the voice, but it sounded more forced now and closer. It was coming from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see his little sister and adopted little brother, Spike, with heartbreaking horror on their faces.
Twilight was over at his side instantly, her hoof pressing against his forehead. Shining had to wince at the throbbing pain that caused. Twilight instantly backed up from her brother, then said hurriedly: "I'm so sorry! Spike, go get a warm wash cloth!" She ordered the little dragon, who promptly agreed without words. "Shining, what does it feel like?"
Shining couldn't do anything with the mash of thought in his head. He only let out a single forced:" Ow." He collapsed to the floor, the cold tile feeling soothing against his skin.
As Twilight frantically helped him lean against the bed's headboard, she reprimanded him, "That's not helping. I can't help you it you don't let me."
Spike's little dragon claws clicked along the ground, running back. "Got it Twilight." He gave it to Twilight who held it weakly in her magic, barely there at all.
Through gasps of extreme breathlessness, Shining tried to explain to her. "There- There's a...pain. It's like I have a head cold, or something. It's all up here." He pointed a hoof to where she had touched him.
“We need to get you to a hospital. I’ll do it with a teleportation spell. It’s simple.” Twilight pleaded with her crumpled brother.
He only shook his head. “No. No. I can’t do that. After all this? What would the foals in Canterlot, or even in all of Equestria think if their hero fell to a little cold? They’d be devastated. I don’t ever want to even see a betrayed foal’s face like that. Ever.” Shining stubbornly stated, trying to stand up on his hooves.
“Shining.” Twilight tried to reason with her brother...no, she was begging, really. “Please don’t do this to me. I can’t lose you.”
He turned to her. Her eyes were watering and wide with absolute fear. He slowly reached up and pulled her into his breathing chest as he spoke softly as he could: “I’m not going anywhere, Twilly. Why would I put my sister through that again? I almost did once. But I’ve got to keep out of the hospital, it’s a place for people who have fallen weak and can’t take care of themselves. Celestia’s rule is being challenged by ponies who would exploit that weakness if shown, especially after today. I don't think they’re done yet. Just follow me on this one.”
Twilight pulled herself out of the hug from her brother and slowly paced the room from the bed, to the dresser, to the closed window facing out over the expanse of the city below. The ponies looked like ants. She looked conflicted, Shining thought as he watched her. Finally, she bit her lip and sighed. “Okay. I can see what you mean. But if you're wrong, I’ll knock you out and put you in the hospital myself.”
“Twilight, you don’t mean that, do you?” Spike asked, looking a bit worriedly at his older adopted sister. “Can we still take care of him?”
She looked at the little baby dragon. “We can do it, Spike.”
“Well, if you’re so sure, I’m sure. What do we need to do?”
"Well, he’s heating up a lot. Let's get him to bed. Come on, get up." She leaned her body underneath Shining, and grunted from the exertion of pushing him up until Shining finally got into the bed. He looked at her, confused as to the lack of her use of magic. "Spike, I know I'm asking a lot out of you quickly, but could you go get Shining's neti-pot and get it ready with warm water and…"
"Yeah, Twi. I know how to get it setup. Just get him into bed.” Spike interrupted, but in a very toned down way. He ran into the bathroom, and a moment later the water could be heard running.
At this moment, the door slowly opened to reveal a pale Soul Flasher, who looked like he had been sweating a lot before this, as his mane looked all crusty and shined a bit in the light. "Oh, um...good afternoon Soul Flasher."
Soul wobbled into the room, shaking his head sadly. "No Miss Sparkle. It's not a good afternoon from what's happened. The other guards and I are all shaking sweating, and...or crying. I don't even feel good about what happened out there anymore."
Shining's voice spoke from the bed, still just as weak, but he was trying to force strength into his tone all the same. "Did you at least get the prisoners down into the cells?"
Soul sighed and slowly shook his head. "Yes, but we're going to have to talk about that later."
Wanting to change the subject, Twilight thought hard, rubbing her chin with a hoof. "Hmm. From your symptoms. I'm thinking you might be having what my book calls Post Combat Fatigue."
Soul took a couple of steps back. "Why would you read a book about war illnesses, or whatever that came from?"
Twilight slightly smirked at her answer. "It actually came from a book about ancient pegasi culture."
Soul stared dumbly at Twilight before muttering out quickly: "That's a bit creepy, but strangely makes sense. But I'm not here for idle chit-chat. Princess Celestia has requested that all the leaders from the defense this afternoon meet her in the throne room for a meeting to talk about what happened."
Twilight's pulse suddenly quickened in her veins, and her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her brother was supposed to be concentrating on getting better, not playing war games. She knew Shining knew that, she knew Soul knew that, and she knew Celestia knew that Equestria was not made for fighting. Celestia was just chucking the dice and taking the chips when she won.
"Really?" Shining whined from the bed. He turned over on his side and faced Soul. "She said that? Every word?"
"Yes. She's not in too much of a hurry, probably steeling herself for the news that's to come."
A complete and utter loss of words hit Twilight. Not knowing what to say, she just went with what her mind thought. "No!" Twilight shouted, jumping in between Soul and Shining, as if she was trying to stop the conversation. Turning her furious gaze onto Soul, she pushed her words into his face. "I won't have Shining put at risk anymore because Celestia says so! He has been getting worse and worse with this sickness, and having him doing all these things like fighting is not helping! He needs rest! This is the last straw and I'm putting my hoof down!"
Soul quickly took a few steps back towards the door as Twilight's eyes pierced him through. "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but these are orders from her Majesty herself and I have to follow them...and so do you. Just don't get mad at me for what she does next time."
Twilight's stomach sunk guiltily. It swam there uncomfortably, just treading water and not trying to get itself out. "So much for love and kindness." She tried to bury that guilt with anger but that only seemed to be fertilizer for the plant and it grew inside of her. Her outward appearance didn’t show a single thing wrong, but inside was a battle all on its own. Maybe ponies weren't made for fighting externally, but they sure could do it internally.
