Canterlot

Royal Infirmary

Earlier that day…

"You don't have to stay here all day, dear."

Rainbow jumped at the sound. The room had been quiet for several minutes; within these thick stone walls, all outside sound was deadened. Candles flickered silently. They gave the only light and sunrise was still more than an hour away.

It was the Royal Physician that broke that quiet. Nopony else was present save Rainbow Dash herself and, of course, Fluttershy, laying motionless in the hospital bed closest to the window. A draft of icy air crept through the cracks around the single pane of glass. The kindly old pony looked up from her work to give her a maternal but comforting smile, then returned to straightening her instruments.

They filled entire drawers: forceps, lances, needles and many other finely worked silver instruments, all razor-sharp and unpleasantly utilitarian. Among this arsenal, the doctor arranged two freshly sterilized scalpels and slid the tray into its proper place. She looked from Rainbow Dash to the room's other immobilized occupant and back. "I daresay your friend is not going to be, ahem, going anywhere soon."

She said it with every possible kindness and without any hints of humor. Still, in this case, Rainbow Dash hated her honesty.

Her nametag read Scarlet Hope, Royal Physician. Rainbow Dash thought she could do with handing out a little more hope and a few less dry remarks. The unicorn took several tentative steps toward Rainbow, as if trying to decide whether placing a comforting hoof on the Pegasus's shoulder was a prudent thing to do. In the end she let the hoof fall to the floor and resumed fussing over her medical inventory, which she had spent the past two hours fussing over. Rainbow was glad she did. In her volatile mental state, coming anywhere near her was an invitation for broken bones.

"Are you sure you can't do anything more for her?" she implored, her voice gravelly from tiredness and barely contained anguish.

"I am afraid there isn't much else we can do for Miss Fluttershy here, except let her rest."

"You should have done more!" Rainbow Dash's hoof came down onto the bedside table with a loud bang. "She's- she's just laying here, and at first you weren't even sure that she would make it through the night, so why wouldn't I bucking stay here all day with her? I'm not leaving her! Not until I know she's okay."

"As I have explained to you for the past hour, Fluttershy is lucky to be alive. Injuries of this severity should have killed her instantly. No doubt they would have, if Her Majesty was not there to spellbind her wounds closed and fly her here to me with all speed. She is still in what I would consider critical condition."

She settled her frame into a sensible wooden chair opposite Rainbow Dash. Scarlet was elderly, but her body was that of a solidly built unicorn still robust from a lifetime of physical activity and precise work. With piercing gray eyes, she surveyed Rainbow Dash from behind round wire-framed spectacles like a schoolteacher; for the first time, there was more than just soothing courtesy in her voice. "Shall I describe to you, for the fifth time, the steps I took to ensure her proper treatment and subsequent successful healing?"

"You- did some fancy magic and stitches and now she's strung up like a turkey on Hearth's Warming Eve, and-"

"Your friend will recover. You have my word on that." The Palace physician's steely stare did not falter. "As to exactly when she can walk again, that will be some weeks. Whatever gave her these injuries, Her Highness didn't say, but whatever it was, it nearly tore her ribcage in half and broke the rest. Two legs crushed, right shoulder bone in seven pieces, and severe head trauma as well. The skull was the worst of it. Head wounds bleed the most, you know, and I was worried about potential brain damage around the fracture, but this Pegasus has a thick skull. Of course, we won't know for sure until she's conscious."

Rainbow Dash lay her head heavily on the bed where Fluttershy lay. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy…"

"For all their impatience and other shortcomings, Pegasi are tough. She'll stay in that cast for at least three weeks with daily healing spells and be up and about in no time."

She's only telling me this to calm me down, but it's making it worse.

Rainbow hated hospitals. It was a deep-rooted loathing that went back to some of her earliest memories, and she could write books on all the reasons why she hated them, but merely the smell was enough to set her feathers on edge and a cold sweat on her brow. Antiseptic was strong in her nostrils and her stomach twisted nervously. Scarlet walked over to Fluttershy's bedside with something small and metallic suspended in front of her. With horror, Rainbow Dash realized that it was a needle, a fat glass syringe half-full of some jjglittering potion. She levitated it closer and closer to Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash didn't notice herself walking backward. Her hindquarters struck the cold stone because she had shied away from that needle, as far away as the room's dimensions would allow.

I broke my wing in a flying accident when I was six. In the hospital, they wanted to give me a shot of something to keep away infection. There I was, strapped down and helpless to move while the nurse jabbed that awful thing into me. And then the painkillers, in another needle. They held my hooves down so I couldn't get away. It took three ponies to pin me to the bed. She shuddered. A wave of nausea struck her as the loathsome thing stabbed beneath Fluttershy's skin. She sat back down, her knees shaking.

