Prologue: The Lookerponies

Demon Days
by carnivale
========
Prologue: The Lookerponies

The waning moon hung eerily in the fully-fledged night of black, casting its ghostly aura upon the dark being of the Everfree Forest. The branches that reached out like gnarled claws creaked in the breeze that weaved through the trees. The entire forest was unearthly; still without life. Nothing moved, nothing howled. Nothing skittered across the damp forest floor. Everything was as still as could be.

Except for the dark pony that padded effortlessly through the towering trees.

The pony was a male earth pony; his coat was as dark as a night sky without stars. He was hefty and muscular, legs and body long. His amber eyes gleamed in the darkness, penetrating the forest with their spectral glow. His big black hooves crunched the soil beneath him with every menacing step he took. His coat was ragged, clumps of fur and flesh hung off and flitted crudely in the breeze. The most noticeable features upon him were a giant scar that ran from his underbelly to the inside of his thigh, and three raw burn scars that reigned upon his right eye.

He didn’t seem tentative by the spooky aura of the Everfree at this time of night. The stallion guided himself through the trees that transcended above his head that was placed on a rather long neck. His burning eyes grazed the floor obscured by darkness that was laid out before him, and one could only wonder if his eyes were as efficient as night vision goggles.
Soon enough the pony came to a clearing that didn’t stretch too far, and was bordered by more looming trees. The air seemed to shimmer, and the closer he approached, cave dwellings seemed to appear out of thin air. Ghostly-looking earth ponies took shape around a roaring fire; they wore necklaces that bore some sort of reptile’s fangs, and they were clothed in pelts that seemed to be colored the same as the dark pony’s coat, as if honoring him somehow. The group of ponies also seemed to be dancing around the flames, songs in an ancient language, it seemed, issuing from their mouths like some creepy chant and ringing through the air.

As soon as the scar-faced pony approached, the chanting died down and the ponies took their places in two lines that stretched traverse the clearing, bowing their heads in silence. The whole forest was again thrown into an eerie absence of sound that hung in the air like thick fog.

Finally, an ash-gray earth pony with a scruffy auburn mane took his place next to the black stallion. He stood solidly, leaning a few inches towards the muscular pony. “Have you spoken with our ancestors tonight, Lord Somber Hooves?” he inquired in a low voice.

The black stallion – Lord Somber Hooves – nodded, dipping his head in one elegant movement. “Indeed, I have, Deputy Brawny Boulder. And now, I must make an announcement.”

Brawny Boulder nodded respectively and turned to the crowd of chattering ponies. He lifted a hoof to his mouth, blew, and shrill whistle echoed throughout the forest.

The chatting immediately ceased, and soon enough all eyes were focused on Lord Somber Hooves, who was making his way to an elevated boulder that jutted out from the earth, its peak protruded towards the sky. His onyx coat blended with the night sky, but his fiery amber eyes glowed, almost as if they were one with the phantasmal aura. Everypony’s eyes were drawn to him, unmoving, like a curse that they couldn’t break free of.

“Ponies of the Looker clan: mares, stallions, fillies, colts – our tribal ancestors have spoken to me again, this year. They have acknowledged the need of our annual events. And so, this year – may it be our last – the night before the day of Celestia’s Summer Sun Celebration, we will do our best, again, to bring forth the spirit of our former leader, Nightmare Moon, and the spirits of the dead, and make sure the Sun is conquered, leaving the night to last forever!”

The last note of his voice shot up in a throaty bellow; it rolled across the clearing and rattled the brains of the numerous ponies situated below the highrock. A feeling of adrenaline surged through each of their veins – foals, stallions, mares alike – and they all rose to their hooves, letting roars of delight and concurrence rip from their throats and become one with the night. Some ponies pumped their hooves in the air, others stamped their hooves onto the rocky ground, causing sounds like thunder to be radiated like rolling waves through the air. Their cries sounded like death, a hunger for blood, for the night to take over Equestria once more – for good.

The ponies had a good feeling about tonight. The previous years, their magic hadn’t been strong enough to release the spirit of Nightmare Moon into the sky to conquer Celestia’s Sun. Even though the Looker clan is full of earth ponies, their magic is the most powerful – the magic of demons and spirits alike.

“Bring out the relic!” Lord Somber Hooves boomed.

As soon as his voice was heard, a trio of stallions emerged from the depths of a hollow cave, two long, thick rods of wood placed upon their hindquarters, the two ponies in front carrying one, the two ponies in the back carrying the other. Upon the two rods was a square slab of wood that transported an ancient-looking stone. It seemed to be carved into somepony’s face – Nightmare Moon’s face, perhaps – and there were two gaping holes that seemed to take the shape of her eyes.

The relic was then placed perpendicular to the highrock, situated in the middle of the broad clearing. Lord Somber Hooves did not step down from the boulder, instead watched with luminous amber eyes as the clan of earth ponies gathered around the relic, silence reigning down upon them all once more.

The sound of song broke out, then. But it wasn’t like any song, it was more of ancient chant that sounded like death when it emerged from the clan’s mouths. Their faces were as hard as stone, the words issuing as if nothing prodded them to do so. The kindling night was filled with the barbaric sound of song, the aura spurring the ponies on.

Suddenly, a vague glow was seen in the eyes of the relic, flickering green, then blue, then finally wavering black. Rolling, musty steam began to gush from the slit that was Nightmare’s mouth, whirring in a circle around the relic, and then there was an ear-splitting clap of thunder as a beam of blue and black light shot into the air. It spread out across the sky like electric fingers, Celestia’s Sun beginning to rise. The darkness was fading, too quickly for any of their tastes.
Lord Somber Hooves growled deep in his throat as he witnessed the darkness struggling to fight down the Sun, but the Sun looked like it would be the one to emerge victorious.

The glowing beam of light began to fade, too, and it wasn’t long until it shot back into the relic with a thundering boom and the fulgurating steam became tangible in the damp air.
The eyes that were feeding wrath began to fade, too, and the song of the ponies died down in sync with the dimming glow.
Before everypony knew it, the Sun was successfully raised in the air for about the millionth year as far as their tribe’s been alive. Lord Somber Hooves stamped his enormous hooves against the rock in frustration, the boisterous sound tumbling across the clearing.

“Celestia is still stronger than us!” he thundered.

“What shall we do, my Lord?” Brawny Boulder said, scampering up to the foot of the highrock. “It seems like every year we perform this, our ponies get weaker. How are we going to conquer the Sun of our strength is failing us?”

Lord Somber Hooves scraped his hoof across the rock, running it across the ancient lettering that had been engraved there for many years. The codex that is encoded there, the one that sent bile building up in Somber Hooves’ throat.
It took the shape of Nightmare Moon whinnying in fright as she is defeated by six ponies: two pegasi, two unicorns, and two earth ponies. The ponies formed a circle around Nightmare Moon, one unicorn reigning at the bottom, the two earth ponies above her on either side, and the two pegasi above them. There’s the other unicorn on top of Nightmare, her eyes empty, glowing. Somber Hooves scowled.

“I know what we must do,” Somber Hooves announced, his eyes scorching the back of each pony’s mind with his blazing eyes, sweeping them across the crowd. “We must bring Nightmare Moon to her full form. That way the Sun will finally be conquered, and night shall reign forever.”

Gasps and murmurs skimmed through the crowd, at first loud and unsure, then growing quieter as they carefully considered this opposition. Brawny Boulder stepped closer to the rock, his emerald eyes narrowing in question.

“My Lord – “

“It will be a rough task, and it may take a while, this I know. But that does not mean we shouldn’t fight for ourselves, for our leader. Nightmare Moon shall rise again!”

On his last words, a crack of thunder echoed across the blank sky, catching the ponies off guard and silencing their words, only to, again, raise their voices over the boisterous sound to cheer loudly in spite of their Lord’s sayings. Brawny Boulder grinned before scanning the crowd. He pointed towards a female pony before motioning for her to stand next to him.
The pony stepped up; she had a black coat, just like her leader, but it was speckled with white, as if the stars were sprinkled across her skin. She had a pale blue mane and piercing cerulean eyes. She traced lines in the dirt with her hoof, giving away her demure psyche.

“Nightwish, keep the relic out here in the center of the clearing – station guards, build a rock tower around it if you need, just make sure nothing or nopony takes it.” Brawny Boulder ordered. “This plan that Lord Somber Hooves is cooking up, it may take a while.”

The onyx pony, Nightwish, nodded firmly before trotting off and materializing into the darkness.
The ash-gray deputy then gazed up at Lord Somber Hooves, his stomach churning. I hope this plan works, Somber Hooves, he thought, for the clan's sake.

Chapter One: Venture

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Demon Days
Chapter One: Venture
==========
Rainbow Dash cautiously picks her way through the myriad of towering trees laid out before her, careful as to avoid the spindly branches that reaches out like claws to greet her stealthy figure as it makes its way through the forest. She winces whenever one of them grazes her coat, and her rainbow-streaked mane is already lodged with burrs and pine needles. She sputters whenever a rogue fly gets wedged between her teeth, and she clenches her mouth whenever the brambles of the forest floor lick her hooves and the surrounding skin.

Usually, she wouldn’t be having these sort of problems when previously venturing through the Everfree, but the path to Zecora’s is particularly full of underbrush and lanky limbs – the cyan Pegasus pony can’t even take off into the air; the canopy of the ghostly forest is lined with those sort of pesky things. Her wings would catch on the branches, and then what could she do but hang there helplessly until somepony came to her aid?

The whole reason Rainbow Dash is making this trip is because Twilight Sparkle asked her to fetch some of Zecora’s special herbal tea, and the lavender unicorn claimed that she was too fixed on learning the new spells that Celestia assigned before to visit the zebra anytime soon. And, apparently, the rest of her friends are too busy as well to do what Twilight asked. Applejack is bucking apples, Rarity is making dresses, Fluttershy is taking care of a woodland patient, and Pinkie Pie is helping the Cakes deliver a special order to a Canterlot garden party – the day she had to finally be busy with something she had to pick today?

Too busy my hoof, Rainbow Dash thinks anyway, silently seething, rolling her eyes inwardly. Yeah, and I was busy taking a nice long nap on a particularly fluffy cloud!

Her wings itch to fly, the path is growing narrower. It occurs to Rainbow for a moment that she must have strayed off the path to Zecora’s a teensy bit – after all, she never did really learn the way by herself. But, she shakes the thought off, too sure she can’t get lost than to panic out of nowhere.

“Stupid brambles,” she hisses as the thicket continues to claw at her already-sore hooves and cyan coat. Blood begins to blossom through one long, raw slash etched on her thigh, but she hardly notices because the brambles persevere in jabbing at her ribs and other parts of her body, straying her mind from the pain of the cut. “Totally not awesome,” she mumbles, for the third time that day.

After a few more minutes of treading through the Everfree, she begins to wonder if she really is lost. She whips her head from side to side, but the irritating underbrush blocks any path her vision could come across. The Pegasus stamps her hoof into the soil out of annoyance, almost jumping out of her skin when a branch snaps obtrusively beneath it. Her breath hitches in her throat, and she freezes.

Beyond the horizon, the sun begins to set behind the hills, the cerulean sky blending into a nice aura of warm colors. The Everfree forest is soon cast into a shield of ghostly darkness, although some stray light manages to send beams through the leaves and bask the forest floor in its rays.

Rainbow’s wings buzz, her body growing antsy and her mind failing to comprehend as the forest loses its eerie glow. “Pfft. I’m not scared at all,” she reassures herself, picking up her hooves and making sure they’re carefully placed one in front of the other as she traipses steadily through the trees again.

Dash suddenly finds herself mumbling to herself under her breath, her lips quivering and her wings continuing to buzz anxiously. By now, she can’t contemplate herself. By now, she knows she’s scared.

“Ugh, if only Twilight could’ve done this herself. She’s way more comfortable in situations like this, it seems, and besides she’s got magic. The branches overhead are too thick to fly through… don’t want to get my throat torn out by those thorns.” She shivers at the thought.

Suddenly, she hears a loud hiss and a rustle come from a bush at her far left. Her gut clenches from immediate reflex, and her head slowly turns towards the sound.

At first, she notices that there are three red spokes prodding through the leaves of the bush, which seems out of place. Then, they begin to rise, and attached to those spokes is a white head, which are attached to glowing crimson eyes, which are attached to a writhing green, scaly body that swells menacingly out of the bush –

A shrill, crackling squawk rips from the creature’s yellow beak. Rainbow Dash feels herself rooted in place as the bizarre animal swivels its head around to face her.

“C-cockatrice,” Dash whispers to herself, barely able to control the trembling in her voice. She remembers Fluttershy saying something about these creatures, and to never look them in the –

The cockatrice’s eyes glow, and Rainbow Dash feels a suspicious hardness travel up her leg like biting claws, and she quickly whips her head away before revving her hooves to flee from the scene.

The creature lets out another ear-splitting shriek before careening after the Pegasus pony fighting her way through the thickets. They grapple and scrape at her cyan coat, some branches cutting so deep that hot, sticky blood emerges from the wounds. She hardly notices, though, because she knows the cockatrice is hot on her tail.

Above her, the canopy begins to thin out, but she knows that flying away would be pointless because the cockatrice bears wings on its body too. Her heart hammers against her chest, her mind racing, prompting her to press on as fast as she can. Her leg muscles scream in protest, but she ignores the pain for now.

Rainbow realizes that the creature’s screams are growing quieter, and she would sigh in relief if her breath wasn’t failing her quite so much. However, she dares herself to steal a quick glance over her shoulder.

The cockatrice is nowhere in sight, as far as she can tell. Sweat trickles down her forehead, and she begins to slow down. She lets a relieved breath escape her, creating fog in the chilly forest air.

“Phew, that was a close – “

Her sentence is immediately cut off when her hoof catches on an arched root that has protruded from the ground, and instantly her footing is lost. Dirt flies in her face as her chin digs into soft terrain, and she feels herself sliding down some kind of hill, but she can’t be sure since the cannonballs of soil blind her momentarily. She decides to spread her wings to act on the last second, but her snout crunches into solid, rocky ground, and her aimless sliding ceases.

Rainbow Dash grumbles, planting her hooves into the ground to hoist herself up on all fours. She spats some dirt, most impolitely, out of her mouth, followed by some desperate coughs as she struggles to dislodge some more soil that’s managed to make its way down her throat, too. She shakes herself off, her heartbeat and mind decreasing. Her magenta eyes flicker open, and it takes her a moment to reacquire her vision in the darkness before flitting them all over the place.
She is in a vast clearing, the barren ground stretching far, framed by numerous other lofty trees and thickets. It’s eerily quiet, the beginnings of Luna’s night reigning down upon the Everfree. Despite her findings of the clearing she’s standing in, she can barely see her own hoof in front of her face.

“Great, just great,” she groans, kicking a loose piece of soil with her hoof in frustration. “Now I have no idea where the buck I am!”

And it’s true. She’s never remembered treading into this part of the forest before, and with the night shrouding the land in darkness, it’s difficult to even accommodate herself here. The easiest thing would be to spread her wings and fly off, forgetting Twilight’s need of Zecora’s special herbal tea. The unicorn could live without it for a while.

“Pfft, why didn’t I think of this sooner?” Rainbow Dash says, cursing herself for being such a goof.

Thankfully, the branches obscuring the sky seem to be the thinnest here, so she extends her wings and gets ready to take off –

-but something stops her. Something she can’t quite place.

A mysterious sensation tickles the skin surrounding her hooves, and it’s not the kind of tickling that makes you laugh your tear canals out – it’s the kind that makes you scratch at your skin and causes you to be antsy to no end.
Rainbow Dash scrapes the tip of her hoof down one of her front legs before doing the same thing to the others, frantic to force the irritating sensation to oblivion. Pieces of her coat float to the ground as they’re nonchalantly torn off by her excessive scratching, her teeth grind together as the crawling, itchy sensation begins to travel like a snake up her legs before spreading through every inch of her body.