Soul took back the steps that he lost before and got closer to Twilight. He didn't glare at her even if he sure wasn't happy with Twilight's words. She knew that was the case. "You've been a little hot-head lately, Twilight. Why would you be so willing to break so many of the Princess' rules?" Memories came flooding back to Twilight's mind and she reeled from them The question was a spell going off and it struck her right in her mind and tore through it. Sadness was right behind the thoughts and Twilight couldn't handle it. "I don't think that's any of your business, Soul." Shining stood up for his shrinking sister, who was slowly moving away from Soul. Spike ran up to her and embraced her as she began to cry.
Shining's glare was like Twilight's as it tore through Soul. The unicorn stood there, looking at the scene before him with his mouth slightly dropped in confusion at what had just happened. "Twilight, I'm sorry if I hurt you." He sighed wholly. "Come on, Shining. The princess is waiting."
"I SAID NO!" Twilight's shrieking, tear stained voice took over.
Spike looked over at the two unicorns and motioned for them to just go. Shining sadly nodded and the pair silently left the room, leaving Twilight and Spike alone with the echoing cry.
The musty fog that clouded Shining's mind still had not lifted even as he and Soul walked down the hall towards the Princess' throne room. While Soul weakly held his head down, letting it flop around with his steps, Shining tried to hold his head up and walk with authority in his paces. Each of their uncomfortable ailments proved to be too superior for them, however, and their path wobbled here and there on weakened strides. Shining's breathing was difficult, but not impossible. He hated the risks, but his duties had to come first. But he fully believed that Twilight was right and he needed rest; he felt that now.
"So, what is wrong with your sister? I don't mean to pry if it's personal, but I don't know what I've done to cause her to act that way. She's usually all quiet and shy." Soul asked Shining curiously.
Shining knew what was wrong. Twilight would hate for that information to be shared, but he figured that he could let Soul know what it was. Maybe he could help her. "She's still hurt over mom and dad's deaths. She took it hard, like me, but she couldn't get over it, like I could. Even Spike seems to have gotten over it, from what I've seen. And don't tell her I said that."
Soul glanced down at the cobblestone floor, which felt cold against his hooves as they strode over it. "I'm sorry. But I don't see how that could cause her to go against the Princess so often. She's not the type to lash out from anger."
The pair turned a corner in the hallway and passed two guards who immediately saluted their leaders as they moved on. Shining saluted the pair back, yet Soul just continued onward as if he didn't notice them.
Shining wasn't sure that he should go any further in letting out Twilight's secrets. He decided that changing the subject would be better for him should Twilight ever find out. She had her ways. "You obviously don't know my sister as well as you may think." Shining chuckled a fake laugh. "One time, she put a very strong sleep potion in my water because I had found something of hers that she didn't want found; don't ask. Turned out, the recipe she used called for a dangerously heavy dose of tranquilizers, and apparently, I almost never woke up."
"Dear Celestia." Soul breathed out, surprised to hear about the lavender unicorn’s darker side. "I can't see her doing that.”
Shining laughed a bit louder as they reached a crossroad in the halls, moving off from the main one in different directions. "It wasn't the first, nor will it be the last time she does something like that."
A battle cry, as if from older, medieval times erupted out of nowhere, and Shining found himself knocked down from a weight now on his chest. Looking up, he saw Bright Wing on top of him with eyes wide with pure ferocity in them.
"Murderer!" Bright's right hoof crashed into Shining's cheek and his jaw popped with a sting of pain from the force.
Surprised, Shining couldn't think of what to do, so he just thrashed about, trying to free himself from the attacker’s weight. It didn't work, and Bright managed to strike him a few more times before Soul pulled the ballistic pegasus off of his commander with his magic.
"Bright, just calm down!" The unicorn tried to talk sense into the pegasus, but this evidently didn't work.
As Shining got to his hooves, Bright screamed out the top of his lungs. "He made that stupid plan! He didn't even fight in the battle, from what I've heard from the guards! He got my coltfriend killed!"
"Rock's dead?" Shining asked, surprised.
Bright turned quickly back to the stallion. He spat out, "Like you ever cared."
"Enough." Soul harshly spoke with a controlled tone. "There's been enough yelling in my ears for today, so everypony can just knock it off, and let's be sensible about this." His words, though quiet, resonated in the hall like a haunting.
With a syncopated clicking of rushing hooves over the stone floor, the pair of guards Shining and Soul had passed by before came running over to the military leaders. "Sirs, what's going on? Are you alright? We heard sounds of a struggle."
Shining turned his entire body with authority once again to the pair. "We're fine, but I can't say the same for him. Bright Wing here has just attacked me for no reason except for anger, and I want him arrested for it."
Both Soul and Bright looked to their commander. Soul was more surprised. "Shining, you heard why he..."
"You deserved it. I'm not feeling guilty at all." Bright added.
"Enough." Shining overrode Soul's yell, barking out like a rabid dog. A deep silence filled the hallway with an awkward and uncomfortable feeling. The hum of Soul's magic was the only sound that made it all bearable. Shining finally continued, "He assaulted me, and the last time I checked, assault was against the law."
Faced with such an argument of politics against a situation of emotion, Soul softly sighed. It pained him that he couldn't do anything to help. "Yes sir." He said, a little unearnest. "You two, get him to the cells, and pray to Celestia they're full."
Shining didn't like that statement, but he kept quiet about it.
"What should we do if they are full?" The unicorn guard asked as his magic pulled the silent but fuming Bright Wing over to him.
"One of you will get me." Soul said, almost like he was telling a secret.
"Yes sir." They saluted and made their way back down the hallway.
As they did, Bright Wing called back to Shining. "I guess you really don't care about morals. You're just trying to cover up your..."
Shining tuned him out and only turned back to Soul. "Let's just get this done. My headache is coming back." He yawned rudely.