Now Fluttershy was the helpless one. Scarlet Hope was quick and steady with the syringe, injecting the drug and then applying a bandage while Rainbow Dash was still cringing away from the needle's presence. "What's that you're sticking her with?"

"A simple revitalizing potion, to help her body replace lost blood," said Scarlet patiently.

It was hard for Rainbow to even look at Fluttershy now. Four sturdy straps secured Fluttershy's legs to the elevated bed frame and were bolted down so that the broken bones and tender stitches would not shift. Save for a bit of pink mane visible on the pillow, the tips of her hooves were the only uncovered part of Fluttershy. Everything else lay under plaster casts and miles of bandages. There was more bandages and gauze than pony. She was a dandelion seed, an inflated white balloon with strings to keep her from flying away on the first breeze. Powerful drugs kept her unconscious. Even so, Rainbow murmured comforting things to her friend, just in case she was listening.

Having injected Fluttershy with the serum, Scarlet stepped back and began to cast a spell. Rainbow Dash interrupted her before her horn could do more than emit a few red sparks. "What are you doing now?"

"A Healing spell," said Scarlet, with a touch of irritation at being interrupted again. "The magic currently knitting her wounds back together exacts a heavy toll. As I am sure you know, healing magic is not simply spun out of thin air to cure its target. All magic- even Conjuration and Destruction- requires both a power source and a real, material object on which to work. For example, if I were to light a torch, I supply the energy and the torch is a medium for that energy." She demonstrated; her horn glowed softly red and one of the unlit wall sconces burst into flame.

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to furiously tell her to get to the point. Scarlet continued in the same breath. "Healing magic is a form of Alteration, but one unique even among its many strange forms of spellwork. Its 'power' comes from the body of the pony being healed. Our bodies naturally heal from injuries and sicknesses. When a pony is Healed, the subject's body restores itself more rapidly, but at the cost of physical vigor. Severely injured ponies often find themselves emaciated and quite weak after spending an extended amount of time under healing spells, although in cases such as this, the benefits far outweigh any side effects."

"But- Fluttershy's weak already!" exploded Rainbow Dash. "Are you telling me that your spell's sucking MORE energy out of her?" She kicked the chair as if it bore the doctor's face.

Scarlet hesitated, no doubt sizing up the enraged mare and phrasing her reply so as not to put her any more on edge. "Just try to think of the magic as a catalyst to help your friend get well faster." She gestured to a tube that fed into the comatose pony's mouth. "As long as she receives plenty of fluids and nutrients, the magic will not drain her too harshly, although she will wake with a ravenous hunger and eat voraciously for the first week or so while her body replaces that which was lost."

Lots of big words, thought Rainbow. I just want Fluttershy to be all right, and this time, I won't let her get hurt ever again. Friends watch out for each other. They keep each other safe. Fluttershy needed me, and when I wasn't there, something out there tried to kill her.

She touched the ball of tightly wrapped fluff that was Fluttershy. The doctor's words echoed in her head: two legs crushed, right shoulder bone in seven pieces, and severe head trauma as well… Those words hurt her like she was the one to suffer the injuries. What had done this to Fluttershy? The sweetest, most innocent, kindest-hearted pony she knew?

As if reading her thoughts, Scarlet spoke up. "Merely idle curiosity… Do you have any idea what might have harmed her?"

Rainbow turned to face her. "If I did, I would be out there right now, tearing the spine out of whatever bucking vermin raised a hoof to her. He'll stay alive long enough to feel his head being smashed like a pumpkin. And when I know…" She slammed her forehooves together, hard enough to make the doctor take a step back. There was, however, no change in Scarlet's voice. She was used to dealing with visitors who lost their temper.

"Two Guards stay outside this door at all times. Nothing will get in this room to touch her, and certainly not with Princess Celestia just downstairs in the throne room."

But a moment later, all Rainbow Dash felt was hot burning shame. She hadn't been trying to scare Scarlet, and if Fluttershy had been awake to hear her outburst, she would have probably told her that violence wouldn't solve anything. Well now you don't have to worry, Fluttershy. I'm here. I'm not going to do anything but stay by your side and protect you.

"She should be lucky to have a friend as loyal as you," said Scarlet.

Rainbow sniffed. It was safer to keep her eyes closed, because if she opened them, the tears might leak out.

