Blood and Darkness, Chapter 22

By Twilight Sparkle (Age 16)

Kefentse crept through the caves, her green eyes glowing in the darkness and allowing her to locate the cultists' deadly traps with ease, as her consummate hearing pinpointed their distant chants. She crept up on their blasphemous ceremony — using her mechanical wings to levitate over the traps, her innate zebra stealth to approach in perfect silence, and her sharp claws to dispatch a guard who wandered too close.

Finally, after such a long journey to clear her name of the murder she didn't commit, the moment of her exoneration was close at hoof!

(*Here, the hornwriting skips a few lines and gets hurried and shaky)

So she leapt into the hooded ponies with a draconic roar, sending all of them scattering, their evil laughter fading into terrified screams at her righteous vengeance. Hornbolt after hornbolt from the metal tip of her reconstructed horn transformed all the ponies into the mindless lemmings they truly were in their hearts, weak-willed creatures that had simply been following their leader and mocking that which they could not understand. They ran away yipping piteously, forever sorry that they had not stopped to think before treating Kefentse so badly.

Then, in the rose-red crimson glow of the burning torches, it was just the dracozebris and the evillest pony of them all.

"You may have neutralized the greatest weapon of my popularity," the cult leader laughed, "but I don't need my followers, because the darkness gives me strength!" She produced a wicked dagger from under her robes and took a swing at Kefentse. But this time Kefentse would not back down. With a graceful leap she dodged away from the scything blade. Then she fought back with her greatest and most powerful weapon — knowledge. Using martial arts techniques long thought lost, which she had researched in her many hours in the library after her secret agent classes, Kefentse planted a hoof right in the leader's stupid insufferable muzzle. It took her out with a single blow. THAT'S the power of research, you smug timberwolf.

The cult leader fell to the ground with a cry of defeat. "No, how could this be — you're still so strong, after all I did to destroy your life?"

"Maybe you should spend more time studying and less time picking on innocent ponies," Kefentse said, graciously offering advice in victory, because she was no bully like this poor pathetic creature.

The cult leader nodded sadly and sat up, her hood falling away to reveal an all-too-familiar midnight coat and cream-and-blue mane. She was one of the fellow students that, many years ago, had been in classes with Kefentse at Princess Celestia's Secret Agent School, except she had failed after falling behind in her studies, and then fallen to darkness and corruption. Kefentse gasped. " Moondanc- Dark Pirouette! I should have known."

"You may have beaten me, but you'll never convince the princess of your innocence," the dark young mare said.

"I would revise your probability estimate of that statement," a voice said. A large white form stepped from behind a nearby pillar, the perfect spiral of her horn glowing amid the radiance of her ethereal mane.

"Princess Celestia!" they chorused.

"Thank you for disrupting the cult's spell and saving me, my most faithful secret agent," the princess said. "I should have known Dark Pirouette would be trouble, way back when she told me that you broke into her locker and I believed her and her friends over you. Then when she stole your homework to get you in trouble for missing an assignment. Then when I encouraged you to be more social with your classmates and she spent all afternoon making fun of you. Then today she pushed you around between classes and all I said was that you should try working out your differences. Well, I was wrong. It was so clear she was evil, and I don't know how I failed to see it. I'm so sorry I doubted you for even a second."

(Also it led to Kefentse being framed for murder and getting her horn broken and her wings removed, which was of course the important thing)

Kefentse felt her cheeks heat and her emotions stir as Celestia apologized. Everything was going to be alright. She could take her place as an alicorn again. Yet there were some secrets which still had to remain hidden.

Celestia turned to the sniveling cultist, the glow of the princess' horn intensifying and then winking out as her enchantment took hold. "And now that I've cast a truth spell, it's time for some answers."

"Yeah," Kefentse said. "Like, why would you do such a thing?"

Dark Pirouette burst into tears, since she couldn't rely any more upon the lies that had fooled her flock of sycophants and misled Princess Celestia. "I was jealous of you, Kefentse," she said. "You're better than me. You're smarter, and you get better grades, and you're more talented at magic."

"Don't forget prettier," Princess Celestia added, and then her cheeks flushed. "Oh dear," she murmured.

"You're right," Dark Pirouette said, color creeping into her own muzzle. "She's prettier. Actually, she's naturally hot, in a way I could never hope to be, and that's why I mock her fashion sense all the time."

Kefentse blushed too. "I … uh … Princess, what did you mean by 'oh dear'?" she said, modestly trying to change the subject.

"I must still be a little disoriented from what the cult did to me," Princess Celestia said. "I meant to cast the truth spell on Dark Pirouette, but it appears to be affecting all of us."

Kefentse gasped, feeling her chest tighten and her heart begin to pound. She stumbled backward on trembling hooves.

"Are you alright, Kefentse?" Princess Celestia asked, worried.

"No," Kefentse replied, helplessly listening to herself speak as the truth was ripped from her lips. "I'm terrified that you'll learn my deepest, darkest secret, of how passionately in love with you I am, and you'll hate me because you're so perfect and amazing and wonderful and wise and I'm just a stupid little filly who tries so hard to be worthy of your attention but nothing she ever does is good enough."

An awkward silence filled the cave.

Hot tears of shame pooled in Kefentse's eyes. But as she was whirling to flee, Celestia cleared her throat. The sound pinned Kefentse to the spot, as if she were a Danaus plexippus in the displays of the Academy biological studies building, Lepidoptera wing.

"Well," Celestia said, "that certainly makes this a great deal simpler, because I was also terrified that you'd discover I felt the same way about you."

Kefentse's eyes widened. "What?!"

"It's true," Celestia said, placing a hoof on Kefentse's shoulder, lowering her muzzle and blushing hotly. "I'm so hard on you because it's the only way to cover up my true feelings. I thought if I expected perfection from you, and you slipped up, it would give me an excuse to keep you at wing's length. But I can't lie about my desires now, thanks to the truth spell."

"Neither can I. I'm secretly in love with you too, Kefentse," Dark Pirouette cried. "I thought the only way I could ever get you to notice me was if I made myself look like I was better than you. It was really dumb and I regret everything."

"Not yet you don't," Kefentse said. "You're creepy and stupid and I hope you cry yourself to sleep for the rest of your life for being such a jerk." She turned to Princess Celestia. "What should we do to punish her for her crimes?"

"We should make out in front of her," Celestia said, "so that she can get a good look at what she'll never, ever have."

Kefentse smiled. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Princess."

So they did.