~~~
Twilight finished her crying soon after the two stallions left to go play their war games. Shining's leaving broke the rose-colored glasses that had once covered her eyes in the sweetness of harmony. She didn't feel an ounce of doubt as to who he would help more, should both need him. The other was loyalty to Celestia. Twilight now felt alone in her struggle to understand, and to not just let it go.
The depressed unicorn was laying down next to Spike on her brother's bed, which was colored with two shades of blue and purple. Her mind flashed with images of fire, troubling thoughts of everypony's lives being lost while this fight gets worst. Along with many that shouldn't even be repeated to anypony else...especially to Soul Flasher and Celestia...maybe she should add Shining to that list too.
But by thinking such things, was she willing herself to still be Celestia's personal student? Her wild imagination created an image of her learning all the most powerful spells, and succeeding in blowing up the planet. Her doubts and fears could hold her back, but history had a nasty habit of repeating itself. Her mind only told her that enough family members were in direct service to the crown...or was she missing something else?
"Spike? Am I doing the right thing being here?" The doubtful unicorn asked the dragon, who raised an eyebrow in confusion. A look that Twilight didn't like. She instantly knew that she wasn't going to get an answer she would've liked.
"Huh? I don't know what you mean." He had a blank look on his face that said the same thing to Twilight.
Twilight figured that this was better than nothing though, and was just happy that Spike just listened when she was in need of an ear. She nodded anyway, "I would have to agree with that." She figured it was best to just confuse him than to bring him into this whole mess of hers. He was still too innocent for its hold. Her hoof rubbed the colored blanket along the seams where the two blues and two purples met.
"Twilight." Spike's worry-filled voice called to her, bringing her thoughts back under control again. "I don't know what's wrong with you. You're acting like everypony you love would just leave you." He paused there for a moment. A rock in deep concentration, before he began again. "But what happened to Mom and Dad wasn't your fault. You didn't have any control of your magic then."
The little dragon could always read his older sister like a book, even if he didn't know it himself. It served her well before, and it continued to do so now, as Twilight felt a little better. The fabric of guilt was folded away for now, until the next time it would surface from the closet of her mind. She didn't know what it was about the helpful little dragon that always brought her out of the deepest caverns of negativity, but she loved him dearly for it and so much more.
Twilight smiled and gave her little brother a little scratch behind his ears. "Thank you. You always know how to cheer me up."
"Of course, I couldn't just leave you like that." Spike pointed out like it was no problem at all. It wasn't, but it meant so much to the friendless unicorn. The pair pulled into a deep and meaningful hug that could've lasted an eternity. The atmosphere of the room was now one of comfort and happiness.
They stayed that way for a few seconds, just letting the family ties string them together. While not by blood, it was by emotions, and that was enough for them to feel that they were siblings.
Twilight unfortunately let go first. While this was a feeling that she wanted to keep going, and possibly show with her brother, she knew that there were some things that needed to get done. It was back to her admittedly chopped up plan. She thought about what had gone wrong. The book, the Princess, everything had happened at the wrong time and Twilight now had to do something new to be able to move on with her plan. Celestia knew about the book, what it held, and now knew that Twilight wanted it. Twilight hoped that Celestia wouldn't know about those reasons too. The smoldering sense of failure extinguished any confidence that she had had put into, and it took away the sense of accomplishment that the unicorn had felt over the past year with learning spell after spell after spell after spell and so on to build up and train her magic for that one book. The one book that could make all the hard work she put into her personal studies behind Celestia's back worth it.
"Today should've gone a lot better." The unicorn mused over the events in her head over again, but couldn't think up one problem. Until she looked back to Spike and the book. She stopped her pacing and looked at her assistant with wide eyes. "But I had you leave that book by her door." She face-hoofed herself in frustration while an irritated growl rumbled from her throat. "Stupid. Stupid."
Spike pointed something out to her. "But if we hadn't left the book with her and had just taken it with us, we would've been in a lot of trouble for disobeying."
"True." Twilight's mood got a bit brighter as this positive thought came out. "Maybe we aren't in that much trouble with her after all."
"And if you think about it, you haven't really broken any laws or any of the Princess's rules of the castle. Except maybe the book one. You could still be in good graces with her." Spike spoke with confidence about the situation.
Twilight thought about it. Maybe Spike could be right, or maybe it was a fool's hope behind a fool's dream. She shook her head. "After today, I don't think Celestia will be trusting me with the more advanced spell books in the library ever again." She started to pace once again, as her mind worked hard to think up a solution. Rethinking on what she knew and analyzing what she has seen and heard, but only one thing was certain to her. "We need to get that book back.
"You're going to try again?" Spike questioned. He was a bit surprised at the thought of Twilight still trying.
"I need to perform the ritual spell. I just have to." She finally said sadly.
"Twi." Spike spoke, as the unicorn who went back to looking at the multi-colored bedspread. She had the same one. "I still don't think a necromancy spell would help. Something could go wrong. Can't you just say goodbye like everypony else has?"
The unicorn turned back to the dragon. She stood far over the spikes on his head. It was like the king on the throne looking down on his subject, about to ridicule them for doing something wrong. The light created a shadow that darkened the bags under Twilight's eyes. She hasn't been sleeping well. Her gaze was firm and Spike had to take a few steps back just so he could escape that gaze, but Twilight followed him with her eyes and wouldn't let him go. Spike knew to watch out when Twilight gave that look. Finally, after the few seconds that had passed that felt like an hour to the dragon, Twilight spoke with a mix of harshness and softness in her tone: "I can't help but feel guilty over the last fight I had with Mom and Dad. The very last thing I said to them before I walked into that test room was 'don't come to visit if I make it.' In my gut, I knew I was wrong to say that, but I was so angry over their constant persistence of proving the family's worth. Now I know I have to at least try to make things right. If it doesn't work out, I may not be able to move on like the others have. Scratch that, I know failing isn't an option. I have to tell them I'm sorry."