From beyond the doorway came a sudden commotion. After the long hours of silence, Rainbow Dash jumped and jerked her head toward the door. She caught the words "urgent" and "the Princess", and it was a mare's voice. The deep baritone of the guard answered her. None of the reply was audible, but the answer must not have pleased the mare, because Princess Celestia's name was mentioned in heated tones. There were noises suspiciously like hooves being stomped on a marble floor. Two seconds later the door opened, and Twilight Sparkle stepped through it.

"Rainbow Dash!" she cried. "I've been looking everywhere for you, I was afraid you had gone back to Ponyville, or-"

"Where else would I be?" said Rainbow, in a hollow voice.

Twilight's mane was a tangled and flyaway mess and she wore a ratty bathrobe around her shoulders. At a happier moment, Rainbow Dash wouldn't have hesitated to call her deranged. Her eyes bore a feverish light as if she had stayed up all night leafing through books, and as proof, she wore a saddlebag bulging with the books' telltale sharp corners. There had to be thirty pounds' worth of reading material in there. She spoke in an exhausted huff. "I should have known where you'd be… have you been here all night?"

"Since around two, Twi'. It was late when we got back to the Palace, so I was playing cards with the guards in the foyer and waiting for you when I saw somepony being carried to the hospital wing. I followed, and…"

Why now? Why do these damn tears have to come when everypony's watching me?

Twilight, thankfully, chose that juncture to embrace Rainbow Dash, whose voice cracked and broke. The Rainbow Dash she knew would have muttered about 'mushy stuff' and pushed her way out of the hug. This Rainbow Dash shut her eyes, squeezing them tightly closed, and as Twilight held her, a single sob escaped her chest. Just one. The rest were held inside. "Oh, Rainbow, it's okay," Twilight murmured into her mane. "Fluttershy will be just fine."

"Everypony keeps telling me that!" Rainbow Dash snarled. With sudden fury she shoved Twilight away. "I wish they'd just- STOP! She's my best friend, I've known her since I was four and how the hell do I know that something won't happen to her and she'll never wake up again?"

Now there was no stopping the hot, disgraceful drops leaking from her eyes. All the fight went out of her. Both Twilight and Scarlet had seen her cry; there was nothing else they could do to her now, nothing they could take away. Nopony ever saw Rainbow Dash cry. Even as a filly, when her parents divorced and she cried for her lost mother, she ran into the darkest closet of her Cloudsdale home where her bawling would never be overheard- not by her father, or her friends, or even Fluttershy, who spent more time with Rainbow Dash than with her own family. Crying's for fillies and stupid colts and uncool, overly emotional losers and- I can't I can't I can't I can't I CAN'T-

When Twilight wrapped her in comforting hooves, she didn't resist.

"Oh, Rainbow…"

The sobs didn't stop until Twilight's chest was damp from her tears and her entire body trembled. She cried until she physically could cry no more, until her eyes were leached dry. Still Twilight held on.

"I'll just leave you be," said Scarlet, going through a door opposite the hospital beds. She felt like an intruder on an uncomfortably intimate moment. "Take all the time you need."

"I'm sorry," said Twilight. "For everything."

After what felt like hours of crying, Rainbow Dash looked up at her through puffy and reddened eyes. Twilight took a moment to gather her thoughts. "I… last night was crazy, and everything happened so fast. The last time I saw you, was before you went to the trial and when I went to find Princess Celestia. What happened?"

"Do you mean the trip to the Undercity? That trip?" Rainbow said, her voice unsteady.

"Princess Luna mentioned it, but I didn't-" Twilight paused in the middle of her sentence, looking like an important thought had just smacked her across the face. "I wasn't sure what it all meant. I didn't know you were with her."

That was a lie. She had heard the whole story in Celestia's chambers, when she was hiding under the sheets from Luna's wrath. She probably knew about Fluttershy's condition before Rainbow Dash had heard about it. But how could she explain to Rainbow exactly why she had been so long with the Princess? She wasn't quite ready for her relationship with Celestia to be public knowledge. If there is still a relationship.

Since visiting Fluttershy and Luna in the hospital, which was only a few short hours ago, Twilight hadn't seen or heard from her lover. She reminded herself that it wasn't even sunrise yet.

The problem was that Twilight didn't know where things stood between them. Not knowing… that was the worst, worse than a thousand arguments or twice as many nights alone. All the books she had read on love told her what to do in a hundred situations, but without knowing exactly which situation it was, she was left guessing. Her gut told her to wait and let boiling emotions cool. With difficulty, she shook herself and brought her mind back to the here and now: the reason why she had gone looking for Rainbow Dash, besides the obvious one of caring about her friend. Rainbow angrily wiped her eyes and went to stand next to Fluttershy.

