This Too Shall Rot
by Flashgen
Prompt: Deep Castle
Twilight enjoyed her lessons with Princess Celestia. They were insightful, challenging, and abundant. But there was one set of lessons that she enjoyed more than any of the others, even if the Princess would never call them that.
Every now and then, when lessons about a spell or statecraft or history had wrapped up for the day with time to spare, Princess Celestia would take Twilight through the castle and they would simply talk. Even though she was still a growing foal, the Princess spoke to Twilight more like an equal than a student during those walks. They would discuss the weather, the latest goings on in the news and court, books or poems both old and new, games of strategy, Twilight’s favorite donut shoppe and Princess Celestia’s favorite teas. Sometimes it was through the halls, sometimes it was through the rooms or the kitchens or the gardens. And like every moment with the Princess, Twilight did her best to commit them fully to memory.
Today it was through Princess Celestia’s favorite garden. Today it was by the small pond flanked by gooseberry bushes and a small willow tree. Today it was with the thrushes and the sparrows lazing within the willow’s branches. Today it was when Twilight first saw death.
As they walked by the bushes, Princess Celestia pointed out a nearby tower to Twilight. She talked about its construction and the recent remodeling that had been done, about how pleased she was that it had gone without incident. Twilight’s ears were open and at attention, her eyes glued to the Princess’s face, but it didn’t stop an errant noise from breaking through the conversation.
It reminded Twilight of a whine she had heard her mother give months before, when she had been sick with a stomach flu, but it was lower and weaker; Twilight was too inquisitive to resist. With Princess Celestia’s gaze on the tower, she galloped as quietly as she could to the bushes, pulling them aside with her magic.
“Twilight?” Princess Celestia asked, turning to look at the filly before letting out a gasp and rushing towards her. A pure white wing covered Twilight’s eyes and pulled her close to the Princess’s legs, but it couldn’t stop the sight from burning into her mind.
She remembered the fox, sprawled out just beside the pond, its chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. She remembered the foam bubbling out of its throat past unbarred fangs, its tongue lolled out on the grass. She remembered its eyes, rolled back and showing only milky white. She remembered the flash of magic and the sight of one of the small guest rooms of the castle.
“Twilight, Twilight I’m so sorry you saw that,” Princess Celestia whispered as she knelt down and held Twilight closer and tighter. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Twilight remembered Celestia explaining the incident to her parents and their warm hugs as they held her close. Twilight remembered the weeks of therapy sessions and the strange empty feeling she felt after them. Twilight remembered, years later, learning that fox had passed not long after she saw it.
Twilight remembered reading that the fox was likely infected with rabies, and that its symptoms and appearance leaned more towards a “dumb” case than a “rabid” case; when it was put out of its unknowable misery, it likely couldn’t feel a thing, but there was no guarantee that it was not cognizant.
Twilight’s move into the castle had gone better than she expected. Despite most of her possessions being unrecoverable in the library’s destruction and the daunting size of the crystal castle’s construction, her greatest fear had been that it wouldn’t have the proper… accommodations. When she first opened the door, she had the outlandish daydream that it would be nothing more than a small room-like cube carved out of the crystal, despite the exterior being covered in windows and balconies.
Instead she was greeted by an interior that reminded her much of Celestia and Luna’s castle in Canterlot. There were lavish arches and doorways, staircases with hoofrails adorned in gold and silver, massive kitchens and dining rooms and bedrooms. There were more meeting rooms than one occupant could ever have needed in three lifetimes. There was a library that felt too large and too small all at once, its sparsely-filled shelves still awaiting shipments from Canterlot and Manehattan.
There were some pieces of furniture that she had to acquire herself, of course; a couch of crystal wasn’t as comfortable as a new model from Quills and Sofas. But at the end of the day she had beds for her and Spike to sleep in, more desks than she could count to read at, and plentiful surfaces to eat their meals on.