Spike listened to that speech and slowly sighed, a bit down at his vain attempts to help his sister. "I understand, Twi, but what can we do now? The Princess will be watching the library now."
“If it's still there, she could be keeping it somewhere else now." Twilight said, back to her thinking voice and train of thought.
"That's true." Spike couldn't disagree with that. "But we can't keep looking at this is a negative way, or else we will never get anything done."
"I know I'm being a pessimist right now, but that doesn't mean that I'm always that way. Plus, it seems to help keep my thoughts together and help me think better through the details." Twilight began to pace the room once again, all other things were aside for now. "Well, what if I called her back with some information that was just damaging to Celestia?" Twilight asked in a tiny, innocent voice that hid nothing. "She would have to deal with that on top of everything else, she'll be swamped." She saw Spike's face darken with fear in his features. The dragon looked conflicted, and Twilight could understand why. What she was suggesting was no short of treachery. Looking back on it too, Twilight even wondered if it was all worth it. Personal redemption of one's own mistake or the secure notion of not going to jail because of an angry princess?
"Twi, you do remember what I said about being in the Princess' good graces, right?" Spike repeated the statement hopefully. Twilight nodded in assurance. "Then why can't you just go up to her and tell her about your plans for the book? I'm sure she would help you or help with everything else."
With not even a thought on her mind, the purple unicorn suddenly shot across the room and pressed her muzzle against Spike's snout. His gaze filled hers, as she didn't allow the dragon to turn away from her shouting: "What!? Are you crazy? She'd throw me out for sure. No...we must do this in secret." That was just how moving forward had to be done. Maybe Spike didn't understand that not everything could be told to other ponies. Twilight calmed down enough to open the bedroom door and walk out into the barracks hallway. Her legs were all shaking uncontrollably. Spike hurried to catch up.
Twilight took a glance at Spike and saw that he was quite scared at what she was proposing. She knew it wasn't a good idea for Spike to be doing this, he was just a baby dragon. Maybe that was for the best. "Spike." Twilight continued, her voice as shaky as her hooves. Maybe it was better if she didn't try this idea either... no, that was just fear talking, and fear never got anypony anywhere. "I won't make you do this if you're not comfortable with helping me too much." She could see the dragon's eyes light up at what she was saying. "Why don't you just find out where 'you-know-what' is while I do what I need to do?" It was certainly best to not talk about the details in the open.
The talons on Spike's fingers clicked, as he rubbed his hands together. "I-I think I would like that a lot better."
"Okay." Twilight nodded while smiling at her best friend. "Than meet me in my room later." And with that said, the two parted ways. Spike headed towards the central wing of the castle while Twilight headed for the underground tunnels.
The yelling and screaming had thankfully died out, and Crystal could remove her hooves from her ears. The cold damp floors and the strange unknown made her shiver like it was a winter day in the snow. Pitch’s embrace was just enough help her feel brave enough to not cry out in fear, but the fear still lingered, drooling with hunger for her. And Crystal was afraid.
Metal on metal rubbed loudly from somewhere far off, and a distorted voice began howling like mad. Crystal held onto Pitch tighter, as she could feel him hold her tighter too. The shouting was quickly coming closer and closer quickly.
As the shouting drew near, something unexplainable happened. Crystal couldn’t think of a word or phrase that would’ve done it justice. The exact experience was new, and somehow gave her a sense of achievement, even wonder.
Through the glow of her empty vision, a something went by. It was wasn’t moving, but moved just the same. “He doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore, and you both know it!” The shouting continued. “You would get killed in a heartbeat, and he wouldn’t even bat an eye to you! Look, he even throws foals in prison! You still want to do what he says to you!?”
“That’s enough of that.” A second voice commanded. Crystal heard the shimmering sound of magic being used, and the shouting ceased.
The “something” went by and Crystal could no longer see it. The impact of that thought hit her like a rock. Was that sight, something that she could not have? It was beautiful. Had that been color? Would she ever see it again? Tears filled her eyes that she couldn’t help shed.
“Shhhh.” Pitch hushed her and she could feel him stroking her cheek. “It’s okay, they’re gone.” He thought that she was crying from fear. That couldn’t have been any further from the truth.
Her lips barely moved as she slurred the words she spoke to him, like she was reading a manuscript. “It’s not that Pitch. It was just so beautiful. Something I had never seen before, ever seen at all, ever. Is that sight? You had to have seen it, you can see. What did you see?”
“What do you mean, you saw something?” Pitch sounded confused, and rightly so. Crystal knew she can’t see, never could see anything, yet there had been something in the infinite nothing she always saw. “It was just a couple of guards carrying some pony to the cells. He was mouthing off and they shut him up. How could you have seen them?”
“There were three? I only saw one. Is that what ponies look like? I was really off, then.”
“No listen, you’re not thinking this through. You saw a pony, but only one? There were three. And the fact that you could see anything doesn’t bother you in the slightest? Could you see me?” Crystal felt Pitch let her go, but there was nothing. Realization crashed down on her as fast as the glee had pushed the situation away in the first place.
“You’re right.” Crystal fell inward on herself, casting a slight twang of guilt for falling for a simple trick she, herself, had set. Now wasn’t the time, they were in the prison and Crystal had randomly seen something.
“It’s okay.” She felt Pitch draw her into his body once again, and they both sat there in the emptiness of the cold and damp. “We’ll figure it out, but I think it would be best if you don’t tell anypony about this. I don’t know what they would do, or even believe you for that matter.”
Crystal just agreed. She didn’t want to worry about things. Even though there was so much to be worried about at the moment, she couldn’t let it stress her out too much, because she knew that everything had to be okay. When the problems come, she could handle them in stride and in confidence.
When the ponies who ran the prison figure that they shouldn’t be there, they would be let out, no problem.
Yet something nagged at the back of Crystal’s mind that she couldn’t get rid of. Why had the solders thrown them in prison in the first place? She asked this to Pitch, but his only response was, “Don’t worry about it. Just a stupid mistake. A dumb, dumb mistake.” It didn’t sit right with Crystal. It was like every time she thought that somepony was taking advantage of her lack of eyesight.