"It just sort of happened. All I know is that we went down there… to the Undercity. Princess Luna, and me, and a few guards. Somehow she thought we would find Pinkie. It was horrible, Twilight. No light, and all the rock, and cold, and damp, and some factory that had exploded, and a bunch of ponies attacking the police. It turned into a riot. For all I know she was trampled or caught up in all the fighting. What would Pinkie Pie have even been doing down there, anyway?"

Something clicked in Twilight's head. "I remember she had a relative working in the Undercity, on Level Four. A cousin or a grand-nephew or something like that. If Pinkie was visiting him, maybe that's why. Not even Dark magic could stop her from caring about her friends and family."

"Weird time to go off and visit family."

Twilight couldn't argue with that. She went to Fluttershy's side and touched the exposed tip of her hoof as Rainbow had done.

Rainbow Dash put her head on her hooves. "I just want Fluttershy to get better. I want Pinkie Pie to come home. That's all. I'm tired of all of this bad news."

"I know," Twilight said sadly. "And quite a few other things, too. Did Princess Luna say anything else?"

"When we were back at the Palace, she sent the guards back to their duties and told me to wait in the throne room. She seemed really upset. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was Luna coming back through the throne room and Fluttershy on her back, covered in- blood."

For the first time, Twilight noticed the empty row of beds on the far side of the room. Empty beds. Freshly made and straightened beds. The previous occupant of one of those beds, a certain alicorn, was missing.

"Oh no…"

"What?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"Princess Luna was here. When I came down to visit Fluttershy, she was here, in this bed. She had broken her leg." Somewhere out there was a still injured, and probably a very angry, Princess. "Why would she leave?"

She said the last bit to herself. After last night, she was more than a little afraid of Luna, and of what Luna might say or do if in a room alone with her. There it is again. This feeling of not knowing anything. All the worry was making her chest constrict and her forehead throb.

Remembering why she was there in the first place, she rummaged in her saddlebag and pulled out an old book. "For days I've been trying to figure it all out. What with the weather, and Bryn showing up in Ponyville, and Zecora disappearing, and Pinkie Pie, and now what happened to Fluttershy. Something isn't right. I'd know if Discord was behind it, or changelings, or anything we've faced before. Whatever is behind all of this, it has Dark magic at its command. None of my books in Ponyville could tell me anything, so I went to-"

"-the library?" interrupted Rainbow Dash.

"Very funny." Even as depressed as she was, Rainbow managed a laugh. Twilight shook her head and continued. "I was up all night looking, and I found this."

She held up the weathered and ratty volume in her hooves. Squinting, Rainbow Dash read its title: Faerie Tayles. "An old fillies' book?" she burst out. "That thing looks like somepony left out in the rain and then ran over it with a wagon."

The book was very old and weathered. Its cover had once been engraved wood, and vibrantly painted. Now only very faint traces were left of the inks; time and the effects of hundreds of hooves had worn the carvings nearly smooth. At some point in time the cover had fallen off and been hastily glued back together, with unfortunate results. It fell off at Twilight's touch. Blushing, she bent to pick it up. Letting the thing fall all over the floor was an insult to the book, especially since its importance had nothing to do with the cover.

"Not just any fillies' book." Twilight leafed through the first few pages and pointed at one at random. "Look at that!"

"Um, Twilight? I can read Daring Do, but that isn't even Equestrian. None of the letters make sense."

"That's because this book is extremely old. From before the Schism, actually. It's at least twelve hundred years old, and it's been in the library this whole time, right under my muzzle."

Eyes glowing with enthusiasm, Twilight gently flipped through the thick book, until she found a page near its middle. She sounded like her old self again. The fatigue fell from her voice and she looked like a filly presented with a very large cookie. "Do you remember last Hearth's Warming Eve? We did a play for the Canterlot nobles about the founding of Equestria."

"Oh yeah. The Rainbow Dash show. I played that Pegasus with the awesome armor."

Leave it to Rainbow Dash to remember her ego and the silver armor, and nothing else. "But do you remember about how Equestria came to be? The three pony tribes that were running from the Windigoes? Well, listen to this."

And Twilight Sparkle began to read.

She read something that Rainbow Dash could not make heads or tails of, and yet there was something tantalizingly familiar about it. The words were in another language. Or maybe the words themselves were in the language she knew, and Twilight was pronouncing them differently. Rainbow couldn't really describe it in her mind, but it sounded like- music. If she closed her eyes and just listened to Twilight's voice, it was like rhythmic chanting.