But it wasn’t enough for Twilight. With so many rooms, she didn’t want her or Spike to get lost, let alone her friends, so she knew that she had to catalogue and map the rooms for herself. It was a long and arduous process that required meticulous precision, so she selfishly kept it to herself instead of including Spike, at least outside of the double and potential triple-checking.
As Twilight walked the first floor three days into the task, she looked over her rudimentary pages of maps and room assignments. She wrote down a few quick notes about ordering placards for the more important rooms once she had finalized everything, and maybe getting Rarity’s help with the designs. She passed a door she hadn’t seen before, that was not drawn on her map. She debated on starting the second floor even though she wa–
Twilight stopped and slowly turned her head before backing up. She kept her eyes on the door as she approached it, scrutinizing it as if it would vanish like a trick of the light while the gleam of its golden doorknob glared at her. When she was in front of it, she reached out a hoof and tapped it before tracing its outline with her hoof. The frame was nearly non-existent, its gap looking more like that of a chunk of granite cut from a block.
“That’s… odd?” she muttered to herself, as if the words would dispel it. Twilight pulled her map up to her face, scanning the hallway she stood in
The door was between the kitchen and one of the large, empty rooms she had earmarked for a pantry. She could have easily missed it the day before, she rationalized; after all, she hadn’t even started her double checking, and that was what things like this were for.
Any doubt quelled, Twilight grabbed the door with her magic and pulled it open. The heavy door swung easily on its hidden hinges, opening to a dark staircase that descended down below her. “A cellar?” she muttered, having not yet found a basement of the castle in her excursions. Being so close to a room already furnished with ovens and cabinets, it would make sense for a cellar to be there.
She shuddered as a cold draft blew behind her, blowing her hair in the breeze as it rushed down the stairs. Twilight lit her horn, shining a bright beam of light down the stairs. They only went about a dozen steps down, opening to another hallway. Carefully, Twilight descended, each hoofsteps echoing behind and ahead of her, so slightly out of sync.
The hallway only extended a few feet before it split into a T, with a small lamp on the far wall. Twilight didn’t see a switch, even as she rounded the corner and looked up and down the hall. In both directions it extended beyond her sight, lined with more doors and unlit lamps. Starting a new page, Twilight began taking notes.
Twilight was able to quickly find some things she had been pondering the existence of. There were a few rooms with water heaters and pipes, labeled with inlets and outlets; she made a note to contact the local zoning office to be sure the codes were up to standard and that the castle hadn’t introduced some undue strain on the system. There were electrical rooms with breaker boxes, where she had found the light switch that was connected to the hallway’s numerous lamps. She found more empty rooms, waiting to be filled and used. Some had sinks, others had shelves, all of them had lights that, thankfully, worked.
But the hallways continued, and the rooms with it. The original two hallways from the first T-junction went for fifty feet before meeting their own T-junctions. Those went for fifty more each, all but one ending in vacant rooms. The last split into a four-way intersection, which Twilight found as her eyes were feeling heavy.
As she left and climbed the stairs, she heard her hoofsteps echo behind her at a pitch that she couldn’t discern was peculiar.
Twilight had been quick to write the basement off as not worth exploring more. The many floors above ground had more than enough room for Spike and her to share and be able to host the girls as well. Instead, she focused her efforts on cataloguing the rest of the castle, on understanding the Cutie Map once it sprang to life, on handling friendship problems when the map chose to summon her.
But on some nights, in the haze just before sleep, Twilight would hear the castle settle and creak in the cool air. She would dream of the basement, of corridors that went on forever, even if it wasn’t possible. And when she awoke from those dreams, the power of her curiosity was too much to resist.
She would tell Spike that she was going out into Ponyville or shutting herself up in the library with a new book to research, but she would only keep up the ruse long enough to teleport to the door and sneak down.
Twilight studied the hewn crystal of the halls, searching for tool marks and peculiarities. She would check the breaker boxes and piping, studying where pipes receded into the thick crystal. She would map each room to precise detail, storing the drafting papers in a small office she had set up near the base of the stairs.
Twilight had been worried, once, that it would go out forever. She had nightmares that she would find herself lost in some sprawling maze, or teleport above ground to find herself deep in the dark of the Everfree.
