Shadows in the dark

Chapter 22

Rarity found herself unable to sleep that night. She stayed awake in her room while lying on her side to avoid putting pressure on her wound. Her back was facing the door so no pony would know she was awake. Patients were supposed to be asleep at this hour. Spike had to return home with Sweetie Belle, and Trixie was allowed to come along since she had no where to go for the night.

Earlier in the day, sometime around noon during a visit from Spike, Sweetie Belle and Trixie, princesses Celestia and surprisingly Cadence decided to come over. Celestia was horrified when she saw just how wounded Rarity was. It was after she sent Cadence and the others out did Rarity and Trixie explain their experiences and what they learned to Princess Celestia. Celestia looked a bit confused when they brought up the reason why Sombra had the ponies mine for crystals.

"I don't recall a species of dragon that only likes crystals in particular." she mused. "But I will keep this in mind. It's important to know if Sombra is really attempting to form an alliance with these dragons. It's unfortunate that I don't know much of his family's history." the alicorn was literally at a dead end that point.

Cadence was shocked when she saw the stitched up gash on her cheek. Thankfully she didn't need to see the stitches around her cutie marks. All in all, the pink alicorn was happy to see all of them.

The white unicorn sighed softly as she slowly let her eyelids close. Hoping for sleep to come and claim her once more. She placed her hoof above the stitches on her cheek and rubbed it lightly. Feeling the woven material embedded into her flash and skin that would leave a big, ugly scar as soon as they were removed.

But after what Spike had said to her, she didn't care about how she would look now. She was still Rarity; the Element of Generosity.

"This is all my fault." she suddenly heard somepony say outside her door. The voice sounded like Celestia's. "I should've never sent anypony in. I didn't think..."

"Stop beating yourself up about it, Aunt Celestia." Cadence stopped her. "At least they're home alive."

"Yes." Celestia agreed. "But that doesn't change the fact that the both of them had been seriously harmed. It'll be a while until they're healed both physically and mentally. But I do want to know who could've tortured Rarity to a point that they actually removed her cutie marks."

"Whoever did that to her is nothing but a horrible, mindless monster. Possibly worse than Sombra!"

"I'm just glad that they weren't killed and had their heads impaled onto pikes like Shining Armor..."

There was a brief moment of silence and Rarity tensed.

"I-I'm so sorry for bringing that up." Celestia added. She sounded regretful.

"It's...okay." Cadence assured her. "You're right. At least they didn't end up like Shiny. But what they went through must've been far worse than what happened to my husband..."

Rarity couldn't help but feel guilty for not telling the truth. But she just couldn't believe that the pony who had done this to her...was Twilight. Of all ponies, as well! She closed her eyes and thought back to the day where it all began. When Twilight Sparkle was looking at all of them with a determined smile on her face. Convincing herself that she would past Celestia's test.

The Twilight she saw now is...something else entirely. She didn't want to think about it, but it continued to weigh on her mind. She tried to remove that creepy, almost psychotic grin and those marble sized irises from her head and replace them with the faces of her friends and family. Knowing that only them would drive away the horrible images in her head.

"I must find out who these dragons are." Celestia whispered. "If what they said about the dragons are true... Then we're heading in to something very big."