Dash’s eyes water with pain as the bothersome tingles grow stronger and cause her to dig her hooves deep into her flesh as her mind becomes clouded with the determination of ridding the annoying itch from her body. Her heart thuds in her chest, and nervous thoughts pry through her mind.

What is happening to her? Is she going insane, and it’s just her imagination? Are there invisible insects crawling across her skin? Is Pinkie Pie playing a prank on her again? What in the hayseed is going on?

Just then, her senses fill up with the strange sensation, as well. Her mouth, her nose, her eyes, her ears – they feel clogged, some sort of weird, forcible pressure protruding through her skin and building up like a swarm of parasprites in her belly.

She rears back on her hind legs, hooves rolling in the air, cries of pain and bewilderment escaping from her mouth. At least, they try to escape from her mouth. Her throat feels as obstructed as a beaver’s dam for some unknown reason, as well as her ears, nose, eyes and gut. Her head feels like somepony’s stuffed cotton balls around her brain.

Then, the feelings begin to fade slightly, leaving the cyan Pegasus breathless. A powerful whoosh flies across her body, then nothing, just the cold night air whipping against her flank. She stumbles before collapsing to the ground, panting in heavy efforts to gather the breath back into her lungs.

Her heart continues to pound effortlessly, except it has jumped to her throat during the process of – whatever the hay that was. The cloudiness in her mind and eyes vanish, leaving her befuddled and astonished at the same time.
“What the buck just happened,” she murmurs to herself, staring out in front of her as though she’s recently seen a ghost.
She shakes her head, trying to clear the rest of her mind as she hoists herself up onto all fours, her legs still trembling slightly. The feeling still lingers in her body, however, as if it never left.

Rainbow always knew the Everfree held deep secrets and unfathomable creatures, but, she never thought it holds something as awful as what happened several moments ago. Of course, the Everfree always makes ponies feel uncomfortable and spooked, even her. Although she would never admit it. But is there a reason nopony’s ever set hoof as far into the forest as she is now?

Heh, she thinks, her usual self-gloating acting up again. I must be the first one. A pretty imaginable feat, if I do say so myself!

“Rainbow Dash!” a faint call issues from beyond the wavering trees, slicing Rainbow away from her thoughts. It was vague, but she heard it, and she immediately recognizes the owner of the voice, ears pricking.

“Twilight?”

A dark figure bursts out of a nearby thicket, followed by four more figures shrouded in the dark of the damp night. Rainbow Dash nearly leaps out of her skin as they barrel toward her, but catches herself and quickly regains her solid composition.
“Rainbow Dash! Thank goodness you’re okay!” Twilight says, her voice flooded with relief. She gently nuzzles Rainbow Dash before the serious expression she wore a few moments earlier returns.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“W-well, um, I was gathering my song bird choir from the edge of the, um, forest,” Fluttershy begins, crouching low, her turquoise eyes darting every which-way around the forest. “and, well – I heard your screams, and – “

“Then Fluttershy ran to me and well at first I didn’t really notice her because I was eating cupcakes and like why wouldn’t I be eating cupcakes right like that’s silly and so then I was about to indulge myself in another brightly colored cupcake when she finally got my attention and – “

“Ah heard yer screams, too, Dash, and Ah got worried ‘bout ya so Ah decided to run and see if you were okay when Ah saw Fluttershy and Pinkie at the edge of the forest – “

“I was at the library, borrowing a book on regal ensembles in the early years when Twilight and myself heard your shrieks, too, so we decided to see if you were okay. I wasn’t much of a fan of the trip because I kept getting my hooves all muddy, and I recently had one of the most delicious hooficures at the spa earlier that day – wouldn’t you believe it, darling, it was simply devine! - and I wasn’t ready to have them caked in unnecessary mud – “

Twilight sticks a hoof in the ivory unicorn’s mouth. “What we’re all trying to say is that we were all worried about you! You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, not really,” Rainbow reassures, keeping the ‘not really’ part low under her breath. “Thanks for worrying about me, though. But this Pegasus doesn’t need to be worried about, everything’s all cool!”

Each of her friends smile in turn, but they suddenly droop when Rainbow releases a few hacking coughs, the sudden impact causing her body to quake. Her hooves kick at the ground, taking up clumps of dirt and rocks during the process.
“Oh, dear. Are you okay?” Fluttershy asks, perturbed at the sudden fit of coughing issuing from one of her closest friends.
“Yeah, fine,” Rainbow Dash croaks, thumping her hoof against her chest for a few beats. Speaking of, she does seem to be feeling a bit nauseous… “Just got some dust lodged in my throat – ain’t nothing I can’t handle.”

The corners of Twilight’s mouth curl up into a smile that is half worried, and half relieved that her friend is alright. She lights her horn up, the luminous glow radiating traverse the clearing. “Come on, everypony,” she says, feeling a giant yawn prodding her maw. “I think it’s all time we got some shut-eye.”

The ponies nod solemnly, seemingly worn out themselves. Rainbow Dash trots between Applejack and Pinkie Pie, the two of them nattering to her about who-knows-what. Dash isn’t paying much attention to their conversation, though, because of the distracting itchiness of her skin and the abnormal queasiness of her stomach. But, she doesn’t let herself worry about it too much. Everything will be alright in the morning. She’s sure of it.

Absolutely, one-hundred percent positive.

Chapter Two: Sick Little Games

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Demon Days
Chapter Two: Sick Little Games
=========
Rainbow Dash drags herself to the bathroom, bile ascending up her throat, hooves clutching at the sides of the toilet bowl as she lowers her head to retch into it – for the third time this morning. When she finishes giving a good heave, she lingers over the toilet for a while longer, panting heavily, breath degrading. Her throat feels raw from all the vomiting, and her mouth and stomach fair no better. Tears prick the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision, some droplets wheeling across her lower lids before rolling silently down her cheeks. Her stomach festers, and another wave of vomit convulses her like a frothing, bubbly stream and she finds herself hurling her guts out into the bowl once again.

She’s never felt this sick in her entire life, she’s sure of it. She can barely get food down into her system – not even water or ginger ale to make her stomach tranquil again. Albeit she persists to heave, even though her stomach is empty, as barren as a desolate wilderness in the middle of July.

Rainbow Dash woke up this morning, as usual, a sudden, violent surge of nausea striking her back onto her pillow again. Her head swelled, her rose eyes were bloodshot, and she was plastered to the fluffy mattress as beads of sweat cascaded down her skin, lathering up her coat in a sticky mess. She couldn’t recall ever feeling this ill in the middle of the night. Although, she could recall feeling a bit nauseous the night before, when she was established in the middle of the Everfree.

The thing that bothers her the most, though, is what happened in the middle of the Everfree. What was that horrible sensation that travelled up her skin and made her blood turn to ice? It tugs at her mind in a provoking manner, sending compelling chills up her spine every time she thinks about it. Could that somehow be the reason why’s she’s so ill now? Everything does point to the same conclusion, but she doesn’t want to believe it. It was just so unreal, so agonizingly vivid – she doesn’t know how to place it. She wants to believe that the whole sickness is probably just something she recently caught from another pony – but something in her mind nags her that that suspicion is slandering.

When Rainbow Dash is certain she’s done retching, she flushes the toilet and wipes her mouth with a washcloth. She moans, her head reeling, limbs aching and shrieking in protest when she tries to position herself on all fours. A malicious dizziness immediately smacks her in the face, causing her to stumble back, whacking her rear against the back wall in the process. She manages to regain her balance, but when the mirror in front of her casts an eerie glow, she instantly recoils in surprise at the reflection in the glass staring miserably back at her.

Her eyes expand as wide as dinner plates as she gazes at the pathetic image reflected in the glass – her. It’s her.
Her usual vibrant, flowing spectrum of a mane is now heavily disheveled and dull, little curls and knots sprouting up in every direction, as if ruffled by an intangible hoof. Her cyan skin is now ghostly pallid, revealing dark pools trapped beneath her rose-coloured orbs. She reaches one hoof up to gently caress her cheek, and the flocculent skin distinctly feels hot and chilly at the same time. Her expression of horror emulates into that of a crestfallen, dejected pony, her lips and eyes drooping at the hideous sight.

“That stupid forest,” she chokes, stomach beginning to slowly churn again. “Stupid cockatrice. Stupid Twilight!”

Rainbow suddenly lunges, as if something else is taking over her actions, slamming her hoof against the delicate glass, her face contorted in rage and anguish. The mirror promptly shatters on impact, some serrated shards of glass biting into the nearest skin encompassing her hoof. Liquid vermillion oozes from the deep cuts, and the cyan Pegasus rears back, letting loose a cry of pain. She cradles her bloodied hoof, flopping down against the back wall, tears streaming freely down her face.

“What in Equestria is going on with me?” she asks herself in a hushed voice, staring up despondently at the webbed ceiling.

A thousand questions race through her mind, but the harrowing pulse of an internal headache coming on fuzzes them all out. She rests her head against the wall, breathing shallowly, chest rising and falling with every short pant. The churning in her stomach seems to be speeding up a bit, and it isn’t long until she’s gripping the toilet bowl again, expelling the invisible contents of her stomach once more.

: : : :

An abrupt rapping on the door to the library startles Twilight Sparkle out of her novel, and she throws an annoyed glance towards it. She almost calls for Spike to answer it for her, but she instantly remembers that the baby dragon is running a few errands and won’t be back until later. Letting a gruff sigh escape her lips, she marks her page and clops over to answer the door.

“Oh, hi, Applejack – “

“Twilight, have ya seen Rainbow Dash at all today?” Applejack inquires haughtily, a look of irritation crossing her features. “Ah told her to mosey on down to Sweet Apple Acres and bring a few clouds with ‘er this afternoon to water mah beanstalks, but the silly filly never came. Do ya happen to know where she is? Mah stalks will be stone-dry if she doesn’t come sooner or later!”

Twilight rubs her chin with her hoof. That explains the lack of weather-caretaking around here today. “No, I can’t say that I’ve seen her at all today. Maybe Pinkie Pie knows, why don’t you try asking her?”
“Already have, said no. Fluttershy ‘n Rarity haven’t seen ‘er either. Where do ya’ll suppose she is?” Applejack’s irate expression switches to one of concern.

Twilight knits her eyebrows together, clearly perturbed. Usually Rainbow Dash would be up and running, despite her usual capricious laziness, weaving through the clouds and carrying out prodigious barrel rolls and other breathtaking feats in the clean summer air, but obviously she is nowhere in sight. It isn’t like her, Twilight knows this. Does the effects of last night’s venture into the forest somehow connect with all this? Was she lying when she said she was fine? Twilight chews on her lower lip, serenely thinking things through.

“Twi?”

Twilight looks back up at Applejack. “Maybe she’s still up in her house. Fluttershy is the only other one who can go up there, so we should ask her to fly up there and check if Rainbow Dash is alright.”

Applejack nods in agreement. “Let’s get ‘er then!”

: : : :

The butter-yellow Pegasus gingerly flutters her wings in diminutive circles, feeling the current of brisk wind buffet her lengthy locks of rose as she gradually heightens in the air, Rainbow Dash’s cloudominium edging closer with every wing beat. She can almost feel the sparkling drops of rainbow from the brimming pools next to her home plummet onto her head, tickling the peaks of her ears before they dematerialize into the air.

She hopes that she won’t be interrupting anything when she checks to see if Rainbow is alright – she absolutely hates to intrude on anything anypony is busying themselves with, it leaves her feeling badly. She hopes Rainbow Dash won’t get angry at her. Oh, she would hate to see that happening. Maybe it would be best if she just turned tail and flew home…
…but Twilight specifically asked her to check on Dash, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her friends. Besides, what if Rainbow Dash is hurt, or sad, or scared? Or what if she’s not in her house? Somepony would have to report back, for sure.

Fluttershy reaches the entrance to the mansion, her cerulean eyes advancing towards the gossamer of the door. The rainbow pools trickle peacefully down into the atmosphere, the miniscule droplets disappearing with a little pop, like a snowflake hitting the ground, the only sounds between Fluttershy and her thoughts. She begins to backtrack on her askings; after all, the demure Pegasus has never really been comfortable knocking on other pony’s doors, unless it’s urgent or important. She begins to recede from the door when she witnesses a vehement coughing fit, followed by a couple of tedious moans from beyond the cloud walls.

Fluttershy elevates an eyebrow tentatively before flying closer to the house. She hesitates for a few moments before lifting a hoof to knock timidly on the door.

There’s a slight pause, before somepony speaks in a husky voice, “Go away, I’m busy.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry for bothering you, Rainbow Dash, I guess I-I’ll leave now – “

“Fluttershy?” the voice says, recognition crawling into it. The Pegasus behind the door clears her throat, hesitating before speaking up again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you. Please - “ a short coughing fit. “- come in.”

The timid Pegasus pushes on the door before stepping hoof inside the mansion. A wary darkness immediately shrouds her vision, her eyes not being able to instantly adjust. She notices that the only decent shedding of light is a few rays streaming through an ajar window that is on the separate wall, and carefully shuts the door behind her. She searches for the light before flicking it on. And, what she sees next makers her give a little scream of fright and bewilderment.

“Rainbow Dash!”

“H-hi, Fluttershy.”
The cyan Pegasus lays stretched out on her sofa, a box of tissues and a metal bucket by her side. Her sky-blue skin is not as pale as it was before, and it gives off a strange, unearthly glow, and the slightest tinge of grey is mixed in her coat as well. Her rainbow-streaked mane and tail are disarrayed, also bearing small streaks of grey here and there. The feathers on her wings are ruffled, her usually bright, fuchsia eyes are lacking in color, and the air around her gives off a wretched stench of vomit and sweat. And, puzzlingly, her hoof is bandaged messily with toilet paper, red seeping through the delicate tissue. The Pegasus seems like a horrible mess – and by the looks of it, feels like a horrible mess, too.

Fluttershy has taken care of loads of woodland patients in the past, and she does know a great deal about medical help. Even though she hasn’t necessarily had experience with illnesses that affect ponies, she knows that this isn’t something that normally lurks the viruses of common colds and bed-ridden diseases.

“R-Rainbow Dash, what happened to you?”

Before Dash can answer her friend, she breaks into another violent fit of coughing, although is doesn’t seem like coughing at all. It seems more like a croaky hacking. She spits bile into the metal bin beside her before turning her dull eyes to the awfully concerned Fluttershy. Her eyes are as bland as a plain, dirty piece of paper, or a rough, dry wall – and the butter-yellow Pegasus nearly recoils.

Rainbow Dash decides to relive the vile details of this morning, and she opens her mouth to explain everything to her friend. By the time she’s finished, the other Pegasus looks like she’s just seen a puppy get hit by a car, and her delicate hooves are gingerly wrapping around the ill pony’s neck, resting her chin on her shoulder. Dash’s skin feels scalding against her own, nearly sizzling the soft fur to ashes, but Fluttershy doesn’t care. Her friend needs her right now.
“F-Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash rasps, her hooves hovering stiffly above her friend’s back. She’s always been an awkward hugger. “I don’t want you getting sick e-either.”

Fluttershy doesn’t respond to that. Instead, she leans her head back, hooves still wrapped securely around Rainbow’s neck. Her face bears a somber expression, one that isn’t like her to wear, usually. “We need to find Twilight, she’ll know what to do.”