But then she found the next set of stairs.
The floor plan of each level roughly matched the castle itself in size. It wasn’t as gargantuan as it appeared, due to the small, slightly off angles that the hallways ran and split in. It reminded Twilight of mathematical studies about fitting squares into larger squares. She pondered why they existed, why the Tree of Harmony or whatever force it channeled would carve so much space into the earth, yet be so careful as to not encroach on the town. It was some strange intelligent design that guided it, so it must have had a purpose.
Twilight always did what she could to limit her time. She still had important duties to attend to as a Princess, and even more important duties as a friend. She would go to the spa with
Rarity or help Applejack on the farm. She would watch Fluttershy’s animals or Rainbow Dash’s stunts. She’d make time for Pinkie Pie’s parties or Starlight lessons.
Three layers down, the hallways changed.
Twilight remembered the first time she knew she wasn’t alone in the basements, even when every part of her knew that she should be. Starlight and Spike were upstairs in the library, reviewing a new cart of books that had arrived. Pinkie was using the kitchen to bake cupcakes while Sugarcube Corner was under renovations. Twilight was finishing mapping the third floor when she found the next staircase.
The crystalline door ground on its hinges, and Twilight was met with a gust of warm air from the level below. She faltered and stumbled back; she had grown used to the cold wind rushing in behind her, finding a path to sealed chambers below.
The staircase went down sharper than the others, two dozen steps visible in the glow of her horn. The lamp at the bottom of the stairs was unlit, while the ones of every level above her were bright and shining.
There was a click on the crystal, coming from down the stairs. It echoed like the chime of a bell. Twilight felt a tightness grow in her chest as her mouth refused to open. She stared at the bottom of the stairs, looking for any sign of movement. The silence that followed was deafening, like her ears had sealed up from pressure.
She raised a single hoof to take a step.
There was a bang, the ringing of crystal on crystal. Twilight shut the door and lit her horn. In a flash she was outside, sprawled in the shade of a passing cloud and an oak tree.
She gasped for air, keeping her eyes open to avoid thinking about the dark halls that may not be empty.
Twilight sealed the basement, as best as she could. Warding spells and a lock were as much as she could manage. She’d been unable to cut into the thicker crystal, and it had made any renovations difficult throughout the years.
But she couldn’t keep her wandering mind from remembering it, just like she couldn’t forget anything. Her first book, her first summer sun celebration, getting her cutie mark, meeting her friends, defeating villain after villain, witnessing a dying animal sprawled on the grass, the first time she cut herself on scissors, the darkness of the attic at her parent’s home, the darkness beneath the castle where she slept, the darkness in the Everfree and the creatures that hid in its shadows, the predators searching for prey, her brother’s wedding, gaining her wings, the dark magic that Sombra had used to seal the Crystal Heart, the narrowness of the cracks on the door, the hot air rushing up to meet her, the faintest shifting of a shape at the edge of a light that she saw for only a fraction of a fraction of a second.
Her curiosity always won out, but Twilight had her friends.
“You found… what?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“A basement.”
“Sounds like more than a basement to me,” Applejack added. “S’more space than every basement the Apple Family’s ever dug out on a farm.”
“Yes.”
“And it goes down… how deep?” Fluttershy meekly asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And you kept it a secret from us?!” Pinkie exclaimed, her face a mixture of excitement and hurt.
“I didn’t… I wanted to study it, map it, learn about it. The way the castle formed, the method of construction, the vision and the intention an–”
Rarity placed a hoof gently on Twilight’s. “It’s alright. You don’t have to justify yourself to us, dear. But it sounds like there’s something–”
“Dangerous,” Fluttershy added.
Rarity nodded as she looked at Twilight. “There’s something dangerous and you want us to help?”
Twilight pursed her lips,searching for the right words to say. Eventually, she closed her eyes and nodded. “I don’t know if what I did will hold it. I don’t know if it will try to get up, or what it’s there for. I don’t even know what it is.