The slamming of steel resonated once again from down the cell block. Pitch glanced in that direction, but returned his gaze to Crystal. A dumb mistake indeed; what was he thinking? He had ruined everything over a fear of rejection, and in front of others too. He had nothing to fear, yet fear drove him. Now fear kept him from explaining to Crystal what had happened. She would reject him for sure after he had almost gotten her hurt.
Had that massive fight been something of a coincidence? No, it couldn’t be. What would she have done if he hadn’t been there to guide her through the mess of ponies doing what ponies shouldn’t be doing in the first place? He had walked with her to her house one time when her mother hadn’t picked her up from school. She told him the street name, she said her father had told her, and the fight happened on the way there. She would have had no chance if her mother had picked her up on time. Crystal was safe at school waiting, and he had put her in harm’s way out of fear.
“… I don’t know, today’s just a really bad day.” A voice came from the hallway. The two guards turned the corner as Pitch looked back. “I kinda agree with him about Shining though, he hasn’t been himself lately. I’ve noticed that he’s been alone and quiet.”
Pitch listened to this; it was about the stallion who threw them in here. Anything he could learn about him would be helpful in some sort of revenge.
The other guard shook his head. “I don’t think so; Shining’s just new at being the Captain. I’m sure he’ll come around soon.”
They began to pass by Pitch’s cell when one guard looked his way and stopped. “This is the cell Bright was talking about. Shining threw some foals in here.”
“Who’s talking?” Crystal asked curiously. Pitch held her closer to himself.
“No pony, just the guards who imprisoned us.”
“Hey, hey, hey. We had nothing to do with that fight or afterwards, we just got on duty.” Pitch turned his head, not wanting to look at them. The guard was right, though Pitch didn’t like to admit that to himself.
“Of course,” The colt slowly said. “But you work for Shining; I wouldn’t call innocence on that.”
“We don’t work for Shining Armor; we swear allegiance to, her majesty, Princess Celestia.” The second guard proudly said of the Princess.
Pitch went silent after that. His insults and accusations did nothing to the pair. “Princess Celestia?” Crystal asked curiously. Pitch shushed her again. He needed to think about this.
“Yes, miss. The Princess of the Sun.”
“Oh, you know she doesn’t like being called that, you dope. She barely likes being called Princess.”
“Well, if I was in her position, I would force ponies to call me my true title.”
Crystal felt happy inside for once. The Princess Celestia. She would get this all sorted out. Her mother had told her stories of how powerful and kind the ruler of Equestria was. Crystal just knew that everything was going to be alright. Faust created Celestia; there was no way Faust would have Celestia not help some pony who really needed the help.
“Does she know we’re here?” Crystal asked, making Pitch jump out of his own hold on her. She jumped up on her hooves and slowly walked in the direction she had heard the guards’ voices. “Has any pony told her? Oof!” Crystal felt cold, hard steel smack into her face. She fell to the stone ground.
“Crystal!” Pitch shouted, and Crystal’s ears folded down at his volume. His hooves clipped along the ground over to her and he picked her up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Okay, Pitch, just please let me go. I can take care of myself.” His hooves released their hold on her body so she could stand on her own once again. “Does she know were here?”
“Are you blind?” The first guard’s voice asked incredulously.
“Of course she is, she ran into the bars.” Pitch mumbled, and Crystal kicked her hoof into his side.
“Shining’s put, not just foals in prison, but a blind filly. Okay, that’s the last straw for this stallion. That’s not okay in my book.” His voice got a little distant as it moved away from Crystal.
“Hey wait, listen. Maybe he didn’t know that she was blind. We’ll just go talk to him and ask him what to do. I’m certainly not going to Soul for this; he’ll turn this into a whole fiasco.”
“I think he was going to a meeting with Soul and Princess Celestia in the throne room. Come on.” Their hooves became distant and the metal sounding door slammed shut.
“Do you think it was smart to try and get the Princess involved?” Pitch asked, unsure.
“Of course I’m sure. What pony better?” Crystal spoke with an unknown amount of confidence.
~~~~~
The large library door was difficult for Spike to push open with his little body. His clawed feet clicked and slid on the tile floor as he forced everything he had into opening the door. At last, he got it open enough to walk into the atmosphere of old leather and dusty paper.
The vaulted ceiling stood high above the tall shelves of books that circled alongside the water stained stone walls. This was one of the tallest rooms in the entire castle. The books were all sizes, ranging from a small notebook size, to a book only readable on a special reading desk built for it because it was so monstrous. It sat in the corner with a built up layer of dust over its leather-bound cover, and rust that stained and ate away at the metal buckles that held the treasure together.
Spike, the little dragon, immediately made his way over the spell book section. The smell of age was particularly prominent here. He searched for where he had found the book Twilight wanted so badly.
He shook his head softly at his thought of Twilight, he loved her like a mother, and in so many ways she was, but she would act like she had blinders over her eyes so often. He knew that this was one of those times, and it worried him too much for his little self. Twilight was messing with Celestia, and everypony- and dragon- knew not to mess with the Princess, ever.
“The book’s not there.” Spike groaned as he rubbed his claws across his face. “Where’s the return cart, it’s could be there, if it’s here at all.”
A door shut across the room and it reverberated up to the ceiling and around the library. Spike peered through the books at the vacant front desk to the right, and the empty reading tables to the left. But the sound of hooves was still there, seemingly a giant’s from how they echoed everywhere throughout the room.
A pair of eyes popped up out of nowhere and stared right back at Spike. The small dragon gasped in shock, before he pushed himself back away from the shelf, his back slamming against the tomes behind him.
Looking towards where the door was, the shelf stretched all the way down like a corridor. He slowly moved down between the books the blocked his view of the pony that frightened him. Their hooves still clicked right beside him on the other side.
