Zenara the Forgotten Pony

Chapter 4: Ruin Castle Exploits

Discord snaps to transport Spike and the other ponies to the Everfree forest. When they arrive he looks around seeing not the ruins of the castle but instead they find themselves across the bridge. "what?" Discord frowns looking up at the castle on the far side of the bridge. "I meant for us to be way over there... why are we over here?"

"don't know." Applejack frowns.

"I have no idea discord." Spike frowns looking around. "when we walked up here a little while ago everything was pretty normal."

"well something happened after you left then." Discord looks around carefully with his eyes narrowed. "hm... odd I feel a real sense of danger emitting from this place." He stares at the ruined castle for a moment then shrugs and walks across the bridge. "whatever let's just get this over with."

Spike walks just behind Discord. "D-discord... did you happen to think about where you may know Zenara from yet?"

"no I can't say I have." Discord frowns. "and it really is driving me crazy. I feel like I know more about this pony, but I just can't seem to put my hoof on it. what's more is... it feels like whatever I forgot is very important. Maybe I owe her money? I hope not... I hate debt." Discord frowns while he puzzles.

Once across the bridge Spike falls behind the others a bit. When he realizes he fell behind he tries to hurry to catch up and trips. "oww." Spike pushes himself up off the ground and notices there is a thin black line of shadow stretched out around the ruined castle. "hu? It's like some kind of barrier? But it must not work we walked right over the top of it?" he shrugs it off and hurries after his friends.

"still as tacky as ever." Rarity frowns as she glances around the room. "Somebody really should clean up this place."

"we don't have time for that rarity." Applejack huffs. "We gotta rescue Twilight."

"ooooh check this out!" Pinkiepie yells pointing at the tapestry on the floor clearly badly burnt. "some pony's been lighting fires in here."

"oh my word!?" Rarity frowns looking at the burnt tapestry. "Darling get away from there it's far to dirty."

Pinky sticks her nose down to smell it and inhales a tiny bit causing her to sneeze into the dust and create a dust cloud which gets both her and Rarity dirty. "ops sorry."

Rarity's eye twitches. "it's quite alright..." she mumbles turning the other way. "I'll deal with it later. Right now we have more pressing matters to attend to."

"so where do you suppose this Zenara pony even is?" Applejack asks looking around warily.

"I... I don't know." Spike looks up the steps. "she was right there when I saw her last time."

-that morning for Zenara-

Zenara is on the upper floor looking around she'd been around the castle a few time the couple months she'd been in and out of the shadow realm. Most of the time she would just go back to the other realm but she did like to take time to explore the ruined castle since she'd never been outside the shadowy world before and it makes her feel safe to stay in the place she knows so well. Today she was just finishing exploring the upper right wing. As she comes back to the entrance hall steps she hears voices. 'what? I didn't know anyone else came way out here in this world? In the shadow realm nobody ever comes here.'

"Twilight..." the small purple creature mumbles as he pulls on the ponies tail to get her attention.

"what?" The pony turns around revealing a horn.

'an alicorn!?' Zenara looks at the wall art of the two sisters of the moon and sun. 'this pony is an alicorn but she isn't one of them.'

"can I help you?" The pony asks.