: : : :

Fluttershy did have some slight troubles bringing the sickly Rainbow Dash to the ground, but she wasn’t willing to leave her friend behind, and involuntarily pressed on, no matter how much it made her withers smart. But, fortunately, the cyan Pegasus felt surprisingly lighter than she usually has been in the past, so that did give Fluttershy some sustenance. Rainbow Dash is in no condition to fly now, and something pessimistically tells Fluttershy that she won’t be soaring through the air anytime soon.

Now, the pair are standing – with the exception of Rainbow Dash, of course, lying sorely on the wooden planks – in the middle of Ponyville’s library, anxiously watching Twilight Sparkle leaf vigorously through various books strewn about on the floor. The lavender unicorn is chewing tensely on her lower lip, pupils dilated in distress, growing smaller every time she needs to toss another book onto the shag carpet when it doesn’t bear the information she needs.

Rainbow Dash lets a blatant, gurgling moan rip from her throat, and much to everypony’s dismay, begins to writhe in her spot. Erratic hissing sounds begin to bubble from her gullet, and she starts frothing at the mouth. Fluttershy dives to her friend’s side, gently coaxing her and caressing her hairline with a gentle hoof in an attempt to make her mild again. Alas there is fright behind the words she’s solicitously whispering to her ill friend. She shoots a distressed look at Twilight, who’s still prudently flipping through books or slinging them irately to the side.

“Twilight, wh-what’s happening to h-her?” the butter-yellow Pegasus asks, her voice trembling, clearly on the verge of tears.

Twilight shakes her head rapidly, continuing to pitch books in a frustrated manner, knocking them against the wall with a new anxious force. “I – I don’t know! There’s absolutely nothing in my books that describe her symptoms! If only – “

A book titled ‘Inner Demons and Means of Excorcism’ lands in her hooves, but before she can crack it open, she hears Fluttershy scream.

Twilight whips around, dropping the book to the floor. A whiplash of beaming light immediately meets her, blinding her momentarily. But, then she hears a familiar voice – although she can’t quite place it at the moment.

“Endless night! Peril is paused but not ended! Embers fade away! Darkness shall shroud the land!”

The voice booms, nearly knocking the ponies off their hooves. The refulgent light succumbs, but only insignificantly. Twilight and Fluttershy back up against the wall, clutching one another as the image in front of them commences to exist.

Rainbow Dash hovers in the air as if somehow being held by invisible strings, whereas her wings aren’t flapping, and the scariest part is her eyes are glowing, emitting black, blue, and green, the black lambent peeling off her orbs before becoming elusive in the timid air. A blinding cerulean flame engulfs her, sparkles taking the shape of bright stars materializing off her coat. Her teeth are as sharp as fangs, and when her gaping mouth opens wide, bright illusions of blue snakes pour out, snapping their jaws in the air before disappearing altogether. Her mane waves like reeds in a tranquil summer breeze.

The voice continues to thunder, and it doesn’t sound like Rainbow’s voice at all. “Forbid, foretold! Eternal obscurity is inevitable! The night shall return again!”

Chapter Three: Mirror Image

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Demon Days
Chapter Three: Mirror Image

======

Rainbow Dash drops like a stone to the floor, the ghoulish glow ceasing and her eyes returning to their normal rose-coloured demeanor. The perplexing, starry aura that’s around her begins to fade languidly into the air, and her fluffed-up mane lays flat again. She looks like the same old Rainbow Dash, thankfully, but the only difference that everypony fails to comprehend is the long gray streak painted traverse the crimson part of her mane.

The two trembling ponies huddled against the wall, their hearts hammering relentlessly against their ribcages, blink their eyes rapidly several times before letting the air flow freely through their lungs again. Fluttershy relinquishes a quaky breath, loosening her grip on Twilight’s leg. Both of them are at a loss for words. But, still, how can you possibly speak when you’ve witnessed something as terrifying as that?

At first, the two think Rainbow might be unconscious, because she doesn’t move or blink her eyes open. But then a slight twitch in her leg narrows their suspicions, and a shaky drawl of breath escapes her lips. A cyan hoof clutches at her forehead, rubbing gently at the skin there, and it isn’t long before her round eyes flutter open.

Twilight and Fluttershy release a long breath they didn’t realise they’d been holding, and they cautiously take a few hoof steps towards the Pegasus trying to steady herself up-right.

“Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy says softly, moderately advancing a hoof towards Dash, who gladly takes it and succeeds on steadying herself on her haunches.

“Wh-what happened?” Rainbow Dash utters huskily, looking questioningly up at the two other ponies.

Twilight raises an eyebrow. “You mean, you don’t know?”

Dash shakes her head, completely oblivious, it seems. “No, everything suddenly went black…
”
Fluttershy and Twilight exchange glances, their eyes throwing the same series of questions at one and other. Their neck hairs still stand on end, but their expressions remain tranquil.

“…But I did see something.”

The two other ponies standing before her perks their ears, shooting her a wondrous glance. “What?” Twilight asks.

The butter-yellow Pegasus just despondently, soothingly stroking Dash’s temple with a compassionate hoof. And surprisingly, the other Pegasus doesn’t shove it away. It actually consoles her deeply to a point where her ravaging heart falters.

“It was like, some sort of vision,” Rainbow begins, grimacing when she feels her stomach begin to corkscrew in on itself. “Twinkling stars on a blank night sky, and then there was nothing.”

The gears in Twilight’s head revolve, and she suddenly feels herself being lost in deep thoughts. A vision about a night sky? Something clicks in her mind then. The familiar voice spieling from Rainbow Dash’s mouth when she was having some kind of strange outburst, chanting about endless night and who knows what else. Also, the vision Rainbow mentioned seeing. It all seems to fit together with an enemy she thought she’d defeated, along with her friends, long ago.

“How are you feeling, Dash?” Fluttershy asks softly. Her soothing, tender voice travels through Rainbow Dash’s ears peacefully.

“Surprisingly, better,” Dash says, and it’s true. Her head doesn’t feel like it’s been stuffed with cotton balls, her eyes don’t feel sullen and droopy, and sweat pours off of her like a waterfall, meaning her fever has broken. Except, unexpectedly, the writhing, pinchy feeling grows stronger, erupting in her stomach, and her throat bubbles. She clutches her abdomen, squeezing her hooves around her sides and leans forward. Her face bunches up and turns a sickly shade of green, her eyes beginning to water.

“Oh, goodness! Are you okay?”

Rainbow Dash crawls to the nearest waste bin, tips her head into it, and her hollow stomach releases itself into the empty metal can. Blue, wispy steam discharges from the corner of her mouth, and something within her depths cries out. Nopony seems to notice, though.

The woozy Pegasus drops onto her haunches, wiping her lips with her front leg, creating groggy moans with her mouth as the world around her starts to fuzz out. Her head feels empty, her stomach feels empty, her world feels empty – and the last thing she sees before blacking out is two ponies rushing to her side to catch her as she falls.

: : : :

Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy gallop through the Everfree Forest, Rainbow Dash draped over the lavender unicorn’s back, slightly jostling with every stride she takes. Gnarled branches and sharp thorns bite at the withers and joints of the ponies clopping down the dirt path winding through the trees, sucking musty air into their lungs.

Soft, disconsolate sounds and sniffles pour from the nervous Pegasus trying urgently to keep up with the lavender unicorn racing through the trees. Maybe the stifling sounds are triggered by the spooky aura of the Everfree, or the knowledge that Rainbow Dash is deathly ill – but Twilight knows, whatever that’s causing her to cry, it isn’t supposed to turn out peachy.

“A-are we almost th-there T-Twilight?” Fluttershy sullenly queries, her throaty chokes easing slightly.

“Yes, we are – I can feel it.”

Fluttershy nods, her gaze shifting to the unconscious Pegasus slumped on Twilight’s back. Thinking about how they could save her, but not conscious of what is stirring beneath her sickly core.

: : : :
Rainbow Dash’s heavy eyelids flicker open, the fuzziness of her edges easing away. She shakes her head, clearing away the grogginess clouding her mind. She fully wakes, only to find out that she’s utterly alone.

An unearthly blackness surrounds her; beneath her hooves, encasing her mind in its nightmarish depths. Nothing, it seems, can be seen for miles – or maybe there really isn’t anything to be seen for miles. Rainbow Dash can’t be sure, but she knows that if she even tried to run to find a light source, she’d end up galloping forever in space’s endless wake.

But how did she get here? What is this place? It feels as if she’s dreaming, but there’s nothing dreamlike about this. It’s dark, spooky, and sinister. It’s most definitely a nightmare, this she knows. But she feels as if something is missing.

Suddenly, a manic sound erupting around her derails her train of thought, and she’s thrown back into the real world – or if it really is the real world and not something crazily depicting her vast imagination. The intangible ground beneath her trembles as the noise grows louder, filling her ears with its uncanny pitch. But, as it continues to get more boisterous, she takes note that it isn’t just a spine-pinching sound, it’s the hearty bellow of evil laughter.

Rainbow Dash doesn’t know where to look, doesn’t know which direction the laughter is coming from. It feels like it’s in her hears, crawling in her chest, her head, her core – and it chills her to the very marrow of her bones.

Images begin to flash on invisible screens surrounding Dash, her eyes being able to catch hints of blue and black and star-speckled indigo as they flicker on and off in mere heartbeats. Her head whips in all directions, trying to catch the images in her grasp. But as they travel all around her, she soon recognizes an onyx face, turquoise, dragon-like eyes, a blue headpiece surrounding a tall horn, and a shimmering aura of a mane flowing out in front.

Dash freezes in place, squeezing herself tighter, trying to get away from everything this dark world places in front of her. As much as she wishes she could just sink and become one with the dark floor, as hard as she tries, it’s no use.
Words begin to swirl in her mind like a movie reel, a cackling voice speaking about ‘everlasting night’ and ‘glorious subjects’ and ‘be kneeling before me’, but her brain is too bugged to comprehend the reminisces. She grabs the sides of her head as the words grow to be more forceful and painful, folding herself in half and crumpling to the ground. She feels so vulnerable, so visible, so frightened. And she hates to be so.

Then the words stop, and the world shifts. Rainbow slowly opens one eye, then the other, unfurling herself from her current position. She suddenly finds herself in a damp room, one made of scratched stones, some oozing a strange moldy liquid from between the cracks. The sour stench of decay and death immediately hits her in the face, and she grimaces.
Luckily, the images and the loud cackling are nowhere to be seen and heard, so Rainbow Dash allows herself to relax a little. The tension in her muscles loosen, but it isn’t long before they tighten up again when strange tendrils of indigo mist begin to curl around her legs and neck.

The tendrils tickle her skin, leaving her breathless, her magenta eyes watering. The hard tickles grow more merciless until she’s writhing in agony, shrieking and screaming helplessly for them to cease. The star-spangled mist disengages slightly, but the tendrils around her throat add much more pressure. Croaky, incompetent sounds spill from her mouth as the coils of mist clasp her chin, forcing her head to look in a different direction.

Rainbow Dash instantly screams at the sight before her.

Five corpses hang on the stone wall, their hooves bound with sharp metal clasps above their heads. The most disturbing parts about them is that their eyes are missing, leaving gaping black holes in their faces. Pieces of their coat are tattered and eaten away, and it looks like they’ve been gutted of everything: their organs, their bones, their skulls. Just their haggard, bloody skin hangs gruesomely by the hooks that bind them to the cold stones.

And, they all look insanely familiar.

Blonde strips of matted hair is attached to the orange corpse, while purple and rose colored hair is attached to that of the lavender corpse. Light pink hair hangs from the butter-yellow corpse’s head, vibrant pink strands hang from a muted-pink corpse, and royal purple locks rest on the ivory-colored corpse. Two are unicorns, one is a Pegasus, and the other two are earth ponies.

Rainbow Dash feels like vomiting.

Her friends… dead before her very eyes. Bloodied, battered, destroyed. Left for the Death itself to take them into his merciless grasp.

A strange light glints in her eyes, and she unexpectedly finds herself staring into a rusted, golden-rimmed mirror. Her eyes widen at her reflection, and her face contorts into that of pure horror. Turquoise, dragon-like eyes glare back at her. Her muzzle is longer, face painted black. Blue armor rests upon her head, a star-speckled, indigo mane flows out from beneath it. The image flashes like a streak of lightning, barely showing her own face for a millisecond before returning to the face that causes her to cringe. She staggers back in terror.

Because it isn’t her face at all. It’s the face of a monster.

“NO…”

She’s the monster.

Another ear-piercing cackle slices through the air, and Rainbow Dash lets another terror-stricken scream rip from her throat as she feels herself being sucked out of the disgusting world she’s been played in like an unfortunate puppet on strings.

: : : :

“She’s waking up!”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes fly open, her body drenched in cold sweat. Her throat feels scratchy, and she knows that she’s been screaming aloud. And she continues to do just that, kicking her legs out in a frenzied manner, her eyes shrouded in terror and alarm. The world around her is blurred, blended into one giant mass. She thrashes her head about, her shrieks changing into mere whimpers as her strength begins to drain from her body.

She then feels a gentle hoof stroke her soaked forehead, and a mouth lean next to her ear, whispering soothing, soft words. It causes her to relax a little, the whimpers convulsing into minor breathing sounds. Her hooves are suspended above her, haphazardly grasping at nothing but the air, until the words being whispered into her ear grow a bit more forceful, and they drop back to her sides again. The movement left with her is the shaky rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.

“Rainbow Dash?” a wary voice says hesitantly. It sounds soft and demure, soothing to her savage breasts.

The cyan Pegasus blinks her eyes rapidly after calming down, the blurriness ebbing away from her vision. She looks up to see six familiar faces gazing down upon her: Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Zecora. All of them look genuinely anxious and worried, even Pinkie Pie, who’s usual ear-to-ear grin she always wears is nowhere in sight.

“Hey, sugarcube. How ya feelin’?” Applejack asks smoothly, yet her concerned expression betrays her tranquil tone.

Rainbow Dash makes to sit up, but a sharp pain rocketing up her spine causes her to flop back down on a flocculent surface. She studies it with her hooves, and it feels like a fluffy mattress and cushiony bedding, only to figure out that it’s Zecora’s bed. The ancient, wood-painted masks that hang on the walls stare at her, causing her only to grimace as she remembers the atrocious images of her sudden nightmare.

The sullen Pegasus rubs her head, her eyes flicking around the room. “A-Applejack? Pinkie? Rarity? When did you all get here?” she inquires weakly.

“Rarity, Pinkie, an’ Ah saw Fluttershy and Twilight rushin’ into the forest carryin’ you on their backs,” Applejack explains. “We ran up ta see what all the commotion was about, only ta later learn that yer really ill. An’ now we’re all here at ye ol’ Zecora’s place.”

Rarity nods, her perfectly-shaped eyebrows furrowing into that of apprehension and worry as she gazes at her sick friend. “How are you feeling, darling?”

Rainbow Dash internally rolls her eyes. She knows her friends mean well in worrying for her well-being, but that doesn’t mean she should be treated like a foal. She decides not to portray her vague annoyance, and calmly murmurs in a respectful tone, “That’s about the third time somepony’s asked me that today, but I’m feeling fine. Much better, actually, than this morning.”

“Oh, how wonderful to hear, darling.”

And it’s true, however, her head complies to spinning, and a woozy feeling completely floods her senses. Her eyelids immediately feel heavy, flickering tediously, but she prods herself in staying awake with her friends. Zecora notices these actions as she leisurely approaches the bed.

“Ah, I see the Ambien is working its magic foretold, it won’t be long till sleep has its hold,” the zebra reports in her usual consoling balladry.

Twilight nods. “Yes. Zecora has given you a special medicine that she’s brewed which makes your sleeps more peaceful, and we figured you may need it because your lack of tranquil slumber you displayed earlier.”