“Then we’ll work it out together,” Starlight added, sitting across the table alongside Spike. The young dragon clenched his fists and nodded.
Twilight made sure they were meticulous and careful. They checked every room and corner, together. There wasn’t a single speck of dust disturbed in the first floor or the second. When they reached the third, they found doorways partly ajar.
Twilight remembered leaving some of them open when she found the stairs, when she left in a panic, but she couldn't be sure if any were newly opened. As they looked, their hoofsteps echoed through the halls.
"You really found all of this, darling?" Rarity asked, striding alongside Twilight as they explored.
"Yes. I should have written it off, but I just couldn't... resist exploring, searching. It was like this puzzle I needed to understand, this... guiding hoof I needed to see the vision of. It had to make sense."
"It is rather strange, but isn't a lot of life?" Rarity laughed, a tiny giggle that echoed above their steps for a moment.
Twilight smiled meekly and nodded. They passed rooms, and Twilight caught only glimpses of their barren insides. She kept her eyes ahead. "Did the tree think we needed it? That we'd need it some day?"
Twilight heard a noise ahead, another hoofstep echoing.
"Everything doesn't need a purpose." They passed rooms, covered with dust and cobwebs, simulacrums of the rooms upstairs, or the Canterlot Castle, of the library, of the Boutique, or Sweet Apple Acres. "It's what you make of it."
"No, no... it--" The hoofsteps were less, muffled. They were walking down the stairs, steeper. When had they started--
There was a shadow moving around the corner, a tall and terrifying thing. It ran out of sight, hoofsteps thundering. Twilight gave chase, gasping for breath as Rarity galloped beside her.
They passed rooms filled with ponies old and new, happy and sad, grieving, glimmering, shifting.
The pattern repeated. She chased it to a corner. Rarity whispered in her ears. "You can stop whenever you want."
Twilight took a steady step forward and lit her horn. "No."
The towering thing glared at her, matted hair coming down over its face and horn in dark streaks. Its wings fluttered like an insect. Twilight stared back at herself, deep beneath the earth.
Beside her, a version of her twitched and foamed and died.
Twilight enjoyed her lessons with Princess Celestia. They were insightful, challenging, and abundant. But there was one set of lessons that she enjoyed more than any of the others, even if the Princess would never call them that.
Every now and then, when lessons about a spell or statecraft or history had wrapped up for the day with time to spare, Princess Celestia would take Twilight through the castle and they would simply talk. Even though she was still a growing foal, the Princess spoke to Twilight more like an equal than a student during those walks. They would discuss the weather, the latest goings on in the news and court, books or poems both old and new, games of strategy, Twilight’s favorite donut shoppe and Princess Celestia’s favorite teas. Sometimes it was through the halls, sometimes it was through the rooms or the kitchens or the gardens. And like every moment with the Princess, Twilight did her best to commit them fully to memory.
Today it was through Princess Celestia’s favorite garden. Today it was by the small pond flanked by gooseberry bushes and a small willow tree. Today it was with the thrushes and the sparrows lazing within the willow’s branches. Today it was when Twilight first saw death.
As they walked by the bushes, Princess Celestia pointed out a nearby tower to Twilight. She talked about its construction and the recent remodeling that had been done, about how pleased she was that it had gone without incident. Twilight’s ears were open and at attention, her eyes glued to the Princess’s face, but it didn’t stop an errant noise from breaking through the conversation.
It reminded Twilight of a whine she had heard her mother give months before, when she had been sick with a stomach flu, but it was lower and weaker; Twilight was too inquisitive to resist. With Princess Celestia’s gaze on the tower, she galloped as quietly as she could to the bushes, pulling them aside with her magic.
“Twilight?” Princess Celestia asked, turning to look at the filly before letting out a gasp and rushing towards her. A pure white wing covered Twilight’s eyes and pulled her close to the Princess’s legs, but it couldn’t stop the sight from burning into her mind.
She remembered the fox, sprawled out just beside the pond, its chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. She remembered the foam bubbling out of its throat past unbarred fangs, its tongue lolled out on the grass. She remembered its eyes, rolled back and showing only milky white. She remembered the flash of magic and the sight of one of the small guest rooms of the castle.
