Twilight blasted another wolf-thing, sending it tumbling back into its fellows through the tall black grass. They were almost to the opening to the Hedge now, but there seemed to be no end to the wolfish thralls of the Beast. Each one was subtly different, as if the Beast had written over a basic wolfishness onto whatever creature strayed into his realm, but the one thing they all had in common was a frothing maddened hunger that was directed at the desperate trio. Scratch kept up a constantly shifting volume of keening tones, raising the violent feedback if a wolf-beast ever drew too close. It was painfully effective against the sensitive ears of the Beast's pack, but she was already beginning to tire. Octavia stayed close to Twilight, shining with an awesome radiance that repelled the attacks of the maddened beasts, or made them falter long enough for the might of Twilight's telekinesis to punt them away.

“Twilight!” Scratch called as the group finally passed into the Hedge proper. She paused to send another wolf-creature away with bleeding ears from her sonic assault, then continued, “Twilight we can't keep this up the whole way, you're going to have to seal the entrance!”

“What? But how?!” Twilight called back, blasting back five more wolf-things with a violet flash, “I don't have a spell to-”

“Then don't cast! Ask the Hedge!” Scratch said desperately, sweating from magical exertion, “If you don't, then we're dead!”

“But how do I-”

“DO IT!” Scratch yelled, before taking a hard swipe from a wolf-creature she hadn't seen. She screamed as the claws opened great gashes along her side, shattering her hair into brilliant blue fragments. Twilight blasted the creature away, unleashed a wave of force to push the most immediate threats back, then spoke to the shadows, negotiating with the bizarre logic of this place for the barest of instants. At first, it looked as though she'd failed, but just as several wolf-creatures were pushing through the gap, it closed, bookshelves smashing the nightmarish creatures as they fell on top of them, sending books bouncing everywhere. A terrible howling rose up behind the barrier but it held the wolf-things back for the moment, long enough for Octavia to silently take a golden apple from Twilight's basket and feed it to her mate before the white unicorn bled out.

Twilight gasped for breath, though from terror rather than magical exhaustion. In truth she still had miles of casting in her, she knew, but the sheer horror of the last few moments had drained her stamina significantly. Even the familiar bookishness of the surrounding Hedge seemed darker and more sinister. As such, she almost blew Blackboard's face off when he burst through into the path, cocksure as ever, “Well come on then,” he said confidently, causing Scratch and Octavia to stare, “Let's get a move on before the pack finds a way around, hmm?” He appeared to notice Scratch and Octavia for the first time, “Hang on, who're they then, Twilight?”

Twilight sighed, “Blackboard, these are my friends, Scratch and Octavia. They helped me get Applebloom back.”

Blackboard bowed elegantly to the two mares, “Blackboard, at your service m'ladies. Speaking of which,” the bookcase blocking the way into the Beast's meadow shuddered again, “We should probably be going, come on now, before the pack figures out how to get back here!” With that, Blackboard darted off, with Twilight and the others in tow.

The red alicorn kept up a running dialogue as he led the ponies through the Hedge, “Keeping those wolves off your back was harder than I thought it, don't step in that,” he admonished Scratch, who was about to tread in a book that, on closer inspection, had teeth, “This place is insane, and your little additions made you easier to follow than an arsonist in an origami convention. Seriously, your power is off the charts here, I mean did you have to blow up the WHOLE Red Bastion?”

Twilight blushed a little while the others goggled at her, “It... Well it was it or me.”

Blackboard snorted, kicking open a seemingly random door in the endless walls of bramble and shelving, knocking over the strange creature that had been hiding behind it, causing it to fly into the bushes, “Well, it's just as well it was the Bastion, I'd have never heard the end of it, I would've gotten there sooner but one of the, sorry,” he said to a table full of dormice, whose party the group had interrupted. Twilight and the others all apologized as well, but the dormice ran away anyways, leaving Twilight feeling vaguely guilty. Blackboard seemed not to notice, he just shoved a shelf open, revealing a secret passage, and kept talking and running, “One of the fuzzy bastards had trapped me in the middle of a clearing that... Oh dear.” Twilight ran into Blackboard's suddenly still rump, and felt the others crash into her as well.

“Hey! Why'd you... Oh...” Twilight broke off her angry words when she saw what Blackboard had stopped at. A doorway filled the path now, but the doors themselves had been clawed to wooden shreds, revealing the inside of a large stone dome. Inside was dark, save for a forest of glowing crystals shaped like twisted, agonized ponies that filled the space between the changelings and the gate at the far end.The hunters of the Beast prowled between the glowing pillars, snuffling and snarling, and snapping at each other as they searched the structure for signs of Twilight and her friends. Twilight sighed, then almost fell sideways when she felt the basket holding Applebloom jump.

The filly had woken up to find herself on the back of one of the most notorious betrayers and murderers in Equestrian history, and was now thrashing in her bindings, trying desperately to escape. Twilight quickly turned and whispered to the filly, “Applebloom, Applebloom it's me, alright? Calm down, it's me. You're safe, come on, look I wouldn't hurt you, come on now Applebloom, it's alright, we're almost home, just trust me for a moment,”

Applebloom glared at Twilight, even though she stopped thrashing and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper, “Like Princess Celestia trusted you? You're a snake, Twilight Sparkle, an' ah won't trust you after what you did to her.”