A pinching shiver crawls maliciously up her spine after the lavender unicorn spoke the words. And lack of a tranquil slumber it was. The images do not cease to eat at her brain, and her insides begin to writhe like a bunch of squirming worms all compacted together tightly. What was that whole nightmare even about? Her mind fails to comprehend nagging questions because of the grogginess that grabs her in a firm grip.

Dash fights herself to stay awake, not wanting to plummet into the depths of nightmares no matter how much Twilight’s promise of a peaceful sleep reassures her, but to no avail. It isn’t long before her eyelids close and she’s nodding off to sleep.

The ponies gathered around the bed wait until they’re sure she’s really asleep before delicately heading over to wear Zecora is settled, the zebra muttering eccentric incantations to a steaming pot of bubbling brew. They remain silent until she finishes her string of confusing words, exchanging glances with one and other as tension and worry seeps into their bones. Worry for their friend. They hope with clenching hearts that Zecora knows what’s wrong with her, and even better that she has a cure to make her well again.

“So, do you know what’s wrong with Rainbow, Zecora?” Twilight asks, echoing everypony’s degrading thoughts.

The zebra nods once, although her confirmation is still quite unsure. “I have dealt with many sicknesses like this before, and I find it quite abhor,” she says, tossing in another hoof-full of herbal ingredients. “But there is a way to make sure this illness won’t stay.”

All of their faces light up, this time exchanging glances of high hopes and relief.

“Really? How?”

“Well, this remedy is sure to do the trick. At least – “

Zecora is never able to finish her sentence because of the horrible hissing noise that slithers its way through the ears of everypony in the room. Their expressions go slack, and they slowly turn their heads toward the bed, where the noise is most certainly coming from.

Rarity screams.

A strange-looking pony with teeth as sharp as fangs, eyes glazed black as the night – only emitting a harsh glow of yellow, green and blue -, rusty, cyan fur sticking up all over the place, and a vague illusion of claws unsheathing from her hooves has replaced the ill Rainbow Dash on the bed, its back arched like a cat. But the hissing, frightening pony has Rainbow Dash’s mane, and Rainbow Dash’s cerulean coat.

It is Rainbow Dash.

The ponies collide with each other, squirming in each other’s flimsy grips and huddling against the wall, their eyes wide, fixed on ghostly pony who’s claimed Rainbow’s body for its own. Fluttershy presses her hooves against her eyes. Zecora backs away, too, but her curious eyes scrutinize Rainbow Dash as she contracts in one of her deadly fits.

Suddenly, a voice that isn’t her own spills from Rainbow’s mouth. It sounds throaty, and loud, and most definitely wicked. And deathly familiar.

“The spirit’s wrath is overtaking!” it shrieks. “Be wary! Learn well! Sunset’s embers shall fade away and leave darkness in its wake!”

Then, after the last word, the darkness shrouding her eyes fade away to rose-colored irises and white sclera. Her coat flattens, and her fangs shorten back into normal teeth. Her eyebrows furrow, and with a weary groan, collapses onto the mountain of sheets. There’s a minor twitch of the leg, and then she lays motionless.

“What in… tarnation?” Applejack breathes, pausing between each word. “R-Rainbow?”

Twilight gathers herself before stepping forward, gently picking her way towards the mare in the bed. Rarity presses a hoof to the lavender unicorn’s flank, halting her with frightened cerulean eyes. “Don’t go near her! Didn’t you see what just happened?”

Twilight looks at Rarity, her purple eyes shrouded with anguish and fear for her friend. She shakes her head. “This isn’t the only time she’s done it, Fluttershy and I can count on that for a fact,” she says gravely. “This isn’t an ordinary illness, I know this for sure. And somehow, I know she can’t control what happens to her. She isn’t dangerous.”

“B-But Twilight, what happened?” Pinkie asks, irrational fear overtaking her usual peachy-keen voice that she usually voices with a high-pitched melody. “Her eyes went all loco and she started saying freaky-deaky things in a weirdo voice!” The pink party pony uses hoof gestures to expand on her sayings.

“I don’t know exactly what’s happening to her, but I think it somehow connects with her venture into the Everfree Forest, and Nightmare Moon.”

Her friends gasp. “Nightmare Moon?” they repeat in unison.

Twilight lowers her head, a stretched, dejected frown portraying her features. “And if it is, it’s all my fault.”

The unicorn feels her heart wrench. She knows that this crazy illness somehow connects with the Everfree Forest. She’s heard ancient legends of ponies coming out of there with anything but ordinary afflictions possessing their well beings. The illness Rainbow is carrying could’ve come from anything – an animal bite, a poisonous plant, or possibly anything lingering in the humid air. And the sayings… the voice that pervades Dash’s own voice is too familiar, so agonizingly familiar that it burns. And just a few moments ago had she figured it out. The declarations of everlasting night. It all fits together too well.

And it kills Twilight that, if Rainbow Dash really did catch this mysterious illness from the Everfree, it’s her call for sending her in there, for her own greedy wanting.

She feels a hoof rest delicately on her shoulder, and she swivels her head around to come face-to-face with Zecora. Despite the gentle approach, the zebra has a grave look inscribed on her face. Twilight’s eyes search hers, but even if there is an answer behind the zebra’s own eyes, she can’t find it.

“It kills me to say, with great terse,” Zecora begins, regaining her posture in front of the ponies. “That your friend is, in fact, cursed.”

The five of them gasp loudly, hooves clutching at mouths, eyes wider than dinner plates. Fluttershy lets a forlorn sobbing sound escape her lips.

“Possessed, moreover. Very prune.” The zebra makes her way over to her boiling pot of perplexing brew, beginning to busy her hooves in throwing different herbal ingredients and suspicious liquids into the brimming cauldron. She takes a moment to peak an eye over her shoulder at the ponies who continue to try and grasp what they’ve been told before. “By, yes, the one they call Nightmare Moon.”

Nothing springs from their mouths then, only tense silence. No words, no gasps, no sobs, no nothing. Just the looks of pure horror and sorrow on their faces portray a string of words already. Even Fluttershy’s flow of tears have come to a standstill, her body frozen in utter shock.

Applejack dares to shatter the thick silence, her voice quaking uncontrollably. “P-p-possessed? But h-how?”

“Come over, my little ponies, by me, right here,” Zecora directs, motioning with a hoof for the ponies to gather around her and her pot. “But the truth isn’t something you’d always like to hear.”

Chapter Four: Recollect the Nightmares

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Demon Days
Chapter Four: Recollect the Nightmare

======

The ponies hesitantly gather around the broiling pot of peculiar convulsing, clear liquid, their hearts still heavy with the weight of shock and melancholy. Rainbow Dash still lies unmoving on the bed, her shallow breaths and gentle rise and fall of her chest the only gesture of mobility. Twilight and the others offer quick, uneasy glances towards the unconscious Pegasus every once and a while, horror and perturb clawing at their wrenching hearts.

The room is silent for a while, Rainbow’s sullen snores being the only exception. Zecora stirs in a few more interesting ingredients to the brew that starts to grow still. Then, she hums another string of incantations to the pot, switching off the flickering flames beneath it before stopping altogether. She waves a swift hoof over the brew, and rippling images begin to play on the surface.

At first, just a black, inky splotch dwells in the liquid. Zecora flicks her intriguing turquoise eyes to each pony in turn as she begins to speak, “Alas, ponies, I know too much of this,” she states with a troubled sigh, “and, about it, I hate to reminisce.”

The zebra’s golden bracelets jingle as she waves her hoof over the cauldron once more, and then, the inky splotch begins to take the shape of something else. It splits into several smaller splotches, each taking the shape of a pony. The biggest splotch takes the shape of a bigger pony situated on some sort of rock, pointing a hoof at the group of ponies clustered before him, seeming to give them bleak orders. The five friends around the cauldron exchange puzzled glances with once and other.

“A mysterious clan of earth ponies are situated deep in the Everfree Forest,” Zecora narrates, staring deep into the pot. “And they are situated where the land is clearest. They are special ponies, a beneficial treat. As they are able to perform magic, a great feat.”

“Earth ponies that can perform magic?” Twilight wonders aloud, her expression dumbfounded and voice full of surprise. “But, how is that possible? I thought only unicorns can do magic – “

Zecora shoots her a glance that says she’ll get to explaining everything in the meantime, and this causes Twilight to reluctantly zip her lips closed. They both return their attention to the shape-shifting liquid swimming in the cauldron.

“The Lookerponies, as they are called, are able to summon spirits of boon,” she continues, everypony listening intently. The onyx splotches shift into the curving shapes of moaning ghosts. Twilight swears she can nearly hear their cries of melancholy. “And the most powerful one, is, indeed, Nightmare Moon.

“The Lookerponies are adherents to the night, and frown upon the splendid aura of Celestia’s daylight. Nightmare Moon was once their royal leader, but when you six ponies showed her up that fateful night, the clan has grown weaker.”

The image then rearranges itself into a moving picture of Nightmare Moon’s remaining spirit slithering into a suspicious carving, weak-looking ponies traipsing steadily around it, their jaws unhinging and moving in a unsubtle manner.
“The clan keeps Nightmare Moon’s spirit, utterly separate from Luna’s, in a suspicious relic beyond the forest’s limit. And for years, every night before the Summer Sun Celebration, they use their power to lift her spirit into yonder’s ears, in attempts to conquer Celestia’s sunny haven.”

The blotchy image continues to shift with every scene, every few sentences, keeping the ponies gathered around it mesmerized with every shape it conjures up.

“The regal princesses know about this, of course, so they put both of their strength into their magic to veer the spirit off course. Every year they succeed, and the Lookerponies pay vengeful heed.
“Now, the camp is invisible to pony eyes, so your friend must have not been able to see it when she stumbled across it in surprise.”

“An invisible camp?” Twilight bursts out, clearly exceedingly baffled by the raw explanations Zecora is giving them. She thrusts out her hoof and upturns it questionably, nearly knocking over the pot of liquid in the process. Her violet eyes are bugged out. “This is making no sense! It’s clearly impossible unless you cast an invisibility spell, but that is only possible for the highest-level unicorns, and plus it’s difficult to link the spell to the morphic field of the object, let alone earth ponies being able to perform it themselves! How – “

This time, everypony in the room shoots her a silencing glare, as if her impolite outbursts bother the hair out of their manes. Twilight immediately shrinks back, then sticks out her lower lip and crosses her hooves, remaining entirely silent. She rests her eyes back on the pot, and Zecora continues.

“Nightmare Moon’s spirit has overtaken Rainbow Dash’s aid. And this, I am not sure why, I’m afraid. Either she needed a new home to dwell in, or she needed some immobile structure, one with legs, skin – everything she craves, in most chagrin.”

“Wait, so you’re saying that Nightmare Moon took over Rainbow because she wanted to be able to have a body of her own, since she’s just merely a spirit now?” Rarity says quizzically.

Zecora nods.

“Wait a moment,” Twilight begins, but before anyone can give her an irate look, the words are already spilling out of her mouth. “If Nightmare Moon is controlling Rainbow, then her spirit could make her do anything! She may even try to destroy the elements like she did the night Luna was released from her wicked prison, or worse! Oh, dear, poor Rainbow…” The back of her eyes burn with fresh tears. “What can we do?”

Her friends begin murmuring to one and other urgently, a few stealing quick sympathetic glances at the unconscious pony sprawled out on the sheets as their chatter increases. Zecora raises a hoof for silence.
“You must keep the spirit from festering. Twilight, my dear, I’m sure you know some spells that can keep it temporarily from pestering.”

Twilight chews on the inside of her cheek, pondering this languidly. “I suppose I could do some late night research…”
Zecora nods. “For now, you must, with one of you, let her stay, and treat her gently to keep the spirit at bay. If it starts to get worse, I will mix up some remedies to keep it transiently submerse.”

“Are ya sure that’s all we can do fer now, Zecora?” Applejack asks apprehensively.

“I’m afraid it is, my dear. Alas, this won’t fix itself, I queer.”

Twilight looks at the idle, cyan heap resting on the bed against the far wall. This won’t be easy, she fears. But she needs to protect her friend – they all need to protect their friend. It’s definitely a bump in the road they wish could’ve been avoided. But they need to do as Zecora says, at least try to keep the spirit at bay for a while. With a few advantageous spells and herbal remedies, it’ll hopefully keep Nightmare Moon assiduous in the meantime.

“Who’ll take her, then?”

A wave of silence washes over the room. The ponies exchange hesitant glances with each other, and some unhinge their jaws briefly to say something, only to acutely shut them again.

Of course everypony will be more than happy to keep care of Rainbow Dash, she’s one of their best friends. It’s just that everypony seems still a bit shaken by the – outburst Dash displayed earlier.

Before Twilight can open her mouth to automatically volunteer somepony, a timid voice like a leaf drifting gracefully on a serene breeze speaks up wearily.

“I’ll take her.”

All eyes turn towards Fluttershy, the one who’s been stuck in the middle of the murmuring, the exchange of glances; the one who’s been absolutely quiet during the whole dreary explanation with Zecora. The one who’s unquestionably terrified by all of this, terrified of the spirit, the horrible outbursts – but the one who’s brave enough to take Rainbow Dash into her care despite the chilling circumstances.

“Fluttershy, are you sure you’re okay with that?” Twilight asks gently.

The demure Pegasus seems to hesitate for a moment, but then she nods, her eyes deeming confidence, albeit bleak indecisiveness. “Yes. I’m always willing to help somepony in need, and obviously, Rainbow Dash here needs my help. Although – “ Fluttershy timidly drops her gaze to the floor, her voice lowering slightly. “ – I may need you guys to drop by and visit from time to time, you know… if that’s all right with you…”

Revering grins split the faces of everypony in the room. Pinkie Pie emits an honest-to-goodness giggle as Fluttershy’s demure words curl around her brain.

“Of course,” Twilight says, giggling hiccups apparent in her voice.

The spitting fire beneath the cauldron unexpectedly flickers on again, the flaring flames’ shadows dancing on the opposite wall, glaring off everypony’s coats and causing them to start in surprise. Zecora looms over the pot, giving the ponies an ushering stare with her vibrant eyes.

“Go, my little ponies, with haste,” she says, dismissing them with a single wave of her hoof. “There is not much time to waste.”

Applejack nods, tipping her tawny hat to the zebra respectively. “Thank ya, Zecora.” She turns to the bed, then swaps her emerald gaze to Twilight Sparkle, who somehow has an idea of what the farm pony is about to say. “Twi, you help me lift Rainbow onto mah back, and then we can get outta here and help ‘er get settled in Fluttershy’s house.”

Twilight nods briskly, walking over to the cyan pegasus’ side and gently nudging her foreleg with her nose. She’s still out cold.

Just then, Rarity speaks up in a voice brimming with utter distaste and dumbfounded befuddlement. “Does anypony remember Rainbow Dash having gray streaks in her mane?”

“Huh, what? I don’t – “

Twilight cranes her neck to examine what the ivory unicorn’s jabbing her perfectly-preserved, glistening hoof at. When her violet eyes rest there, at first, her eyebrows knit together in sheer bewilderment. Then, her face contorts into that of clear-and-absolute stupor.

“That’s – what? Wait, wait – what?”

Rarity is correct. There are two unhindered grayish streaks in Dash’s rainbow-coloured mane, as if they were just suddenly painted there by an intangible paintbrush. They’re meshed together into one blob, but the outcome is conspicuously apparent.

“What is the matter, my dears? Why are your expressions all muddled up in fear?” Zecora inquires, stepping up towards the cluster of ponies whose eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

“Zecora, do you know what this means?” Twilight asks, directing a hoof to the top of Rainbow’s head, where the streaks lay. “I don’t think they were there before, I’m sure…”

The zebra studies them acutely, her brain clearly addled. All she does after is stand upright again, and give them all an honest shrug.