When he made it to the corner he looked around carefully only to be met with deep red eyes that seemed to emit powerful magic into the air. It was the librarian… maybe. Spike couldn’t tell, the pony was surrounded by this dark, black veil that withered and expanded all around them. A grin seemed plastered on with sharp white teeth gleaming at his small, shaking form. They growled a sound that no pony should be able to make. Like the horn of a carriage on full blast and tuned to be really low and menacing.
With that, Spike took off down the corridor of books once again, but books shot out across the way like blades trying to cut him up. He didn’t stop or look over his shoulder…he just kept putting one foot in front of the other. This thing was obviously not friendly; he had to get out of there.
Rounding the second corner, he was met with those red eyes yet again. Skidding to a slight stop Spike took off in the opposite direction. The pony was laughing behind him, like this was some game. Its sound didn’t match at all and echoed all throughout the room. The chairs at the tables lifted up like some staircase: there was nowhere to go but up.
Spike climbed up, hopping from one chair to the next until he came up to a decorative ledge. The minute he stepped up, all the chairs dropped behind him. The game continued.
The pony still grinned up at him from far below. Of course, he had fallen into a trap. Hook, line, and sinker. Looking all around the room, there was nowhere else to go in either direction.
The sound of magic filled to world, and the pony was suddenly right next to the little dragon. Spike fell to the stone in paralyzing fear as the red eyes clouded his vision.
Book 1: Chapter 12: The Many-Crossed Way...No More
Twilight nervously walked down the castle's western hallway, looking behind her every thirty steps she took… she counted each one. She didn't want to be followed. That was, until her hooves tangled together and her muzzle slammed into the carpet. The fibers tasted like floor cleaner and dirt.
A hoof was shoved into her vision. "Need some help there, Miss Sparkle?" The floored unicorn followed the extended leg up to the everyday Solar Guard armor plating, and the smiling face of a guard she had seen every few times she made her way through the tunnels.
"Oh, yeah." She took the offered hoof, and the unnamed guard pulled her up onto her hooves. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome Miss Sparkle." His smile was genuine, but nothing else about it seemed unique about this one guard. He was just like the rest of them.
"Well, I had best be on my way. Got places to go and ponies to see." Twilight gave a little laugh, but she didn't know what was funny about what she had said. He nodded and sidestepped a bit to let her quickly move past him without a second glance.
She could feel his presence still lingering behind her like a ghost haunting her. She turned around to look at him with a frown. "Do you have to follow me?"
"What do you mean, Miss Sparkle? This is my normal patrol route." He stepped back a few paces.
"Oh." She spoke nervously, quite embarrassed by her outburst. "Sorry, about that. I've just been on edge lately."
"Yes, I do know what that feels like." The guard spoke up in conversation. Twilight moved a little faster, but he only kept up with her. Not very many ponies knew about the old tunnels underneath the castle, she couldn't show him where it was.
"Everypony in the castle's been on edge since this afternoon." He continued to Twilight's annoyance. "With Emil being stabbed, we know how far ponies would go. It puts things into a much greater perspective now, knowing the dangers we all face just by being in this castle."
Twilight stopped and looked back at the stallion. He held his head up high and to the left as if he was deep in a thought. His words were true in a way; things had been getting tense in the city as of late. She had felt it strongly as she trotted through the shopping district, where she could feel stares being directed at the back of her head. She shivered, unnerved by the thought.
She stepped over to the thinking stallion. "I do know what you're saying. Everypony watches me whenever I go out, just because I'm Celestia's student. They weren't stares of curiosity or wonder either, they were… angry in a way."
"Well, maybe they're blaming you for Celestia's old rules and traditions." The guard put out.
"What? Celestia's rules and traditions are great." Twilight moved back from him. "Are you really saying that the Princess is the cause of this problem, and maybe even the fight?" No, that could never be true. But… Twilight vigorously shook her head.
"No, no. Celestia is the best thing this country has ever had!" Twilight shouted, as her whole body shook uncontrollably. She glared at him with as much ferocity as she could manage, scrunching up her muzzle and lowering her head so her eyes were beating through her brow.
"Woah Woah Woah. Hold on a minute, Miss Sparkle. I, uh, I didn't mean to offend you. I just…"
Her glare didn't work! Twilight turned tail and ran down the corridor, not thinking about where she was going before she opened her eyes to the castle zooming by her. It was much different than she could ever remember.
"Hey, wait!" She heard him shouting and running behind her.
"Leave me alone!" She didn't want to see him. She didn't want to turn treasonous on her Princess.
"What did I do? Slow down!" Twilight rounded a corner, and spotted a maid with a laundry hamper in her magical glow slowly heading in her direction. She couldn't believe what she was about to do.
She ran up to the shocked maid, giving an apologetic look as she did. "Yes, Miss Twilight, could I… oof!" Twilight slammed her side against the maid, knocking the laundry out of her magic, and everything fell on top of the unfortunate unicorn.
"I'm so sorry!" Twilight's vision blurred from tears starting to develop. she tried to blink these away as she took off, once again, down the hallway.
Twilight pushed her hooves into the stone floor to keep herself from running any further away from the scene she had caused. She looked back to see if the maid was okay. The guard was pulling her out of the mountain of clothes and sheets when he looked at her with a glare of his own that sent shivers down her spine.
Guilt scraped away at her resolve for resolution. To start what she wished to everything good that she hadn't, but she had to for that resolution in the greater guilt that had been eating her away for the past year since her parents had died and she had become Celestia's student. The guilt of attraction that had come afterwards would be the icing on the top of the cake for Twilight to not go back and face the consequences for her actions. It served that guard right for talking bad about the good Princess anyway. Twilight turned tail once again, and continued to run down the hallway, trying hard not to look back a second time.
She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her head, as her lungs fought to take in breath. Her eyes darted back and forth, searching for the perfect place to hide. She came up on a large bust of Princess Celestia with an embroidered tapestry behind it. She dove behind it and pressed her hooves to her mouth to silence her breathlessness. She rubbed at her wet eyes, trying to force herself to stop crying. It worked somewhat.