Twilight winced, but noticed the urgent looks on the faces of the others, and said softly, “Okay, don't trust me, but do you really want to stay here?” She gestured to the mad, brambled surroundings. Applebloom slowly shook her head, still glaring, but with a slight note of fear now in her movements. Twilight sighed and continued, “Look Applebloom, I'll explain what I can when we're out of here, but for now I need you to be quiet so we can get past those things.” Applebloom shivered, her eyes widening when she saw the wolfish creatures, and nodded slowly.

Twilight turned to Blackboard, the red alicorn frowning with concern, “My friend, can you lead Scratch and Octavia back to Manehattan? It seems unfair to bring them through this, and it would make things awkward for them if there are Guards on the other side. Besides,” she added before Blackboard could protest, “Scratch is spent, Octavia's spending all her efforts keeping her upright, and I can go... More directly without worrying about everypony else.”

Blackboard stared at Twilight for a moment, thinking, then snorted, “Fine, since there's not really any other way. But you keep yourself safe, you hear?” He stared at Twilight until she nodded, then smiled, “Good. Now then ladies, let us exeunt, stage left.” He took the changeling couple under his wings and started steering them away back down the path, ignoring Scratch's feeble protests. Octavia looked over her shoulder at Twilight and winked, causing the purple unicorn to blush, to her surprise, then they were around the bend and out of sight.

Twilight turned to Applebloom again and whispered softly, “Now tie yourself in with the tarp, this is going to get a little... Bumpy, and I don't want you falling out.” Applebloom nodded mutely and tied herself in, using the tarp as a seatbelt of sorts and bracing her hooves on the inside of the basket. Twilight nodded when she saw the filly had secured herself and whispered softly, “Alright, brace yourself.” Then she started talking to the shadows on the wall, whispering quietly to them until they reached an accord, then she put one hoof on the wall, then another, and then they were walking up the inside of the dome.

Strangely, Twilight didn't feel all that different, walking up the inside of the dome, though she could feel Applebloom trembling in the basket at her side. They were about halfway when one of the apples fell from the other basket, smashing on the floor and causing several of the wolf-creatures to look around sharply. Twilight sped up, but before long they were spotted. Howls filled the chamber, followed by rocks as the creatures with the means to started picking up chunks of stone from the floor and hurling them at the pony on the ceiling. Twilight blasted two of them away, running now for the gate, but was clipped by a cobblestone and started to fall. Time slowed, she could feel Applebloom shaking in the basket, could hear her frantic pleading with whatever powers were listening. Twilight felt her own heartbeat, and the pulse of her magic deep inside, and at that moment she realized what a fool she'd been. Before the adrenaline wore off, Twilight focused her magic and teleported.

Twilight and Applebloom rolled through the iron gate back into Equestria, which Twilight closed with a lash of magic just before the horde of wolfish hunters could follow. The rising sun sealed the gate properly, she felt, and she was about to relax when she heard a step nearby. She quickly put Applebloom behind her with a telekinetic thrust, snapping off the basket the filly had been clinging to in the process, and clenched her magic, her fiery mane blazing with runes and words of power.

Twilight found herself face-to-face with a scowling Princess Luna and a small contingent of guards. She bowed hurriedly, releasing the magical potency she'd been gathering, “Princess Luna, it's... Well I...” She sputtered into silence in the face of the moon princess' dead quiet.

“What are you?” Princess Luna asked quietly after several moments, “You look like Twilight Sparkle, but you are not arrogant, not cruel, none of the things I witnessed when you carved your bloody swath through the ranks of the Royal Guard.” The Princess sounded neutral, with no hint one way or the other about her mood, and her blue eyes regarded Twilight calculatingly, “You have compassion in your eyes now, and fear, but no hatred.” Princess Luna looked at Twilight for a while longer, then shook her head, “No, you are not the Twilight Sparkle that broke my sister's heart, that Twilight would not have risked so much to return and save a little filly, unless it was in her own interest.”

Twilight brightened a little, until Princess Luna added, “However, since we don't know why you've saved Miss Applebloom, we can only assume it was for some selfish plan for power. As such, you're going to come with me, and give an account of your actions.” Before Twilight could respond, she felt herself locked in a magical paralysis and levitated, basket of apples and all. Princess Luna turned to one of the guards, “Shale, take Miss Applebloom back to her sister, she's going to be worried about her. Everypony else, meet me back at the throne room in an hour. Understood?”

“Aye, Princess!” And with that the one pegasus she'd designated scooped up Applebloom in the basket she'd been hiding in, to the filly's surprise and took off with her in the basket. The rest of the guards took off, and then Twilight felt the Princess teleport them both.

When the light of the teleportation faded, they weren't in the throne room, as Twilight had expected, but instead in front of a pair of crimson double doors that bore a stylized sun design in elegant gold and silver. Princess Celestia's personal chambers, which she'd only entered a hoof-full of times and only in the most extreme circumstances. Princess Luna opened the door with a hoof, levitating the paralyzed Twilight through, then levitated her over a grand bed, in which lay a distressingly familiar shape.

Princess Celestia was stick-thin now, with the bones in her body clearly visible, and she was wrapped in bandages around the middle of her body that were soaked with blood. Her breathing was shallow, but steady, and she slept uneasily, with deep circles under her eyes. She seemed to be in the grip of some nightmare, her legs moving fitfully, and little cries coming from her lips as she slept. Devices around her bed monitored her heart rate and magical potency. Both were dangerously low, at the bare minimum for alicorn survival.

Twilight wished she could cry, but the paralysis spell held even her tears in check as she looked over the thin, wasted form of her once-vibrant mentor. Unknown to her, Luna's expression softened at her reaction, and she mouthed a quiet apology.