“Doesn’t matter right now, y’all. All we need to focus on is gettin’ Rainbow feelin’ better, and that won’t happen if we keep standin’ around like a bunch of school foals nervous ‘bout their exams. Let’s get movin’!”

“Applejack’s right,” Twilight concedes, shifting her height so Dash’s foreleg slides easily over her withers. “There’s no time to lose.”

The farm pony cautiously slips her muzzle underneath Dash’s opposite foreleg, then her bristly back as Twilight helps in softly nudging her onto AJ’s withers, then makes sure she’s securely balanced on her posterior. Dash’s limbs hang loose, parallel to Applejack’s legs, and her head is neatly resting against the base of her muscular neck. Her gentle snores brush soothingly against the other pony’s orange skin, and the farm pony has to clamp her teeth down on her lower lip to keep from chuckling as the tickling sensation clots her senses.

“Thank you so much, Zecora,” Twilight acknowledges. “We’ll be sure to let you know if anything goes awry.”
Zecora nods, an appeased grin tugging at the corners of her lips. “Let me know, you shall. I’m glad I could be of help to you all.”

The ponies file out of her home, one by one, only looking back to shoot her a grin or a meaningful wave. Twilight gives her a short hug before bounding out the door, closing it shut behind her as she follows the others back to Ponyville.

: : : :

Oh, Celestia. It’s happening again.

The visions – at first a blank, fully-fledged moonlit sky, then total blackness for miles. Then, evil laughter erupting boisterously, and it seems as if it’s coming from every direction possible. Indigo mist, unnerving, glassy eyes, blue armor, a face as black as night, flashing on and off on invisible screens surrounding her, bearing down on her, so close that even the dreadful illusions of a masked alicorn can probably hear her heart drumming against her chest.

The images halting, and seeing her friends – oh, her friends. All strung up like clothing dangling from a thin wire, everything snatched away from them as if they’re just useless toys that somepony decided to throw away. Just their coats, their flimsy bodies. Their lives. Gone.

The last thing she remembers from the visions is the mirror revealing her reflection, but not quite herself. A face – a face bearing violence and immorality, injustice and anger. The face of a monster that tried to reign over Equestria with eternal darkness the night the Elements of Harmony overtook her and turned her into a mere speck of dust, despite the princess that rose out from her ghastly spirit.

The visions – or nightmares, as Rainbow Dash likes to call them – are inadequately frequent, it seems, and they seem to pervade her mind every time she falls unconscious. And they’re always the same one. Although they come and go at a fast rate, as if you’re delicately fast-forwarding through the images, they still keep her mind boggled and leave her thoroughly frightened.

Rainbow Dash has an epiphany, however. If the nightmares keep coming back to her, then are they some sort of abnormal, hidden message that’s trying to make their way through her head? Are they a look into the future, or are they just a vivid dream that keeps occurring for no apparent reason? Dash usually finds herself hoping it’s the latter, instead of the first two theories that come to mind. Everything about it keeps nagging at her brain like pesky insects, and it’s actually become quite irritating.

: : : :

“Would you like another cup of noodle soup, Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asks the drowsy Pegasus lying sluggishly on the couch, a mountain of fuzzy blankets thrown overtop her and a couple of flocculent pillows nearly swallowing her head.

It’s been three days since their visit with Zecora, and Rainbow Dash is fitfully living in the courteous care of Fluttershy, the critter-permeated house and consoling smells wafting around her making her feel more and more at home. The cyan Pegasus is very grateful towards her friend for aiding her, but the constant pessimistic aura Fluttershy gives off whenever Dash unveils a cough or two has sort of pushed her along the teetering edge of the mountain of annoyance. And Rainbow Dash doesn’t feel the need to be treated like a foal, albeit she knows her close friend means well, even if she can get a little fervent in accommodating the rainbow Pegasus every so often.

Honestly, though, Fluttershy’s magic in nursing her has really been paying off. The medicine she’s been forcing down her throat usually calms her churning stomach and throbbing headaches she’s been receiving now and again. And fortunately, she hasn’t had the nauseating feeling of needing to pass out again for a while, although when she reluctantly falls asleep at night, the nightmares still drag her down into their hold.

The visions keep her up all night, every night. Every time they pervade her head, she immediately bolts up in bed, her heart pounding fiercely and sweat rolling down her coat like a hot shower. She refuses to slumber, and dark bags propped under her eyes gives ponies the impression that she’s developed insomnia. Fluttershy has, of course, noticed too, and tries anything like giving her sleep medicines to help her, although they never work. She thinks that the pegasus may be hiding something from her, but she always pries herself away from burrowing any deeper into the ill Rainbow Dash’s mind.

Dash’s other friends stop by now and again to pay a visit as well, sometimes bearing small gifts or just a hearty nature in conversing in a bright conversation with her. It makes her feel less ailing and more high-tailed in elevated spirits. Rarity even had the courtesy to bring her a flowing, fleecy cape bordered with cerulean sequins and plush fluff packed inside that she put together herself, claiming she merely “whipped it up at the last minute” before visiting her. Applejack brought a few home-made apple fritters and a crisp, warm apple pie to her bedside table, and later Pinkie Pie brought a rainbow-iced marble cake, Dash’s favorite. The savvy party pony also suggested throwing an unpremeditated party on the spot, but reluctantly got shooed out by Fluttershy who claimed that Rainbow Dash was still too under the weather to converse in such wild entertainment at the moment. The next day, Twilight dropped by the solemn cottage to probe Rainbow Dash with a few new spells she’d been reading up on all night. The spells worked like a charm when her heated, queasy levels were heightening, and the cyan Pegasus nearly felt like her sickness was draining out of her like a funnel.

Rainbow Dash tears her eyes away from her Daring Do book, fixing Fluttershy with an allusive gaze. She marks her place, carefully setting the book on the wooden table beside her. “No, thanks, Fluttershy,” she yawns, eyes momentarily drooping. “I think I’ve had enough soup for now.”

Fluttershy nods submissively and turns to leave the room, only to be halted queerly by Dash’s croaking voice.
“Hey, Fluttershy, do you think I could start flying again, like, now? I’m very grateful, and all, but being cooped up in here for three days now is totally not cool anymore.”

Fluttershy understands her friend’s beseeching need to find herself through her wings and tear through the clear summer air, but it’s also important that she got some fitful rest right about now, and her usual tentative physique gives away her hesitation. She chews on her lower lip. “I… I don’t know, Rainbow Dash. I mean, I know this is uncomfortable for you and all, but I think you should maybe try and rest for now. You’re still not quite better yet, and I need to make sure you’re fully okay before letting you fly again.”

“Aw, come on, Fluttershy! Please?”

“I said no, and no means no.”

Favorably, Fluttershy’s gotten a lot better as standing her ground since her encounter with Iron Will. She inwardly smiles at herself for being so bold with her more assertive friend.

“Fluttershy – “ Dash begins to whine.

“Don’t argue with me, missy, or you'll get – The Stare!”

Rainbow Dash pauses, succinctly cocking one of her eyebrows. Then, she bursts into a fit of laughter, only halting concisely to wince when a stiff joint in her neck painfully wrenches. She clutches her sides, struggling to speak words between her fits of gasping giggles. “Oh, please, that won’t work on me!”

The butter-yellow pegasus then fastens her cerulean eyeballs securely to her opponent, her eyes deeply penetrating the other’s rose-coloured orbs. They stare deep past her flesh, her bones, her blood and ligaments until they reach her soul. As if they’d suddenly grown a pair of gnarled claws, they flex and clutch her beating heart between folds of non-existent skin.

Rainbow Dash suddenly falls short of her laughter, and she regrettably finds herself slithering deeper under the heap of blankets and feathery pillows. Her eyes are locked on Fluttershy’s, unable to move away, and she emits a groan, trying to not let her valorous physique slip away from her.

Unfortunately, it does. “Okay, okay, fine, sheesh,” she sighs, reluctantly giving in to her friend’s disapproving eyeballs. “You can stop now. It’s kind of freaking me out.”

Fluttershy blinks, a grin of satisfaction splitting her face. Then, usual concern shrouds her turquoise eyes. “Now, I think you should get some sleep. Please?” she adds when Dash gives her an unwilling glance.

Dash sighs, inwardly throwing her hooves up in defeat. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Dash buries her nose under the covers, closing her eyes, feigning sleep. The lights flicker off, and she waits until the sound of Fluttershy’s dainty, careful hoofsteps grow fainter and fainter until they disappear completely. Then, she gives one quick glance around, making sure she’s desirably alone, and flicks on the outstretched lamp hanging across her head. She cracks open the Daring Do book, snuggling deeper into Rarity’s fluffy cloak, her fatigued eyes drooping cumbersomely as they read about the pony’s adventures on the outskirts of a deserted island.

It must keep her awake long enough so the nightmares don’t detain her in their solid grips again, although she wishes she could escape the world for just a few moments as her stomach violently begins to twist for the third time this day.

Chapter Five: Constantly Falling

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Demon Days
Chapter Five: Constantly Falling

======

A beaming, luminous stretched ray of light penetrates through ivory cloud, painting the vast clearing in a golden, bright color. The languid wind whistles through the branches and leaves of near trees, and rolling hills shroud the horizon of the glowing cerulean sky. It’s a seemingly cliché kind of day, as far as Rainbow Dash can tell.

She soundlessly slips out of Fluttershy’s cottage, her multihued mane immediately catching the buffeting breeze when her body comes in contact with the atmosphere. She sucks clean, refreshing air into her lungs, her chest inflating momentarily before settling down to its normal extent.

It’s been so long since she’s been outside. Centuries, perhaps, although that seems a bit much of an exaggeration. Fluttershy has gone into town to pick up some more groceries, alongside her velutinous companion, Angel Bunny, who threw a bit of an adorable temper-tantrum before being dragged out of the house by his cotton-like tail. Rainbow Dash is utterly alone, and although she is, she can’t be more excited.

Rainbow Dash flares her wings, deciding to put them to the test. Her being cooped up under heaps of blankets and pillows and swollen with amounts of Fluttershy’s home-made noodle soup has taken its toll of absolute boredom on her, and she genuinely can’t remember the last time she’s soared breathlessly through the sky, nopony to disturb her effortless flights for miles.

The Pegasus pony doesn’t understand what her friends are so worried about; obviously she’s fine, and obviously she doesn’t need to be worried over about her well-being like some sort of weak foal. And actually, she’s never felt more alive. Twilight and Fluttershy’s magic spells and quick medications seem to have helped quite a lot, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t be more grateful, although she still doesn’t feel the need to be babied quite so much.

Her strong wings beat the air, creating wide wind currents the shape of circles to flow easily around her feathers, causing patches of grass to go flat as the currents affect them, too. She feels her hooves lift slowly off the ground, the air around her the only support. Tawny leaves breeze about her head, and it isn’t long until her body is steady in the air and she is zipping along the wind currents, her wings flapping effortlessly on either side of her flank. The lets loose a shrill, joyful cry as she performs a barrel-roll in the air, her slender body sliding easily between the clouds and tawny leaves that flutter in her path.

Her stomach starts to become an inflaming vesicle, but she seems to be able to ignore it as she finds herself lost in the wistful cerulean atmosphere. The muscles in the base of her wings ache slightly, but she continues to flap on, closing her eyes to precisely focus on herself weaving effortlessly through fluffy clouds and high tree tops that kiss the sky.
She is just in the midst of maneuvering a double three-sixty spinout when her stomach gives a mighty jolt, and she’s flung off track from the impact. She barely manages to catch herself before smacking into a tree and quickly regain her balance. She hovers in the air, her mind aloof.

Suddenly, her throat constricts, and her stomach flips violently, causing her to moan as she clutches at her chest.
Then, something unspeakable causes her wings to snap back against her sides, everything able to support her in the air, gone. On a spur of the moment, she tries to extend them again, but something aggravatingly doesn’t let her –

She seems to forget how to scream as she plunges to the earth.

: : : :

Fluttershy hums to herself solicitously as she trots leisurely on the path winding to her cottage, Angel Bunny and her saddlebag full of groceries perched on her withers. The gentle tunes forming on her lips flow in tandem with her dainty steps.

“I wonder how Rainbow Dash is doing,” she wonders aloud, much to Angel’s irascibility.

The cobblestone street broadens as she reaches her destination, and her question is answered much to her chagrin when she spots a familiar cyan speck plummet to the ground, its rainbow-streaked hair swirling up like a tornado as the ground rushes up to meet its strangled body.

Fluttershy doesn’t have time to gasp. She surprises herself as she acts fast, Angel Bunny hopping off her back as she extends her wings in a flash. Her hooves strike the ground in a frenzied tangle of limbs as she pushes herself forward, determined to get to the fallen Pegasus before she hits the dense, unwelcoming land.

She lifts an inch off the ground and dives. The next few moments are a blur. The butter-yellow Pegasus nervously thinks that she hasn’t made it in time, but an unexpected, rough impact that collides with her shoulder muscles proves her wrong, and the air is immediately seized from her lungs. A strangled croak escapes her lips, and she merely lays on the wiry grass until she manages to get her breath back.

Fluttershy cautiously arches her back, and Rainbow Dash’s body inscrutably rolls off of it and onto the ground with a hollow thump.

“Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy whispers with bated breath as she searches for any sign that the cyan Pegasus is conscious – and finds none.

She tenderly nudges her friend’s shoulder, then gently flicks her ear, then breathes against her skin, but nothing seems to work. Dash is out cold.

Fluttershy feels tears well in her eyes as she thinks of all the ways she could’ve helped her, how she didn’t have to leave her when she was in a time of need and care – how frustrating this all has been for her. For both of them.

She should’ve known Rainbow Dash would come out and try to fly, how foolish she’d been when that particular thought hadn’t crossed her mind. She should’ve bucking known.

Fluttershy paws at the ground with her hooves, throwing up clumps of dirt and grass in the process, choking sobs wracking her body and tears freely streaming down her face. The salty taste invades her senses as they flow into her mouth and nostrils, but she doesn’t care. Her friend is under the control of a monster, and it pierces Fluttershy’s heart like a dagger being thrust into her chest – and she can’t possibly imagine what it’s like for Rainbow Dash herself.

Her sobs cease slightly, and taking in a shuddering breath, lowers her head to rest her chin on Rainbow’s exposed chest, kneading her muzzle firmer into the cyan fur, trying to gather all the warmth that pervades her friend. She can feel the shallow thumping of her heart buried beneath the pallor of her skin, the gentle breaths that escape her lips. The tears that continue to fall silently stain her friend’s coat like wet paint. She closes her eyes. Her breathing slows down and becoming one with Dash’s shallow ones, almost like a song that feels lost in the nature of their surroundings.

Fluttershy swears she can hear the faintest of cackles trembling in Dash’s depths, her ear pressed timidly against her blue coat. She chooses to ignore it, though, albeit it makes her vaguely perilous no matter how hushed it is.

She doesn’t know how long it’s been until she feels movement underneath her chin, startling her out of her daze. Her head shoots up, alarmed, however her wide cerulean eyes relax slightly as she focuses on the meager rustlings of her friend beginning to wake. She considerately nudges Rainbow Dash’s shoulder blade, willing to go that extra mile to show some tender action. To show how much she cares.

Rainbow Dash’s eyelids gingerly begin to flicker open, magenta irises starting to show beneath the expanse of skin slowly lifting upward, greeting the shining sun warily as the light rushes into them. Her head languidly turns towards Fluttershy, and her eyes are immediately shrouded in nostalgia and pain as she peers at one of her closest friends.

She opens her mouth to speak. What comes out is a pathetic croak that causes both ponies to cringe. “Fluttershy… I’m so sorry, I know you said – “

She is promptly silenced when Fluttershy gently rests a supple hoof on her boiling forehead. An understanding grin appears on her face, and Rainbow Dash relaxes, returning the tender gesture.