An immense window spread out before her to the sun that sat on the far off horizon, waiting for the Princess to lower it into the last bit of life for the day before the moon was raised in its place. The sky was lit with color that reflected up in the purple clouds that hung over the valley the castle stood high above. Twilight could see the green rolling hill rise and fall gently and slowly.
It was a pure peace Twilight felt. A peace that was given freely by Princess Celestia. Was it really worth going against her wishes only to see a personal goal be fulfilled when all Celestia wanted was peace…most of the time. What had she done to contribute to this peace? She shook her head: there was nothing. If anything, especially now, she took the peace away. Shining never showed enthusiasm for her plan and openly worried about her following it. Maybe his worrying for her was a cause for the fight. That was impossible! The ponies attacked first, what was she thinking? That she was the cause?
But like she had said herself not two minutes ago, she needed to know if everything could be resolved. That her life's wants were okay, and along the lines of the words of writer Hannus Rabwing before he was executed for murdering his wife, "Everypony is entitled to at least one selfish act." Of course, she would never go as far as to end another pony's life, especially one she loved. But this was her selfish act.
Twilight let her breath ease out. The guilt infested unicorn dragged herself from behind the tapestry. She dusted herself off, making a mental note to tell the cleaning pony not to be shirking her work.
Twilight slowly made her way down the hall, constantly looking over her shoulder every few seconds, but no pony was ever there. Not much further ahead, she stopped and looked at a plain wall with no decorations around it. Twilight looked around, counting the elaborate busts until she counted five she could see without moving a step in either direction. Yes, this was the secret spot hidden in the history of this timeless building.
The stones at the base of the wall had their mortar chipped away. Twilight smiled and nodded to nothing as she went to work. She concentrated her levitation spell on the stone blocks and gently slid the two pieces out. The unicorn grunted a bit, as this took more force than she remembered. The resonating scraping of the stone on stone rumbled until a small hole was opened up in the wall. She glanced back down the hallway to make sure it was clear, and then she got down on her stomach and carefully crawled through.
Hidden behind the castle wall was a deep and dark tunnel that stretched off into nothingness. Picking herself up, Twilight used her magic once again to pull the stone blocks behind her. The light from the hallway shrunk into a smaller and smaller beam until the blocks were into place. The light was blocked, and the tunnel was drenched in the inevitable darkness.
With practiced ease, Twilight lit her horn to dispel the claustrophobic black. Everywhere she could see was rock, uncut; this was a naturally formed cave system from eons ago. As much as Twilight always wanted to stay and study this place more than she had in the past, she had a mission to complete.
Water dripped far through the cavernous tunnels, as Twilight's hooves crunched on the dirty, rocky ground. She reached the top of a set of stairs that had been carved from the rocky walls. A river roared its passage and journey far below.
The flights of stairs were at random angles every time Twilight stepped on a new set. They looped around the tube walls, leading Twilight further down into the depths of Canterlot Mountain.
The river eventually came into view like a hulking dragon bellowing out a titanic war cry. Twilight's magic illuminated the rushing water as it raced by. The path continued along the river's edge and behind a massive waterfall. Twilight always stared in awe that such a wonder could only be found underground. It made a significant wall at it crashed atop the river below, and made intricate shapes and designs of purple that danced and vanished in the ripples of its continued flow.
The path went down the opposite side of the river. Twilight felt the water drops spray like tiny kisses all over her body. Though she had never been kissed by anypony other than her parents…It was not the time or place to think about things like that. This mission, if it succeeded, would fix that problem.
The pathway rounded a bend and Twilight halted her walking past the point, as her light illuminated the edge of a calm pool off to the side of the careening river. There was nowhere for her to go on walking.
Twilight turned her attention over to the rocky wall that towered over the light. Right at the base of it was an old, rusted device of some kind from an era so long ago even Twilight couldn't figure out its age. The metal had definitely been casted in an early iron period, when earth ponies had first learned to cast and mold iron into usable objects, but the workings and details that Twilight observed working the whole contraption were far too advanced for such an infantile period of history. Another mystery that ran through Twilight's head. A chain wormed its way out of the end of the machine and though a tiny hole in the wall.
A rusted piece of metal jutted out of the main box body. Twilight pulled the metal piece until it stuck straight up, and a loud click echoed off the walls around.
Moving to where she could see the water, Twilight watched as a large, long metal strip opened up out of the rock and out into the rushing currents. Beneath her hooves, she felt a small vibration, as if something underneath was beginning to move and groan as the water was directed to it from the river by the metal gate. The chain on the box began to rattle behind her.
Twilight counted in her head. 5.4.3.2.1. Right on time, a sort of ancient lift hanging from the old chain came into the light from above. She sighed when it stopped in front of her. Her hooves didn't want to move: she had to force herself to move onto the overly dangerous thing. Her hooves shook as she held her breath as calmly as she could keep it. When she finally go on the lift, her hoof immediately went for the closest clamp that held the bottom of the lift to the chain above. Steeling herself, Twilight pulled the lever with her magic and rose up into the cold cavern of the old mountain.
She didn't want to know how old this thing was or how high it went. Twilight kept her hooves wrapped around the clamp, and her horn glowed all the way up.
It wasn't long before the lift jerked to a stop. Twilight gasped in surprise and held on tighter, as the lift swung ominously back and forth. "Okay. Okay. Not what I had planned, but you can get out of this, Twilight." She talked to herself, hoping it would calm herself down. It didn't work. "I just have to think clearly. You can do that." She looked at the walls around her, trying to see anything that could give her a clue.