“Twilight, Twilight I’m so sorry you saw that,” Princess Celestia whispered as she knelt down and held Twilight closer and tighter. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Twilight remembered Celestia explaining the incident to her parents and their warm hugs as they held her close. Twilight remembered the weeks of therapy sessions and the strange empty feeling she felt after them. Twilight remembered, years later, learning that fox had passed not long after she saw it.
Twilight remembered reading that the fox was likely infected with rabies, and that its symptoms and appearance leaned more towards a “dumb” case than a “rabid” case; when it was put out of its unknowable misery, it likely couldn’t feel a thing, but there was no guarantee that it was not cognizant.
Twilight’s move into the castle had gone better than she expected. Despite most of her possessions being unrecoverable in the library’s destruction and the daunting size of the crystal castle’s construction, her greatest fear had been that it wouldn’t have the proper… accommodations. When she first opened the door, she had the outlandish daydream that it would be nothing more than a small room-like cube carved out of the crystal, despite the exterior being covered in windows and balconies.
Instead she was greeted by an interior that reminded her much of Celestia and Luna’s castle in Canterlot. There were lavish arches and doorways, staircases with hoofrails adorned in gold and silver, massive kitchens and dining rooms and bedrooms. There were more meeting rooms than one occupant could ever have needed in three lifetimes. There was a library that felt too large and too small all at once, its sparsely-filled shelves still awaiting shipments from Canterlot and Manehattan.
There were some pieces of furniture that she had to acquire herself, of course; a couch of crystal wasn’t as comfortable as a new model from Quills and Sofas. But at the end of the day she had beds for her and Spike to sleep in, more desks than she could count to read at, and plentiful surfaces to eat their meals on.
But it wasn’t enough for Twilight. With so many rooms, she didn’t want her or Spike to get lost, let alone her friends, so she knew that she had to catalogue and map the rooms for herself. It was a long and arduous process that required meticulous precision, so she selfishly kept it to herself instead of including Spike, at least outside of the double and potential triple-checking.
As Twilight walked the first floor three days into the task, she looked over her rudimentary pages of maps and room assignments. She wrote down a few quick notes about ordering placards for the more important rooms once she had finalized everything, and maybe getting Rarity’s help with the designs. She passed a door she hadn’t seen before, that was not drawn on her map. She debated on starting the second floor even though she wa–
Twilight stopped and slowly turned her head before backing up. She kept her eyes on the door as she approached it, scrutinizing it as if it would vanish like a trick of the light while the gleam of its golden doorknob glared at her. When she was in front of it, she reached out a hoof and tapped it before tracing its outline with her hoof. The frame was nearly non-existent, its gap looking more like that of a chunk of granite cut from a block.
“That’s… odd?” she muttered to herself, as if the words would dispel it. Twilight pulled her map up to her face, scanning the hallway she stood in
The door was between the kitchen and one of the large, empty rooms she had earmarked for a pantry. She could have easily missed it the day before, she rationalized; after all, she hadn’t even started her double checking, and that was what things like this were for.
Any doubt quelled, Twilight grabbed the door with her magic and pulled it open. The heavy door swung easily on its hidden hinges, opening to a dark staircase that descended down below her. “A cellar?” she muttered, having not yet found a basement of the castle in her excursions. Being so close to a room already furnished with ovens and cabinets, it would make sense for a cellar to be there.
She shuddered as a cold draft blew behind her, blowing her hair in the breeze as it rushed down the stairs. Twilight lit her horn, shining a bright beam of light down the stairs. They only went about a dozen steps down, opening to another hallway. Carefully, Twilight descended, each hoofsteps echoing behind and ahead of her, so slightly out of sync.
The hallway only extended a few feet before it split into a T, with a small lamp on the far wall. Twilight didn’t see a switch, even as she rounded the corner and looked up and down the hall. In both directions it extended beyond her sight, lined with more doors and unlit lamps. Starting a new page, Twilight began taking notes.