“I don’t care about that right now. I’m just glad you’re okay,” she says softly, her words merely a graceful leaf in a rushing breeze.

Her hoof trails delicately across Dash’s hairline, sweeping her multihued fringe to the side and leaving an ebbing rush of coolness in its wake. Surprisingly, to the both of them, the cyan Pegasus doesn’t shove her friend away, or roll in a different direction to escape her gentle touch, just accepts it, because she’s honestly too exhausted to move. She doesn’t directly know what caused it, it just suddenly hit her when she woke. All she wants to do is curl up in a cushiony mountain of comfy blankets and feathery pillows, or possibly a flocculent ivory cloud and just sleep.

And she’s nearly out like a light right then and there, but a sudden violent, nauseating churning in her stomach interrupts her desperate call for slumber.

She bolts upright, causing Fluttershy to gasp and scoot back a few inches. Her throat crawls with bile, and she turns away from the other Pegasus to empty her stomach onto the grass. Body quaking, she wipes her mouth with her hoof, feeling two times lighter than before. A groan emits from her throat, and those groans turn into strangled whimpers as she feels an unexplainable pinching pressure inside her body.

Fluttershy cautiously takes a step backwards, her eyebrows scrunched in concern as she watches her friend struggle with herself. She assumes she’s having another one of those horrendous fits, and the throttling screech that expels from Dash’s mouth fails to tell her otherwise.

It relates to the sound between a wicked cackle and a chicken being strangled in electric fencing.

Fluttershy’s heart hammers in her chest when she notices Rainbow Dash’s belly ripple, then start bulging out in several places as she writhes uncontrollably. Her rose-coloured eyes then fade to ugly shades of black, blue, and green, an eerie glow surrounding the sclera on each. Her fur bristles, her hooves seem to have a sharper edge to them, and her teeth lengthen into pointed fangs. A long hiss rolls off her tongue, causing Fluttershy’s ears to ring and her brain to pound.
The terrified Pegasus suddenly finds herself scrambling backwards, her expanded eyes locked on Dash’s glowing ones, meager whimpers escaping her mouth and dirt bunching up around her backside as she continues to clamber through the soil. Rainbow Dash takes menacing steps towards her, swiping at her intimidatingly with her hoof, fangs bared and forked tongue having spasms with every hiss.

Fluttershy knows Dash can’t control herself, but her mind is so petrified that she can’t even think straight. She suddenly feels her hindquarters press against something bulky and hard; no doubt it’s her cottage that looms over the two of them. She winces, trying to make herself smaller as demonic Rainbow Dash casts an eerie shadow over her, the fiery glows emitting from her eyes reflecting in color off the grass.

The butter-yellow Pegasus squeezes her eyes shut as she sinks lower towards the ground, her ribs crunching against the tops of her thighs and nearly whisking away the breath from her lungs. Her lips tremble, her body trembles.
But then she realises something.

Rainbow Dash won’t hurt her. She won’t. She would never hurt any of her friends, no matter what kind of situation she’s put in. It’s uncanny for her, as uncanny as for any good friend, and that causes Fluttershy to relax as her mind reels through the facts.

She dares to open her eyes.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash hasn’t come any closer to her. She just paws at the ground threateningly, as if she’s about to attack. The hissing hasn’t ceased, though, making Fluttershy uneasy.

Although, that’s when she musters all her courage jam-packed in her system, in her heart, and does something that undoubtedly surprises her.

She embraces her.

Fluttershy gathers the other Pegasus close, their hearts press together, beating in tandem with their bated breath. Dash’s coat bristles against her own, tickling her throat and every inch of her skin. She feels a pair of fierce hooves grip her shoulders, compressing her on either side, but she doesn’t care, even though it hurts so much.

But the pain that she can really feel is the fact that Rainbow Dash is too far gone to notice what’s going on. To notice what’s going inside of her. How horrifying it must be for her to convulse in this pain.

Fluttershy’s eyes brim with tears, and within moments they’re spilling onto her cheeks, a glistening flow like a waterfall that stains the other’s fair blue coat. She hugs her friend closer, tighter, clinging onto her like a filly would do to her mother.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy laments, her voice watery and trembling. “Please, please, don’t do this to us…”

Dash hisses again like a furious caged, carnivorous animal, trailing the tips of her hooves down her friend’s sides, almost breaking the skin in the process. Fluttershy has to clench her jaw as to keep herself from screaming in pain. But that only makes the flow of tears increase dramatically.

They stay like that for a while. Although it’s only a matter of time before Rainbow Dash’s hooves loosen their malignant grip on Fluttershy’s shoulders, and the yellow Pegasus can withdraw a slow breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The boisterous hissing falters, and Rainbow gives a breathless sigh as the unearthly glowing fades from her eyes and a bright magenta color replaces it.

She leans limply against her friend, her enervated gesture earning a small squeak of surprise as her new weight engulfs the other struggling to steady herself. Her eyelids feel like heavy iron weights, and she feels utterly and intoxicatingly exhausted. Her body seems as if all the lingering life has been wiped clean, and all she can do at the moment is drift in and out of consciousness as deep slumber threatens to drag her down into its hold.

“D-Dash?” Fluttershy queries, her soft voice brushing delicately against her companion’s neck. She wants to say more, but no words come to mind.

“Fluttershy?” Dash’s ears perk up at her closest friend’s voice, leaning her head back, her eyes meeting big, swimming, cerulean ones that rest inches from her own. “Wh-what happened? Did I fall asle – “

Her words falter when she notices long, lethal scratch marks running from Fluttershy’s shoulder to her hip bones on either side of her body. They blend into the colors of black, blue, and purple as they begin to bruise. Her eyes go wide.

“What happened – “ Her voice then chokes, throat constricting. “Did… did I…”

Fluttershy shakes her head, dismissing the subject with the simple gesture. Some sort of emotion that Dash can’t read shrouds her eyes, and she turns away towards her cottage, motioning for Dash to follow her. “Come on,” she says sweetly. “I think you need some more rest.”

Rainbow Dash doesn’t complain. She achingly gets up, following in Fluttershy’s hoofsteps, feeling like her legs are twice the size they used to be when she stumbles cumbersomely over every tiny stone or thick weeds jutting out from the ground.

Her mind reels tiringly, causing her brain to pound against her skull, a fresh headache beginning to sprout in her head. All she craves to do is fall asleep as soon as her body hits the flocculent, pinetree-smelling bed sheets sprawled out on the couch, courtesy of Fluttershy, of course. And she does just that as soon as she gets inside. But nagging thoughts and questions prevent her from drifting off, and they go like this –

What exactly is wrong with her? It isn’t like any sickness she’s experienced before. Could it be unknown to ponykind, perhaps? Didn’t Zecora confirm anything when they arrived at her hut in the Everfree Forest? Perhaps she did, so are her friends refraining from telling her exactly what’s happening to her?

What are those scratch marks on Fluttershy from?

And will the nightmares return again once she drifts into unconsciousness?

Chapter Six: Deadlock

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Demon Days
Chapter Six: Deadlock

=======

Rainbow Dash wakes up screaming.

She clutches at the bed sheets with quaking hooves, large globules of sweat cascading down her face, leaving behind vague, dark trails in their wake. Her head thrashes about, knocking stray pillows surrounding her onto the floor, and her eyes are tightly squeezed together, her conscious screeching at her to open them to stop the abhorrent images from plaguing her any longer.

But it’s as if they’re glued together with effective adhesives, not even allowing a miniscule beam of light to filter in between her eyelids, to tell her she’s alright, to tell her there’s life and light beyond the barriers of the beastly visions.

Her throat becomes numb soon enough as raving shrieks continue to roll off her tongue, barraging any sanity she has left. But those screams soon turn into dismal whimpers and small croaks when her voice can’t hold on any longer. Tears squeeze themselves past her adhered eyelids, silently rolling down her cheeks as she blubbers like a foal internally.

“N-No… STOP it… GO away… GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” she wails, her voice grating painfully against her scratchy throat.

The door to her room suddenly bursts open, and in the threshold stands Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus’ motherly instincts rolling off of her like heat waves. Her cerulean eyes are dinner plates, her heart thudding against her chest loud enough it could wake up the whole of Ponyville. She can almost hear Rainbow’s own heart hammering in sync with hers as the cyan Pegasus struggles to unhinge herself from unconsciousness.

She urgently flicks on the lights, basking the whole room in a welcoming, luminous aura. “Dash? Rainbow Dash!”

That’s when Rainbow Dash’s eyes decide to peel open, the magenta irises beneath darting all over the place, her whimpers dying down to shallow breaths as she struggles to regain her composure. The radiant light penetrating her eyes, however, is nowhere a reciprocal to the dreary darkness in her dreams, and she instinctively blinks them rapidly to adjust.

Fluttershy stoops down next to the shivering Pegasus shrouded by waves of blankets, her eyes wide and alarmed. “Are you alright? What’s the matter?” she asks urgently.

Rainbow Dash cringes at the thought of telling her demure friend about the horrific nightmares that she’s been receiving ever since her sickness first plagued her, and she hates to go into that much of detail. She decides to dismiss it with a solemn wave of her hoof. “It’s… it’s nothing. Just a bad dream. I’m fine now.” Her quivering voice gives her away, however.

Fluttershy furrows her eyebrows together quizzically, unsure whether to believe her friend and think nothing of it, or burrow deeper and ask questions. She decides upon the latter, her motherly instincts kicking in again. “Do you want to talk about it?” she inquires softly.

Dash fidgets in her spot. “N-no, really, I’m fine.”

Fluttershy just stares at her instead of responding. A gentle but prodding stare that makes her feel most uncomfortable and causes the hairs on the back of her neck to rise like goosebumps.

“Fluttershy, really…” Her voice comes out like a whine, lower abdomen contracting with nervous sparks. She fidgets again, once, twice, thrice, hoping on winning her out so she can escape her scrutinizing cerulean gaze.

But it never happens, and she finally gives in, throwing up her hooves internally in defeat. “Fine, fine!”

Fluttershy makes herself comfortable next to the bed, hugging a pillow to her chest as Dash dives headfirst into the story and details of the abysmal nightmares that’s been dying to be let out sooner or later. By the end of the story, a welling pit of sympathy grows larger in the butter-yellow pegasus’ stomach, and she’s delicately wrapping her hooves around her friend’s shoulders, pulling her close in a sympathetic embrace. Dash returns it ineptly, glistening tears prodding the corners of her eyes, but is unwilling to let them fall.

Although, now that she thinks about it, Fluttershy has been her friend since the beginnings of Flight School, throughout her trials and errors, and through her good, and her worst times. She knows her tough areas, and her weak ones. If that hasn’t been enough, then she doesn’t know how it wouldn’t be.

Soon enough, before thinking much more of it, the tears escape her hold and spill noiselessly down her cheeks, albeit with the presence of soft sniffling noises. And, before she knows it, she’s clutching her friend tighter, sobbing sullenly in the dip of Fluttershy’s neck, the other Pegasus gently rubbing her back in soothing circles, letting her cry as much as her heart desires. All she can do for now is whisper consoling words and telling her that she’s here, that she isn’t going anywhere, that she’ll be safe in the waking world.

Rainbow Dash’s flow of tears soon calms down, and she earnestly wipes them away with her hoof, her throat tight from the crying. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and her cheeks are tinged darker blue than the rest of her coat. Fluttershy gently tucks a strand of loose, rainbow hair dangling in front of Dash’s face behind her ear, grinning gingerly in the process. A new warmth spreads in Dash’s chest, and a sudden urge to have the other pegasus’ comforting body next to her for the rest of the night dominates her other compulsion to be alone with her nightmares.

“Fluttershy, do you think you could, maybe, stay with me for the rest of the night?” Dash cracks a distorted, awkward smile. “Y’know, if that’s cool with you.”

The butter-yellow Pegasus kindly returns the gesture, and nods, no other words needing to be said other than that. She crawls under the covers with her friend, spreading the blanket evenly over top the both of them, making sure they’re sharing the tranquilizing warmth that makes their veins rush with a pleasant simmer.

Together, they can fight the monsters that lurk in the shadows and that try to overcome their irrefutable friendship.

: : : :

The last few days have been overwhelming.

Rainbow Dash has become more weary and indisposed than ever before, and it’s begun to take a turn for the worst. Although Fluttershy is doing her very best to help her ill friend, rushing in with any medication or a metal bucket or a fresh, steaming cup of her delicious homemade noodle soup when it is needed, it doesn’t seem to be working as well as she initially intended before. Twilight’s and Zecora’s methods have been able to help, if only by a small bit, but nothing really sticks for a while. Something festering inside Dash doesn’t seem to want to rest anytime soon, and what it wants – nopony knows for sure.

The irked complaints being shot from Ponyville’s weather team indubitably isn’t helping any peachy causes as well, in fact, more stormy than usual. All of them are inexplicably wondering why Rainbow Dash hasn’t been doing her part in the weather team’s jobs around the ville for a fair amount of time, and although she’s told them several days too late that she’s under the weather, they brew up accusations of why she didn’t take the time to notify them earlier; she’s the best Pegasus on the team, for Celestia’s sake!

Rainbow just internally rolls her eyes and lets them cool down themselves.

Fluttershy has tried to consult with them as well, but her frivolous attempts have done nothing to help the situation. Anyhow, later, she just agrees to let them sort the matter with their own hooves.

Furthermore, it seems that Dash, because of her bewildering sickly state, presumably, has gotten to be a bit more aggressive than her average physique. But, Fluttershy knows to see past it and know that it isn’t thoroughly her friend’s fault. Although, sometimes, seeing past it can be harder than it looks.

: : : :

Fluttershy placidly traipses down the hallway, a metal tray decked out with various breakfast foods and drink placed in her mouth. She struggles not to gag as the metallic taste soaks into her taste buds.

She gently presses a hoof to Dash’s door once she reaches it and pushes it open, said door swaying open to reveal a rainbow-maned mare with a sleek cerulean coat seething silently in the corner of the room.

Wait. Seething?

“Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy says once she’s placed the tray on the wooden table beside the door. Her eyes steadily, confusedly, fix on the other Pegasus who’s sitting slouched, arms crossed, diagonally across from her. Her friend’s back is arched and facing her, instantly giving the room an irate, scorching atmosphere. “I brought you breakfa – “

“I’m not in the mood,” comes a sweltering response.

“Oh,” Fluttershy says, almost inaudibly, ducking her head lower to the floor. Her gaze flickers up, undoubtedly, her expression glazed over in puzzlement and discommode at Dash’s sudden disapprobation. She decides to probe – although a little amount. “But, um, if you don’t mind me asking – “

“I said I’m not in the mood!” Rainbow Dash snaps, her head swivelling around instantaneously to glare over her shoulder, her fiery magenta eyes burning a hole in between Fluttershy’s own.

Fluttershy flinches, her body dipping so low that her belly nearly grazes the hardwood flooring. “Oh… I’m sorry…” Her voice is barely a whisper.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash says, her voice shrouding a derisive chuckle somewhere inside it. She’s gotten up now, on all fours, and is menacingly taking slow steps towards the butter-yellow Pegasus cowering the threshold. “you’re really quite pathetic, aren’t you? Such a lame, do-anything-and-she-won’t-complain, ragamuffin type of pony, eh?”

“I – “ Fluttershy squeaks.

‘Just ignore it,’ she tells herself. Just ignore it. ‘This is NOT Rainbow Dash. This is NOT her. This is NOT this is NOT this is NOT this is NOT – ‘

Rainbow Dash is now nose-to-nose with her. Smouldering, magenta eyes seem to ignite a live fire in her own soul as they bore past her flesh, past her skull, and oxidizing a charred hole into the wall on the other side. Her eyebrows are creased, jagging so low past her eyes that they could split her face in half in a heartbeat. She thrusts her muzzle hard against Fluttershy’s, earning a disconcerted squeak from the other Pegasus as her hindquarters collide roughly with the incommodious wall behind her.