"This shaft couldn't have been completely naturally made to get these walls as smooth as they are. Hmm. Canterlot Mountain is an extinct volcano. Magma only follows the path of least resistance, some carving had to have been done to accomplish a straight vertical. In theory, the carvers had to get out somehow, there has to be some sort of alternate exit for them to get out when they were this far down from any of the obvious exits. I need to see what's around and hope this holds long enough that I don't fall to my doom." She gulped at the possibility that this could be the reason for her death.
Trying to concentrate on her magic once again, Twilight flicked flares out in different directions, trying to see what there was to see past the light of her glow. The first showed only wall. The second, the same. The third was only the same thing, but with an old cave painting Twilight couldn't make out. The forth try illuminated a ledge off to the side, slightly higher up. Twilight nodded. "Okay, there it is, glad that worked out. Now I just need to figure out how to get up there...And how am I going to do that?" Princess Celestia says that I can't learn the teleporting spell until I've learned how to clear my mind of all distractions, when I tell her I can. It would really be nice to have so I wouldn't be in danger of falling to my death! Ooo, what am I going to do? Calm down Twilight, there is no need to panic. You got this, you just need to think clearly."
Twilight paced around, looking for anything that maybe she could use on the lift. There was obviously nothing. She groaned. "I should've known this thing would stop working eventually."
That far-off wall wasn't easily reachable by any means. Twilight had to figure out how to get over there on top of everything else. Flinging another magical flare up there revealed a wooden post sticking up out of rock. "Yes! I could use that to get over there. Okay good, what could I use to grab it with? Nothing in the lift except..." She looked up at the chain that suspended the lift above the surely lethal drop. "That might work."
With no other plan in her mind, Twilight began to rock her weight back and forth. The lift began to follow her movements. Slowly at first, she began to throw herself onto one side of hooves and then to the other for added momentum. Over and over, the lift swung slightly closer each time. "Almost there Twilight." She puffed, covered in sweat, but she pushed her body into the last sets of heaves. The chain just barely touched the "hook". "Now!" She gave herself the signal. At the last second, Twilight blindly fired a desperate levitation spell on the chain to push it just behind the post to get it caught.
The lift stopped with a savage jerk. Twilight was thrown off her hooves from the jolt, and struck her side against the boards on the fall. An ear-shattering crunch shook inside her as a pain pierced her ribs, as it felt harder for her to breath. Twilight rolled onto her back, grasping her shocked insides that bit back, and she failed to hold back a wail of paroxysm.
The wood beneath Twilight cut her off when it snapped and caved in. With speed she never knew she had, Twilight threw herself onto a more stable piece. Her ribs screamed their misery as she gasped for breath. "No...Please don't be broken. Please." Twilight never had a broken bone in her life. She held back the tears she wanted to cry. "No more crying. I've got to get out of here."
She looked down through the hole in the floor at the open maw of the nothingness below. "I knew this was idiotic. Eat your own words Twilight, but I can't believe that worked. Mostly." She gently rubbed her side and winced when the sting worsened.
The post the lift's chain was wrapped around creaked a bit, forcing Twilight to silence her groaning to listen to it. It was the scariest sound she had ever heard. Her heart could just stop right there and she would be happy just to never hear that sound again. When it stopped, Twilight let out a breath of relief, only moaning out, "Gotta get off of this death trap."
The ledge was still too far for her to reach. Twilight only stumbled up to her hooves, ignoring her ribs as she lunged for the chain above. She wrapped her forelegs around the chain and tried pulling herself up, but she couldn't lift herself up all the way. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and she bit into the old chain, tasting rust and iron. Ignoring it, Twilight used her hooves to pull herself up and use her smarting jaw to hold herself there to allow her hooves to pull herself up again, moaning under the strain.
She didn't stop until she was eye level with the creaking post. She poured the last bit of strength she never knew she had into letting go of the chain and flinging herself helplessly out to the ledge. Her belly slammed onto the rocky ground. She cried out as tears rolled down her cheeks when her side roared with fire. But at least it told her that she was alive.
She shifted her body to get more comfortable, and something crumpled underneath her hoof. It sounded like paper. She inspected the torn piece as she lit her horn once again to see what was on it. It was a note or an unfinished letter of some kind. The scratchy writing was frantic and all over the place, making it very difficult to read, but she tried her best:
"This whole trip was nothing but bad juju from the start. The rats in the larder, the wagon's wheel breaking. Everything! I say witches from Tartarus and the swamps south have cursed us, blocking us from the glow of Faust and her creation, Celestia. Muscovite is everywhere, the witch's brewing cauldrons that eat anypony unlucky enough to happen to step on it. We lost Newt earlier today. I can't remember if it was today or yesterday, no way for knowing the days down here. I can still hear that pony's vanishing scream echoing down to silence. We all thought with trip was a dangerous one when we signed up for it, but now the situation has gone far beyond that. The food is almost up, and my friends are starting to look appetizing. It's that or suicide..."
The words after this were so scribbled up that Twilight couldn't even read them, but the message was painfully clear. Why else would it be on the edge of a drop off? The pain in her side brought on tears, and Twilight wailed out a cry of pitiful disparity. "Somepony! Please, help me!"
A voice called out, far in the darkness. "Twilight, where are you!?"
The fallen unicorn's heart skipped as loving thoughts entered her mind. It was a voice she loved. It was a voice she adored. It was something she needed to hear. "Rose! Rose! Please find me! PLEASE!"
"I will, just keep yelling! Keep calling me, and don't you dare ever stop repeating yourself!" The harsh and lovely reply came.
All Twilight did was call out the mare's name. That sweet, ever rich name. She never stopped once. Her throat dried up, but she still continued calling.
A beam of light came around an unseen corner. The beam of a headlamp. "Rose!"
"I'm here, don't worry. I'm here for you, beautiful. You beautifully, stupid mare."
The pink earth pony in all of her beauty appeared at the end of the headlamp's beam. The light turned on Twilight, and she was blinded by its power. "I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." Twilight repeated herself.
"Twilight! Don't go to sleep! Oh dang it Celestia! I'll get you out of here, and then, you're so going to marry me! Hang in there..."