Twilight was able to quickly find some things she had been pondering the existence of. There were a few rooms with water heaters and pipes, labeled with inlets and outlets; she made a note to contact the local zoning office to be sure the codes were up to standard and that the castle hadn’t introduced some undue strain on the system. There were electrical rooms with breaker boxes, where she had found the light switch that was connected to the hallway’s numerous lamps. She found more empty rooms, waiting to be filled and used. Some had sinks, others had shelves, all of them had lights that, thankfully, worked.
But the hallways continued, and the rooms with it. The original two hallways from the first T-junction went for fifty feet before meeting their own T-junctions. Those went for fifty more each, all but one ending in vacant rooms. The last split into a four-way intersection, which Twilight found as her eyes were feeling heavy.
As she left and climbed the stairs, she heard her hoofsteps echo behind her at a pitch that she couldn’t discern was peculiar.
Twilight had been quick to write the basement off as not worth exploring more. The many floors above ground had more than enough room for Spike and her to share and be able to host the girls as well. Instead, she focused her efforts on cataloguing the rest of the castle, on understanding the Cutie Map once it sprang to life, on handling friendship problems when the map chose to summon her.
But on some nights, in the haze just before sleep, Twilight would hear the castle settle and creak in the cool air. She would dream of the basement, of corridors that went on forever, even if it wasn’t possible. And when she awoke from those dreams, the power of her curiosity was too much to resist.
She would tell Spike that she was going out into Ponyville or shutting herself up in the library with a new book to research, but she would only keep up the ruse long enough to teleport to the door and sneak down.
Twilight studied the hewn crystal of the halls, searching for tool marks and peculiarities. She would check the breaker boxes and piping, studying where pipes receded into the thick crystal. She would map each room to precise detail, storing the drafting papers in a small office she had set up near the base of the stairs.
Twilight had been worried, once, that it would go out forever. She had nightmares that she would find herself lost in some sprawling maze, or teleport above ground to find herself deep in the dark of the Everfree.
But then she found the next set of stairs.
The floor plan of each level roughly matched the castle itself in size. It wasn’t as gargantuan as it appeared, due to the small, slightly off angles that the hallways ran and split in. It reminded Twilight of mathematical studies about fitting squares into larger squares. She pondered why they existed, why the Tree of Harmony or whatever force it channeled would carve so much space into the earth, yet be so careful as to not encroach on the town. It was some strange intelligent design that guided it, so it must have had a purpose.
Twilight always did what she could to limit her time. She still had important duties to attend to as a Princess, and even more important duties as a friend. She would go to the spa with
Rarity or help Applejack on the farm. She would watch Fluttershy’s animals or Rainbow Dash’s stunts. She’d make time for Pinkie Pie’s parties or Starlight lessons.
Three layers down, the hallways changed.
Twilight remembered the first time she knew she wasn’t alone in the basements, even when every part of her knew that she should be. Starlight and Spike were upstairs in the library, reviewing a new cart of books that had arrived. Pinkie was using the kitchen to bake cupcakes while Sugarcube Corner was under renovations. Twilight was finishing mapping the third floor when she found the next staircase.
The crystalline door ground on its hinges, and Twilight was met with a gust of warm air from the level below. She faltered and stumbled back; she had grown used to the cold wind rushing in behind her, finding a path to sealed chambers below.
The staircase went down sharper than the others, two dozen steps visible in the glow of her horn. The lamp at the bottom of the stairs was unlit, while the ones of every level above her were bright and shining.
There was a click on the crystal, coming from down the stairs. It echoed like the chime of a bell. Twilight felt a tightness grow in her chest as her mouth refused to open. She stared at the bottom of the stairs, looking for any sign of movement. The silence that followed was deafening, like her ears had sealed up from pressure.
She raised a single hoof to take a step.
There was a bang, the ringing of crystal on crystal. Twilight shut the door and lit her horn. In a flash she was outside, sprawled in the shade of a passing cloud and an oak tree.