“Ponies shouldn’t have to deal with a stupid, inferior Pegasus like you acting like a doormat in every waking hour. You shouldn’t even consider yourself a Pegasus, because you can’t BUCKING FLY. You can’t do ANYTHING. You’re NOTHING. So do us all a favor, and GET THE BUCK OUT!!!”

Rainbow Dash’s last, unwarranted words are like a swift kick in the gut. Tears stream down Fluttershy’s face, the yellow Pegasus choking on her own sobs, and she turns tail and stumbles out the door, crisp lamentation growing fainter as it travels down the hallway in her wake.

But Rainbow Dash has woken up early enough to see her friend break down in tears before bolting out the door, her wavering rose-coloured tail the last thing she sees before disappearing altogether.

At first, she stands there, utterly dumbfounded as dull, cheerless sobbing sounds reach past her eardrums, causing her heart to sink accordingly.

YOU’RE REALLY QUITE PATHETIC, AREN’T YOU?

She flinches as those words mull around in her brain, swirling up a storm brimming with bewildering, puzzling feelings, intermingling with her soul and causing her to stumble back abruptly. And the scariest part is:

It sounds exactly like her voice.

PONIES SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH A STUPID, INFERIOR PEGASUS LIKE YOU ACTING LIKE A DOORMAT IN EVERY WAKING HOUR.

There it is again. A terrified squeak rings in her ears, and a swift image of a certain butter-yellow Pegasus cowering in alarm flashes before her eyes.

YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING.

No…

YOU’RE NOTHING.

No NO.

SO DO US ALL A FAVOR, AND GET THE BUCK OUT!!!

NO NO NO NO!

Rainbow Dash grasps the sides of her head, hard, with her hooves. She shrinks to the floor, her voice drowning in the clutches of ruthless, wicked words that had somehow spewed from her lips moments ago.

“How could I?” she whispers gloomily to herself, her voice cracking under the pressure of the identical voice that is a violent tremor in her ears. “How could I say that to poor Fluttershy? What in Celestia was I thinking?”

She wasn’t thinking.

And it wasn’t her fault.

She trots down the hallway, warily calling out her friend’s name, and her heart sinks even farther when no response greets her words. Then, a sudden gust of air wafts around her, and she notices that the door leading outside is gaping wide.
Rainbow steadies herself before dashing out of the door, perilously hoping that her demure friend hasn’t gone too far before she’s able to catch up to her. Swiftly thinking, she extends her wings, but then binds them back against her sides again, her blood boiling in her veins.

‘I shouldn’t try to fly again,’ she thinks. ‘Remember what happened last time.’

Once she reaches open air, a strong, malicious wind instantly whips her in the face, her mane and tail askew in the intense current. She spits some stray hair out of her mouth and squints against the erratic rush of the gust and blazing sun reigning down upon her. Her wandering eyes search everywhere – anywhere – to see if they can locate the butter-yellow Pegasus gone astray.

She breaks into a minor trot, her head swivelling around in all directions, her heart eager to find her friend and give her a sentimental talking to.

‘What is wrong with me?’ she keeps thinking sullenly, the words still sloshing around in her skull. ‘What is wrong with me what is wrong with me what is wrong with me – ‘

Just then, squinting against the brilliant light permeating the sky, she spots a timid yellow figure sitting silently on the edge of the rumbling creek that runs against her home, although she’s far on the other side, it seems. Her back is facing the cyan Pegasus, albeit the flowing light-pink locks waving fervently in the breeze can easily be discriminated as Fluttershy’s.
Relief floods Rainbow Dash’s system, and her thudding heart eases slightly. She runs towards the other mare, only halting when she’s about half a tail-length behind her.

Fluttershy’s ears perk up and swivel around, indicating to Dash that she notices her presence. The reflection in the sparkling water in front of them paints a wavering picture of two pegasi gazing in the cerulean stream, faraway looks in their glassy eyes.

Fluttershy isn’t crying anymore, however, faint trails of darker skin embedded on her cheeks signify that she only stopped a tad bit ago. Rainbow’s heart falters even more.

She opens her mouth to say something, but the other Pegasus cuts her off.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” she softly reassures, her voice muffled slightly by the creek rumbling past.

“Then why did you come out here?”

A thick sheen of silence passes between them, before Fluttershy dares to speak up again. “Because I was afraid. Those words – I’ve heard them all before, and they sting just as badly as the first time they came around.”

Rainbow Dash wordlessly sits next to the other mare, her hooves dangling gingerly in the bubbling water, the coolness of it all rushing up her spine like tendrils of electric shock.

“I’m sorry.”

Fluttershy turns to face her, pools of cerulean swimming with compassion and despondency. “Don’t act like it’s your fault, Rainbow Dash, because it isn’t.”

“But, I said them! How is not my fault?”

A gentle hoof rests on her shoulder. “Trust me, Dash, it isn’t.”

A tiny lake of frustration bubbles inside of her. “Look, you’re not really giving me enough data, here, Fluttershy. The words came out of my own mouth, doesn’t that count for something?”

Fluttershy twirls a lone flower around with her hoof. “You act like you want me to believe that what you said back there is your fault.”

“N-no! Of course not! I just don’t get what you’re saying, ‘Shy.”

The butter-yellow Pegasus seems to stare deeper into her eyes, deeper into her soul, as if seeking a part of her out, something hidden deep inside. “Did you ever feel conscious, when you were speaking those words, Dash? Was your mind blank, distorted, maybe? I know for a fact that what you said wasn’t on your own will to, it’s something unexplainable. The days that come after this will be a ride, but I don’t want you thinking any less of yourself. This illness, this bed-ridden disease, is NOT you. Take my words to heart, Rainbow Dash, for these words count. I don’t usually talk as much as this.”

Rainbow Dash swears she can see Fluttershy’s cheeks flush with the faintest color of pink, but just as quickly as it spread, it fades away. All she can do is stare in shock at the other mare, jaw slightly ajar, letting her words soak into her brain like a wet sponge.

“What are you telling me, Fluttershy? Are you saying that my illness is much more than I’ve anticipated? Do you… do you know what’s going to happen to me?” Much to her dismay, her last words come out in a dejected crackle, sounding frightened, scared, alarmed. And, in truth, although she’d hate to admit it to anypony, she is completely and utterly horrified.

Fluttershy chews on her lower lip, hoping that she won’t have to go into great detail of explaining everything she learned at Zecora’s that one fateful day. She immediately remembers what Twilight told her after that, once she agreed to take Rainbow Dash into her home.

“Try not to tell her everything yet,” the lavender unicorn had ordered. “We don’t want to take things any further than they need to be, and we definitely don’t need to ruin her hefty demeanor if we can help it. And if she starts piecing it together bit by bit, then we can tell her. But from now on, we’ve got to keep the spirit at bay, and Rainbow’s heart at ease.”

Fluttershy’s throat closes up, preventing any words from suddenly departing her mouth. And for that, she is grateful.
The butter-yellow Pegasus slowly shakes her head, her eyes dwindling, darting everywhere except Dash’s magenta pools that swirl with discomfort and frangibility.

And, much to her surprise, the other mare does look as fragile as any terrified foal would look. She checks twice. Her eyes don’t betray her. Rainbow Dash, in this moment, looks as delicate and aghast as a trembling leaf in a cold autumn breeze. Her usual brash, confident sheen has been stripped away, leaving a bewildered, anxious, puzzled pony in its place. And, as the air surrounding them shifts to a more frigid temperature, she trembles even more.

Fluttershy has a sudden, caviling urge to drape a wing around her friend and drag her into her warmth, but decides against it because then Dash would assume that she thinks she’s nothing more than a pathetic foal that needs comfort from its mother, and she doesn’t want to do that to her most loyal companion. Instead, she gets up on all fours and flashes Dash a heartwarming smile.

“Come on, Rainbow Dash,” she says, her voice drifting like silk on the water’s edge. “I think you should rest again. How about another cup of my special homemade noodle soup to cure what ails you, huh?”

Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes jovially, returning the smile. She coughs once before following Fluttershy back up to her sweet-smelling cottage, the only sounds conversing between them are the soft padding sounds of hooves connecting with soil and grass and gentle hums that pass the butter-yellow pegasus’ lips.

After all, Dash has never complained about sleep before.

: : : :

“Absurd! Absolutely absurd!” a sharp, thundering voice booms across the clearing, penetrating anypony’s ears that come in at least a mile-radius from hearing it.

Lord Somber Hooves stands atop the highrock, his scorching amber eyes scanning the clearing, eyebrows and burn marks furrowed in absolute outrage.

“It’s surely gone, my lord,” Deputy Brawny Boulder declares, approaching the rock his leader stands atop. Somber Hooves shoots him a drilling glare, and although not entirely directed towards his faithful deputy, Brawny Boulder flinches and shrinks back accordingly. The next words come out softer than he’s anticipated. “The tribal ancestors are astounded, and we’ve already sent out at least four search parties in the past two hours. We have no idea where it went, or if it was stolen, or merely just materialized into thin air. Even Star Charmer can’t See into the Ulterior to make sure we’ll ever find it, and Look to find out where it has gone.”

Lord Somber Hooves grits his yellowing teeth and stamps his hoof down onto the craggy rock, the splintering sound ringing in everypony’s ears and rustling the leaves on nearby trees bordering the clearing.

His aggravating desperation proves he is stupid enough to send out search parties to look for a missing spirit.

“Well, search harder!” he bellows, flaring amber eyes stabbing into the tranquil green eyes of his deputy. His jaw is clenched, several veins jutting out grotesquely. “We can’t have this mishap, after we’ve come so far! Our goal is to build Nightmare Moon a new body, and now that her spirit is gone, we can’t possibly do that now!”

“Yes, I understand, my lord.” Brawny Boulder’s voice quakes with exasperation, although his eyes remain serene and still. “I will send out more search parties, and shall tell Crimson Remedy to see if she can figure out anything in the Ulterior as well.”

Lord Somber Hooves gives him an abrupt nod, face gruff, and his deputy trots off into the shadows.

When he is sure his deputy is out of sight, he lifts his muzzle up to the star-spangled sky, his expression still and unmoving. ‘Oh, Nightmare Moon,’ he drawls in his head. ‘our experiments have halted, for now. But it won’t be long, my queen.’

Chapter Seven: The Right Angle

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Demon Days
Chapter Seven: The Right Angle

Rainbow Dash suddenly realises that she hasn’t looked in the mirror for quite a while. Hell, she doesn’t even remember the last time she saw her reflection in one, anyway. Her mind is too throttled to think clearly, like it has been the past few days, getting worse and worse with every passing moment.

And she thought she was getting better.

Her illness seems to randomly come and go; one day swiftly passing over her like a mere raincloud, and the next day violently sprouting through her again, knocking her back flat on her pillow. She is more than baffled about her sickness, and has no idea whatsoever if it’s something anypony’s gotten before, or if it’s easy enough to cure.

Mulling over everything today has gotten more tiring than she’s anticipated. Her brain smarts. Her body is packed with searing heat, although vague shivers flow up her spine every once and a while. The four plain walls bordering her seem to move in on her, giving her a suffocating sense of claustrophobia.

Depicting the thoughts before, despite the lone mirror hanging on the wall next to the door, parallel to her bed, Rainbow Dash hasn’t looked in it or even given it a quick glance at all since Fluttershy let her stay in her cottage. It befuddles her on how she’s managed to avoid it the two weeks she’s been here, and how easy it’s been to not notice it a whole lot until now.

Hesitantly, she uncurls herself from her balled-up position, and slides off her bed, bringing most of the unkempt sheets with her. When her hooves meet the hard, chilly flooring of her room, another few shivers race up her back like electric fingers as the warm sensation of her bed leaves her like shattering broken fragments.

The mirror towers over her when she approaches it, and nearly recoils at the hideous sight before her.

It’s like when she saw her reflection the morning after her venture into the Everfree Forest, only now worse. Much, much worse.

Her matted fringe is heavily disheveled and a – shockingly deep gray color. Her red, orange, and yellow hues are no more, although it’s obvious the three starting colors of the rainbow were there. The rest of her mane and tail are normal, with the exception of several knots and curls adorning the hair in places. Her coat is a pasty, ashen shade, which causes the dark, purple-ish rings circling her eyes to stand out more alarmingly. Her cheeks are flushed the palest rose, and her magenta orbs are dull, no highlights of streaming light filtering through them at all, it seems. Her voice croaks at the dejected image, and she instantly turns her head away, silent tears beginning to trickle laggardly down her face.

‘Everypony has to see me like this?’ Dash thinks to herself, swiping away the tears with her hooves. ‘I look… awful.'

The last word causes a distinct pang to shoot through her heart, and she collapses onto the floor as a sudden upsurge of nausea hits her like a vicious tidal wave. She shouldn’t be alarmed as quite as she is, because she’s so used to it happening at intervals.

Her stomach maliciously churning from the sudden queasiness, and her brain a dejected mess from seeing herself in that mirror, she staggers into the hall, desperate to locate the nearest garbage basket to heave her lunch into.

: : : :

Twilight Sparkle groans irately when she shoves another book aside, using her magic to lift a fresh one onto the table she is reading at. Her mane is a rat’s nest, and vague bags darker than her coat are like still purple pools beneath her eyelids. The way she props her lolling head on one hoof and the fatigued expression visible on her face shows that she probably hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since a few days ago.

She cracks open another book, and her eyes automatically begin to skim the pages, her pupils mere specks indulged in her violet irises. The door leading to the kitchen suddenly creaks open, immediately startling Twilight out of her book-asphyxia and causing her heart to pound ruthlessly against her chest.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Spike atones, with his clawed hands carrying another cup of coffee contaminated with at least five cubes of sugar, under Twilight’s bleary orders. He sets it next to her, and she immediately lifts the murky concoction to her lips.

“It’s okay,” she says, the sugar settling in an uneasy glob on her tongue.

“So, what is all this? You never told me what you’re doing anyway.”

Twilight returns to the words that are wearily starting to fuzz out on the pages, but manages to multitask in telling her faithful assistant everything. “Well, after Zecora told me about the Lookerponies, I decided to read up more on them. I am also determined in studying up some newer, stronger spells to help Rainbow Dash’s condition to the best extent, but I can’t seem to find anything of the sort! I’ve gone through more than half of the library, and it’s finally starting to make my brain hurt.”

“Rainbow Dash’s condition?” Spike gawks, his brain momentarily faltering. It isn’t long until he shakes himself out of his own stupor. “Oh, right, that.”

Of course Twilight told him about Rainbow Dash. He didn’t take it too well, though – Twilight understands because her assistant actually has a strong bond with the cyan speedster, even if they don’t associate with each other on a daily basis. The thought of Dash weak and being grounded for a while caused his eyes to fill with tears that never got the chance to fall.

Twilight rubs her eyes, sighing strenuously. “I just want to help her so badly, Spike.”

“I know. We all do, I’m sure. Fluttershy’s doing her best, we’re all doing our best.” With those consoling words sinking into Twilight’s brain, he moves to exit the room and leave the lavender unicorn with her reading. “I’m sure you’ll find something, Twi.” He says the last bit softly over his shoulder before disappearing out the door.

“I hope so, Spike.”

After about another hour in the chilled dark of the library, the only light source a lanky lamp that towers above her, Twilight is just about to give up on finding any more information when the words on the last pages of a silver-lined book immediately catches her attention. She rapidly blinks her eyes to blot out the blurriness shrouding them before they start skimming the words on her behalf.