"Withom in herber greyne, libbeth an yong damysel and her pre chyldern. Her feythful Housebonde did purvaye her sustenaunce and hyle. One daye she did hie to louely Canterlot to bigge vitayll and goode Clopes, bycause Wynter hath soudein befalle upon all the Lede. It was loplich Calde. Her chyldern endured in worlde stronge but Foode was scarslych founded…."

It began to make Rainbow sleepy. She was able to make out maybe one word in four, and just when she thought she could understand a sentence, it slipped through her understanding. For many minutes Twilight read. She caught the words for 'winter' and 'stallion', though.

"So what does it say?" she finally said, interrupting the sonorous flow of words from the other mare.

"It's about a mare and her foals, and how she couldn't keep them warm during a really cold winter, so she went to Canterlot to buy them food and clothes. On the way back, she came across something." Twilight switched back to the antiquated language which, as Rainbow now knew, was called Middle Equestrian. "On the lysty Rake a nyghtes did she sparede he neyper tos ne heles. Her Byrthen was vnrid and Sadde. No Caple did here her Herrowe. And so a Wyndigo did appere ar the Leuedi, grymme and Gryndel in Seymland. Vilte Wyndigo did assaylle her with starkast Nygromansye."

"So… she took a rake and hit a Windigo with it?"

Twilight grinned. "She met a Windigo on the way home, silly. It could outrun her as well as freeze her to death with its dark magic. The only way she could overcome it was to think of her husband and his love, and the love she had for her foals, because love is toxic to all Dark creatures. I think this was sort of a ghost story. A mother might read it to her foals and fillies as a good healthy scare, and a reminder of love's power."

"How'd you learn to read that stuff?" Rainbow asked, picking up the book and squinting at the strange words within. "Let me guess, in the library."

"Princess Celestia taught me, when I was eleven. Lots of older spellbooks are written in Middle Equestrian. A unicorn has to learn it if he or she wants to study old magic, magic from Starswirl's time." There. She could say Celestia's name and not feel ashamed, or blush, or shuffle her hooves. It was progress.

Rainbow Dash turned back to Fluttershy's bed. "I still don't get what any of that has to do with us, right now. You think that some weird story is the answer-"

"No, don't you see?" exclaimed Twilight. "It was right there, in that Hearth's Warming Eve play! The Windigoes create cold. I've read about them before. They're undead ponies who let their hatred corrupt both mind and body. Nopony knows where they came from, but they're what nearly destroyed the original three pony nations thousands of years ago. In the play, we were representing the leaders of those three nations. Earth ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi." She shut the book and began pacing up and down in a wide-eyed fervor. "There's so many unanswered questions, though… why have they returned? What brought them back? Are they the ones that attacked Fluttershy and, maybe, Pinkie Pie? I need to do more research! And what about Bryn? Does he have anything to do with it, and would Princess Celestia know?"

"Then just ask her."

"Last night was- there just wasn't a good time to bring it up." Don't blush, Twilight Sparkle. "I have this book and a few others that might prove my theory, but I'd want all of us to be there. Bryn, too, in case we have to use the Elements." When Rainbow Dash was silent, Twilight moved closer. "Look… something evil's out there, maybe a Windigo, maybe worse, but we know it's real now. It hurt Fluttershy. It might have gotten Pinkie. If it exists, we have to face it together."

"So what do we do now? Go home and gather everypony and just hope that nothing happens to Fluttershy while we're gone?"

"Or I could send a letter to Applejack and Rarity. Either way, it's the only thing we can do." Twilight's eyes shone. She may have been wearing nothing but a dressing gown and old slippers, but she wore them like a princess's robe and waved her hoof around in commanding fashion. "Friendship defeated the Windigoes long ago and it can defeat them again."

Twilight was clearly ready for action. Before she could nudge Rainbow toward the door, the Pegasus said, "Twilight… Could you maybe… you know, keep what happened between us? With the whole crying thing."

"You mean that you don't want anypony to know how much you care?" said Twilight. "That there's a soft heart beneath all that awesomeness?"

"Yeah."

"Fluttershy knows it. Your best friends know it." She gave Rainbow a quick hug. "But if anypony asks, I'll tell them you're heartless and death-defying and invincible." The pair smacked hooves together, lavender against cerulean.

Credit given to J.R.R. Tolkien's "A Middle English Vocabulary" for helping me piece together the very terribly done snippets of Middle English in this chapter.