She gasped for air, keeping her eyes open to avoid thinking about the dark halls that may not be empty.
Twilight sealed the basement, as best as she could. Warding spells and a lock were as much as she could manage. She’d been unable to cut into the thicker crystal, and it had made any renovations difficult throughout the years.
But she couldn’t keep her wandering mind from remembering it, just like she couldn’t forget anything. Her first book, her first summer sun celebration, getting her cutie mark, meeting her friends, defeating villain after villain, witnessing a dying animal sprawled on the grass, the first time she cut herself on scissors, the darkness of the attic at her parent’s home, the darkness beneath the castle where she slept, the darkness in the Everfree and the creatures that hid in its shadows, the predators searching for prey, her brother’s wedding, gaining her wings, the dark magic that Sombra had used to seal the Crystal Heart, the narrowness of the cracks on the door, the hot air rushing up to meet her, the faintest shifting of a shape at the edge of a light that she saw for only a fraction of a fraction of a second.
Her curiosity always won out, but Twilight had her friends.
“You found… what?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“A basement.”
“Sounds like more than a basement to me,” Applejack added. “S’more space than every basement the Apple Family’s ever dug out on a farm.”
“Yes.”
“And it goes down… how deep?” Fluttershy meekly asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And you kept it a secret from us?!” Pinkie exclaimed, her face a mixture of excitement and hurt.
“I didn’t… I wanted to study it, map it, learn about it. The way the castle formed, the method of construction, the vision and the intention an–”
Rarity placed a hoof gently on Twilight’s. “It’s alright. You don’t have to justify yourself to us, dear. But it sounds like there’s something–”
“Dangerous,” Fluttershy added.
Rarity nodded as she looked at Twilight. “There’s something dangerous and you want us to help?”
Twilight pursed her lips,searching for the right words to say. Eventually, she closed her eyes and nodded. “I don’t know if what I did will hold it. I don’t know if it will try to get up, or what it’s there for. I don’t even know what it is.
“Then we’ll work it out together,” Starlight added, sitting across the table alongside Spike. The young dragon clenched his fists and nodded.
Twilight made sure they were meticulous and careful. They checked every room and corner, together. There wasn’t a single speck of dust disturbed in the first floor or the second. When they reached the third, they found doorways partly ajar.
Twilight remembered leaving some of them open when she found the stairs, when she left in a panic, but she couldn't be sure if any were newly opened. As they looked, their hoofsteps echoed through the halls.
"You really found all of this, darling?" Rarity asked, striding alongside Twilight as they explored.
"Yes. I should have written it off, but I just couldn't... resist exploring, searching. It was like this puzzle I needed to understand, this... guiding hoof I needed to see the vision of. It had to make sense."
"It is rather strange, but isn't a lot of life?" Rarity laughed, a tiny giggle that echoed above their steps for a moment.
Twilight smiled meekly and nodded. They passed rooms, and Twilight caught only glimpses of their barren insides. She kept her eyes ahead. "Did the tree think we needed it? That we'd need it some day?"
Twilight heard a noise ahead, another hoofstep echoing.
"Everything doesn't need a purpose." They passed rooms, covered with dust and cobwebs, simulacrums of the rooms upstairs, or the Canterlot Castle, of the library, of the Boutique, or Sweet Apple Acres. "It's what you make of it."
"No, no... it--" The hoofsteps were less, muffled. They were walking down the stairs, steeper. When had they started--
There was a shadow moving around the corner, a tall and terrifying thing. It ran out of sight, hoofsteps thundering. Twilight gave chase, gasping for breath as Rarity galloped beside her.
They passed rooms filled with ponies old and new, happy and sad, grieving, glimmering, shifting.
The pattern repeated. She chased it to a corner. Rarity whispered in her ears. "You can stop whenever you want."
Twilight took a steady step forward and lit her horn. "No."
The towering thing glared at her, matted hair coming down over its face and horn in dark streaks. Its wings fluttered like an insect. Twilight stared back at herself, deep beneath the earth.
Beside her, a version of her twitched and foamed and died.