A header in bold, murky silver is scrawled across the top of the page, reading the words, ‘The Lookerponies’. Twilight relinquishes a relieved, shuddering breath before continuing to the words below the title.

“The Lookerponies is a patriotic cult that worships Nightmare Moon, otherwise known as the Mare in the Moon, blah blah blah,” Twilight reads aloud to herself, skipping the sentences she already knows about. “…they are said to be located in the Everfree Forest, blah blah… invisible camp… spirits…. oh, here’s something new! It says, the Lookerponies also have the ability to See into the Ulterior, a compelling passageway to the future, and are able to tell things that will happen from the present day forward. The impressive ability to be a Seer is very useful to gain knowledge in if the lives of the clan will still be able to flow, since the amount of light already penetrating them cause them to grow weaker than when they’re consumed by the dark.”

The lavender unicorn is so taken aback in sheer surprise and fascination that she almost sends her nearly-drained cup of coffee crashing to the floor. As the new information sprouts in her boggled mind, she keeps re-reading the same words to make sure what she’s taking in is real, and not a hallucination that’s a result of lacking sleep. Sure enough, she isn’t mistaken.

Being able to see into the future? Is there anything these ponies CAN’T do?

Twilight is so flabbergasted that she even questions her own magical talents, her eyes beginning to clock out but her mind on high alert. She slams the book closed before using her magic to levitate it and gingerly slip it back on the shelf where it belongs. Then, clearing the wooden desk of anything else, props her forelegs on it, her chin resting in a little nook between her hooves. Her eyebrows knit together, her brain reeling and cracking and bursting like a shattering movie projector. Yet her mind scans swiftly through the facts she’s just set her eyes upon, and immediately lights up with a plan that just might save her friend’s life.

: : : :

“And, checkmate! I win again!” Rainbow Dash announces, a triumphant look scrawled across her pallid features, her mouth unfurling in an enormous grin that reaches from ear to ear. Despite her ashen, tedious appearance, her face is as effervescent as ever, seeming as she just won a chess match against Pinkie Pie, who juts her lower lip out in defeat. Her expression is an overall blend of bafflement and disappointment, which just makes Dash gloat that much more.

Then, as soon as the expression began, it is replaced with buoyancy and dons a large smile, similar to the one Dash is wearing. “Wow, terrific move, Dashie! It was so sneaky and super-duper clever!”

“Thanks,” Dash says, soaking up the praise and brushing a hoof smoothly across her chest. “But you did almost snatch my knight with that pawn a few moves ago.”

“Wanna play again?” Pinkie Pie asks, bouncing erratically in her seat.

“Sure, another game wouldn’t hurt,” Dash agrees, clearing the board with a sweep of her hoof to begin a new game.

“Um, excuse me, if it’s no trouble,” Fluttershy timidly speaks up, who is sitting nearby the two game-goers. She brandishes a look of exhaustion, even though she hasn’t been the one playing, yet it’s probably caused by the fact of witnessing twelve games in one sitting. “But I think Rainbow Dash should get some more rest, and it’s also starting to get late. You can come back tomorrow, Pinkie.”

“Awwwwwwww,” both Pinkie and Dash drawl out in unison, their mouths furled in a tight pout and their eyebrows dipping low.

“But it isn’t even dark yet!”

Fluttershy frowns and motions towards the window, which only displays a narrow crack running in between the lacy pastel curtains. When they are tugged back, however, it is evident to plainly see that Celestia’s sun is no longer visible, instead Luna’s moon hangs in the fully-fledged night sky, save for a few, faint sunset colors blending in with each other and the blackness.

“Oh, wow,” Dash says, squinting. She smoothly runs a hoof through her tussled mane, her eyes fixating on a nearby clock attached to the wall. “How long have we been playing?”

“Long enough,” Fluttershy answers, moving to gather up the chess board and pieces and correctly slip them back in their place.

Rainbow Dash presses a hoof firmly against her skull, a small yet painful ache beginning to spark and crackle in her head. Her eyes go hazy, her surroundings meshing together in one great mass, and her stomach does a backflip, but it is nearly unnoticeable. Deciding to brush it off as nothing in particular, she lets a yawn escape her, and her eyes droop. Noticing she hasn’t realized it until now, she is absolutely tuckered out.

“Thanks for coming, Pinkie,” Dash says, giving her pink friend a quick hug.

Pinkie Pie skips to the door, her poofy mane and tail fanning out in her wake. “No problem, Dashie! See you tomorrow?”

Rainbow Dash shoots Fluttershy a look, and the butter-yellow pegasus nods in confirmation. “Of course. Oh! And Pinkie, did you want to take the rest of the cake you brought home? I doubt we’ll finish it.”

Dash begins, “Well – “

“Sure!”

Fluttershy floats into the kitchen to fetch the rest of Pinkie’s confectionary that she kindly decided to disperse amongst them, but nearly sends it crashing to the floor when an ear-splitting scream ruptures the harmonious night air.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!”

She bombards herself out of her kitchen, eyes wide with fear and bewilderment, the cake long forgotten, sure enough haphazardly discarded on the tile flooring a few hoofsteps back. Fluttershy pays no heed to that, anyhow, as she rushes towards the noise that continues to split the night. Blood pulses in her ears, and she approaches the scene; Pinkie Pie is standing, jaw agape and hanging inches off the floor, over a shrieking, writhing Rainbow Dash who foams at the mouth and eyes glazing the color of the moonlit sky.

Before Fluttershy can speak, Pinkie Pie flashes her a helpless gaze, her eyes frenzied and terrified. “I – I don’t know what happened!” she shouts over the screams. “She was just about to say something to me, but then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the floor! I – I – “

“Shh, Pinkie, it’s okay,” Fluttershy reassures gently, her voice nearly drowning in the flood of screeches whirling around the room. “She’s had fits like this before, and this one is the least of our worries.”

Pinkie nods, although she still looks dubious.

Fluttershy dives to her friend’s side, condolingly caressing her in all the right places, her chest, her forehead, the glands of her neck. Everywhere she thinks it can be more than soothing, everywhere she thinks it can be tranquilizing yet firm to make her more relaxed.

But Rainbow Dash continues to scream, her voice grating agonizingly against her already-numb throat, her hooves thrashing around and smacking the ground. “AAAAHHH!” she shrieks. “AAAAHHHHH! It hurts! It hurts!”

Fluttershy’s ears perk up. This is when she realizes that it’s her. It’s Rainbow Dash. It’s not Nightmare Moon speaking or any of the sort, it’s her. She’s FEELING the pain Nightmare Moon seemingly is entrancing upon on her. For what reason? This, she doesn’t know for sure.

Although, for Rainbow Dash, it’s quite different. An excruciating, illegible pain is exploding in her head, continuing, continuing, repeating, repeating. Her vision is blind and fuzzy like a television station out of range. It feels like her body is shattering, bursting into a million pieces only to be rebuilt and then crumble once more. Every part of her body making contact with something ignites a searing fire, causing her to cry out in pain even more boisterous than before. The images from her nightmare flash repulsively, playing out like a cracking movie screen at the back of her eyes, doing nothing to help the matter at hoof. Her veins protrude through flesh, muscles contracting and popping under the pressure of the blazing fire of pain lacing in tandem with her jostling bones and flowing veins.

Tears leak from the corners of her eyes, pooling on the ground near Fluttershy’s haunches. The butter-yellow pegasus is beside herself, her soothing whispers now shifting to words brimming with anxiety and distress. Every time she touches Dash, it only makes her scream more. Every vein, every artery in her body is a live wire, sparking frantically. Tears of her own begin to spring in her turquoise eyes.

Just then, a booming voice echoes across the room, as if they’re in a chasm of some sort, trapped only with the thundering voice splitting their eardrums and causing their blood to run cold.

It says coldly, “War is looming! Battlegrounds will be painted with the blood of our folk! Shall your mind fill with nameless fears! For I hath near!”

Pinkie Pie cowers, stuffing her hooves in her ears, desperately trying to block out the sound. But, just as she does, the voice dies down, being replaced by fearful whimpers as the seething black fades from Dash’s eyes.

The cyan pegasus breathes heavily, her face bunching up in a grimace as if it’s a painful burden. Her coat and mane are drenched with sweat, stringy strands piling in a heap and a new blotch of gray appearing in her hair. Her throat and head ache, and she feels like her brain is oozing out of her ears.

WAR IS LOOMING
BATTLEGROUNDS WILL BE PAINTED WITH THE BLOOD OF OUR FOLK
SHALL YOUR MIND FILL WITH NAMELESS FEARS
FOR I HATH NEAR

Those words continue to mull around them like dew. Fluttershy replays the eerie sentences in her head over and over again, keen on memorizing them to tell them to Twilight later. After all, they could mean something important, and Fluttershy itches to grab a notepad and quill and scribble the words down just in case she forgets. Something suspicious nags at her. A message, maybe?

Pinkie Pie regains her composure, a few stray tears rolling softly down her cheeks. Her cotton-candy like hair is nearing the point of deflating entirely as her heart aches for her sickly friend living with this monster lurking in her depths.

Weakly, she asks, “Rainbow D-Dash? A-are you… alright?”

Grunting, Dash struggles to sit directly on her haunches, one hoof scrabbling on the floor trying to get a firm grip while the other clutches the side of her head. Her magenta eyes squeeze tightly shut, consciousness nearly draining out of her as sharp, malicious pains pound viciously against her skull. “My… my head…”

Fluttershy attentively helps Rainbow Dash crawl to her hooves, letting her lean exhaustedly against her shoulder. “Pinkie, I think you should go home now,” she says gently, turning her kind gaze towards the pony nearing the breaking point. “I promise you can come back tomorrow when everything’s a bit better.”

Pinkie nods, mumbles a small, “See you tomorrow,” and leaves without another word.

Rainbow Dash is nearly asleep on her withers, and Fluttershy, as unwaveringly as she can, guides her up to her guest room, cautious to avoid tripping on the numerous stairs winding up to the second floor.
Rainbow Dash is out like a light as soon as her head hits the pillow.

: : : :

Celestia’s Sun beams magnificently across Equestria, the vivid colors of dawn vanishing in a wink as the sky shifts to blue. As of now, the citizens of Ponyville are beginning to wake from gentle dreams and peaceful slumber, all except one pony, who’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed much earlier than the rest.

Twilight Sparkle tightens the straps on her saddlebags so they sit more securely on her back, using her magic to do so. The book that holds the information she needs rests in one of her bags, and another containing spells and a specific potion recipe sits in the other. She double-checks her checklist to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything, and before setting it down, triple-checks it, just in case.

Spike is asleep in his woven basket, his claws clutching the blue blanket that is draped delicately over his scaly body. Every time he snores, he emits a tiny, vague tongue of green flame, and his scales shudder like a crisp leaf fluttering on a wind current. Twilight stoops down to plant a swift kiss on his cheek.

“Don’t worry, Spike,” she whispers softly to the snoozing dragon. “I’ll be back before you know it, won’t take me too long. Also, remember to feed Owlowiscious, okay?”

She knows he can’t hear him while he’s deep in slumber, but she also knows he wouldn’t forget.

On her way down the stairs, she grabs a banana oat muffin from a silver platter laid out on the table from last night in her magic, consuming it as she trots quietly out the door and into the snoozing outside world.

And comes face-to-face with Rarity.

She halts in sheer surprise, nearly dropping her muffin alarmingly in the process. The ivory unicorn also dons saddlebags of her own, a lone pastel-colored scarf slithering out from beneath the flap of one. Her mane is freshly curled, and she flutters her long, onyx eyelashes as she grins slyly at Twilight as the lavender unicorn recovers from initial shock.

“What are you – “

“I know you’re making this trip into the Everfree Forest for Rainbow Dash,” Rarity interrupts.

Twilight scrunches her eyebrows together, her eyes sizing down to minimal slits as she cocks her head warily to the side. “How’d you find out?”

“Spike mentioned it to me.”

“He did?”

“Of course, darling! He’s worried sick about you and your plan.”

Twilight shakes her head. “He doesn’t need to be so. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I’m coming with you,” Rarity says, her voice as hard as steel albeit brimming with perseverance.

“Rarity, no, you don’t have to. I can do this myself.”

“Twilight, darling, this is not about you. This is about Rainbow Dash, and I am also her friend. I’m going with you, whatever it takes.”

By the looks of Rarity’s facial expression, Twilight can tell the ivory unicorn isn’t going to change her mind or budge her decision. She lets a long sigh escape her. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“But just remember, you made this decision.”

“And you accepted it.”

Twilight juts out her lower lip and blows a strand of loose hair away from her face defeatedly. Then, she gently nudges the other unicorn’s flank, and they both silently trot off in the direction of the Everfree.

: : : :

The two unicorns trod wordlessly through town, some passerbys nodding to them or waving or giving them a soft yet audible greeting as they walk past. Ponyville is nearly awake, and the ponies in the penetrating morning light fill the streets with tranquil buzz and friendly notions.

And today is the day after Applebuck Season, and Applejack has already set up her apple booth in the middle of the main part of town. The woven baskets overflow with juicy, scarlet apples, and the shelves are neatly stacked with warm, ambrosial pies, and many other apple confectionaries you can name.

The farm pony’s hoof abruptly connects with the steely wood of the booth, and a sign unravels from the top of it, clearly revealing the words, ‘Delicious Apples Heartily from the trees of Sweet Apple Acres!’ scrawled fervently across the material.

Satisfied, she makes herself comfortable behind the booth, then fixates her emerald eyes on the two familiar ponies approaching her stand.

“Rarity, Twilight!” she says brightly, gesturing for the other mares to come closer. The grin plastered to her face suddenly falters, contorting into a look of befuddlement as she eyes the saddlebags strapped securely to their sides. She knits her eyebrows together in wonder. “Where y’all headed?”

Rarity doesn’t hesitate to tell her. “The Everfree Forest.”

Applejack’s eyebrows questionably shoot up into her fringe. “The Everfree Forest?” she repeats warily.

“Yessssss,” Twilight drawls, the glints of quizzical annoyance visible as her words spill out from between clenched teeth.

“And why in the hay is that?”

Twilight’s hooves itch to just bolt and leave her friends behind to do this adventure on her own, but she finds herself not being able to budge with the farm pony’s scorching gaze locked fixedly on her. She groans lengthily before explaining her plan.

“Well, it’s mighty big of y’all to do this fer Rainbow,” Applejack says. “But it isn’t safe.”

“Applejack, I’m sure – “

“I’d like to come.”

Twilight groans, an irate growl brewing deep in the base of her throat. The hoof that slides bitterly down her face is inevitable.

“What? Y’all need somepony to give danger a good kick in the flanks if yer headin’ out there all by yer lonesomes.” Applejack bucks the air with furious hind legs, expanding on her sayings.

Twilight haughtily decides that Applejack isn’t going to let them go so easily, either. Instead of arguing about it, she reluctantly admits defeat and blinks her drowsy eyes. “Alright, fine. Let’s just move quickly, I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“You got it, sugarcube,” Applejack says. “But first Ah need to make sure Big Macintosh can take over the booth fer me this mornin’, since Ah’ll be gone with you two.”

Her eyes shift over the two unicorns before resting on Rarity’s saddlebags. Her eyes narrow at the familiar lumps in the canvas material and the piece of clothing that seems to be trying to escape underneath one of the flaps. “Scarves? Really?”

Rarity feigns a joking chuckle, and she narrows her own cerulean eyes at the farm pony who grins crudely at her. “Ha ha, well let’s see who gets the last laugh when you’re suddenly freezing cold and you realize you didn’t bring any personal-designer scarves of your own.”

Applejack rolls her eyes. She turns away, the other two mares following in her tracks as she leads them to Sweet Apple Acres, and then the Everfree Forest.