Chapters
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“Don’t you think this is a bad idea?” Hayden asked, shifting uncomfortably on her hooves. After spending well over a month naked most of the time, putting on so much clothing felt strange. The fact that it was an overblown, elaborate dress certainly didn’t help matters.Hayden had finished construction in her room, or at least most of it. Even so, Luna had insisted they would see her clothier on the other side of the castle. A crowd of gawking ponies lingered just outside, passing by the shut door…-
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Hayden kept her eyes defiantly on the ground—there would be no concealing their strange pattern from this ruler once she saw. No concealing her wings, if she asked her to remove the robe. I hope Luna was wrong about you, she thought. Otherwise, I’m dead. Her colleagues at work had always joked she would be killed by a wild animal on one of her hikes. This probably hadn’t been what they had in mind.“Rise, Lady Evening Star,” Celestia commanded. “That… is your name, is it not? My sister just…
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141.3 K •
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A few days passed in uneventful study. Each day Luna would visit, asking about what she had learned and quizzing her at random. She kept trying to call emergency services, though each time there was nothing more than an endless ring.Each day Hayden tried to learn when she might be going home, and each time she was rebuffed. She memorized a complex series of lies, which taken together would explain who she was and where she’d come from. Only her unique physical traits—slitted eyes, sharp teeth, and bat…
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Hayden looked in, surveying her new living quarters. Her wings twitched a little as she did so, betraying some of her worry that this might be a trick. How easily would it be to trick her into a cell, where she could be locked away and made to be quiet. They still hadn’t given her back her gun, which hardly filled her with trust.But it wasn’t a cell, didn’t seem to have a lock at all in fact. In terms of living quarters, Hayden would’ve compared it with an upscale hotel… or at least an upscale…
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141.3 K •
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Hayden’s search for a mirror paid dividends in very short order. The tower had a bathroom, though like everything else it was built to a medieval standard. That meant it was part of the same room as the bedroom, with a woven screen to separate it and nothing else. The rest of the facilities were… similarly primitive, betraying an underlying ignorance of sanitation and hygiene.What I could do with a handful of general contractors and a trip to the Home Depot… but there were no general contractors…
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141.3 K •
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There was nothing wrong with crying, except that it was a total waste of time. Hayden stopped crying, wiped away the remaining moisture from his face, then set about exploring his surroundings. So, he was a captive—he could at least learn more about his captors. Maybe that would help him negotiate for his release.Besides, having glasses meant he could see where he’d been imprisoned, could take in details that he might’ve missed when everything was a blur. And what a prison it was.On the one hand, it…
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141.3 K •
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Hayden was slow to wake, in the cold and the dark. His memory was a mess, and what he did remember just didn't make any sense. His weekend hikes were always an adventure, even though he was walking trails he had visited many times before. He remembered the voice, a voice that came from his earbuds over the music he'd been listening to. It hadn't been a call—that was the first thing he'd checked. There was no service in Denver’s mountains. That was the whole reason he came out in the first place.Then…
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Princess Luna approached the door to Star Swirl's lab like a nervous filly who had just gotten herself into trouble. On paper, there was no reason for her to be afraid—this castle "belonged" to Celestia and herself, in a country they ruled. Everypony within who was not one of their servants was at least one of their subjects, Star Swirl included.But while everypony in the Castle of the Two Sisters knew Celestia by name, sight and cutie mark, some significant majority of their subjects didn't even realize…
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If there was one mercy in being shoved into storage, it was the way time quickly ceased to matter to her. It wasn't dying exactly, at least not as Twilight had read or theorized about death, but at least it meant she didn't have to think as much. Didn't have to think about the friends she wasn't seeing, about the lives they were having without her. Starlight Glimmer had looked so much older last time, suggesting to Twilight that she'd been locked away in storage much longer than it had seemed. Her friends…-
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Time ceased to have any meaning for Twilight. She couldn't escape from her prison, though more than once she tried her horn again. Not even a simple light spell would work for her, despite her greatest concentration. Deep down she knew exactly why it wasn't working, though it was too painful to admit to herself outright. She couldn't cast spells because she didn't have a horn, only a hollow body of painted wood, precious stones, and some metal. Music boxes couldn't perform spells—her very consciousness…
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