Twilight awoke in darkness.

It wasn’t the familiar darkness of her room. The hard surface that pressed against her side could easily be mistaken for the cold crystal floor of her palace, but she knew it wasn’t. The very air around her was empty and still. Even as lonely as her new home could get at times, it never felt like this.

She took a deep breath and sat up. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to adjust to the lack of light, but wherever she was, not even a trickle of light existed. Alternatively, she could be blind.

Fortunately, she still had her magic. Warm light from her horn washed down her face and restored her confidence in her sight. She followed through with her spell and conjured a small light that floated next to her.

Of course, illumination doesn’t do a pony much good if there’s nothing to actually see, and that’s all she saw. Nothing. Just empty space around her and darkness beyond. The ground she was standing on, if it could even be called that, seemed to be invisible. It reflected no light, and there was nothing but more darkness below. At least it was still solid enough to stand on.

“Well, alright then,” Twilight muttered. Her voice felt empty and hollow in this void, but she wasn’t discouraged yet. She channeled more energy into the light spell, causing it to grow brighter and brighter, until it gave off noticeable heat and was almost painful to look at. It was a false sun, one of Celestia’s spells.

She sent the light shooting into the darkness, as far her magic could reach, searching for something, anything.

All she found was more of the empty, featureless void.

“Well that’s just boring,” Twilight said with a sigh. She took a deep breath, then shouted at the top of her lungs, “Hello? Is anypony there?”

There was no echo, and no real indication that her voice had any presence in the vastness whatsoever.

The tiniest flicker of fear began to worm its way into Twilight’s heart, but it was still too early for that. She to stop, think about where she had been before this, what this could possibly be, and what she could do about it.

Was she dreaming? That seemed like the obvious first question. A quick bite of the tongue showed that her nervous system seemed to be fully functional. And it didn’t quite feel like a dream. She was remarkably lucid, and she’d had both regular lucid dreams before and the kind where Luna visited. This wasn’t it.

It kind of reminded her of the time Celestia brought her… wherever it was she had brought Twilight to when she had ascended to alicorn-hood But that place had been full of stars, and memories, and warmth, and love.

Damn, she really should have asked Celestia more about that.

Had anything happened to her last night before she went to bed? As far as she remembered, it had been a perfectly ordinary day. No friendship problems, no monster attacks. She had done some paperwork, gotten a few errands done around Ponyville, had tea with Fluttershy, then spent the rest of the day reading at home until it was time to sleep.

Perfectly ordinary. Almost surprisingly so, really. Being a princess, such quiet slices of life were becoming rarer and more elusive. But nothing momentous was planned for her today, either. Just a nice picnic with her friends. Something to look forward to when she got out of this mess.

Twilight fired up her horn and directed a blast of energy at the ‘ground’ surrounding her.

“No effect,” she said, then spread her wings and took off into the air, flying straight up. She kept the ball of light ahead of her, but the sky was just as empty as anything else around here.

Did she know anypony capable of doing this? Discord, perhaps, but it wasn’t really his style. The draconequus preferred far more chaos in his pranks. An empty void was just too boring.

Was she even physically here? She had heard about complicated mind or soul prisons that could trap a pony’s consciousness elsewhere, but she had no good method of determining as to whether or not this was a physical reality or simply a mental construct.

Growling, Twilight flipped in the air, and fell into a dive. She picked up speed, and gathering as much power as could muster and unleashed the full might of an alicorn princess downward.

She landed clumsily, then swore when she inspected the results. There wasn’t even so much a a smudge. The amount of power she used would have reduced a mid sized building to a pile of molten slag.

“Alright,” Twilight said, panting. “If this is some kind of sick joke, then hurry up and get to the punchline!”

“Very well,” an androgynous voice said from behind her.

Twilight spun, spreading her wings and lowering her horn in an attack stance. She suddenly wished she hadn’t used so much energy experimenting with her surroundings. “Who’s there!?”

A small, blue orb of light floated in front of Twilight, about the size of a grapefruit. As it spoke, it pulsed in time with its words. “Who I am is not important. It is you who is to be the center of this tale.”

“Alright, let me try this again,” Twilight said, taking a step back. Her eyes darted back and forth, to see if anything else had appeared, but so far it just seemed to be her and the light. “Who are you, where am I, why am I here, and how do I get back home?”

The ball of light glittered as it gave off the sound of tinkling bells, in a way that seemed reminiscent of laughter. “Excellent. You have a most inquisitive mind. I suspect you are the perfect pony to play this part.”

Twilight grit her teeth. “Answer the question,” she growled and fired up her horn. All she tried to do was to grab ahold of the little beastie with telekinesis, but to her considerable surprise, her magic just slid off of it like water on well treated wood.

“Save your efforts. You magic can do naught to me.” The blue sphere began to bob up and down, lazily circling around Twilight. “However, the task for which I require you will be far more enjoyable for the both of us if you cooperate willingly, so I shall do my best to answer your questions. It is not, however, strictly necessary.”

Well that was ominous. Twilight kept pace with the light as it turned, making sure it didn’t leave her sight. “If you want something from me, you’re not making a very convincing sales pitch.”

The sphere pulsed with laughter once again. “I close one hundred percent of my deals, one way or another. Still, you seek answers to your predicament. Very well. I have brought you here, to this emptiness, because I wish you to be my protagonist. There is a story I wish to tell, and you would make an excellent character. And for your last question, if you do what I ask, you will be able to see your friends again.”

Twilight blinked. Protagonist? What? “I swear, if you’ve done anything to my friends… a lot of ponies have tried to mess with me and my friends before, you know. It hasn’t ended well for many of them.”

“Do not worry. Your friends are beyond my reach. You, however, are stuck within my grasp.”

“Okay…” Twilight pawed at the ground, still trying to keep an eye on her surroundings. “So what’s this about me being a protagonist now?”

The sphere turned a pale green. “Stories. Mysteries. Fantasy. Science-Fiction. Romance. So many genres, so many tales to tell. I have decided that you are excellent protagonist material, so I have brought you here so you may partake in them.”

“Partake in them… what does that even mean? How are you going to make me the main character of a story?”

“Hmm.” The sphere turned back to blue, and bobbed up and down for a few moments, as if it was thinking. “If I want you to be the protagonist of a mystery story, you will then show up at the mysterious mansion where a murder has occurred, and you will be the detective who solves it, as the protagonist of the story.”

Twilight rubbed at the back of her head. “Solve a murder mystery…? I suppose I could do something like that pretty easily. Is that really the kind of thing you want from me?”

“It is the start. To see if you are capable of more.”

“I see.” It sounded simple enough. Act a part, and see her friends again. But if there’s anything that fiction had taught her, it was that deals like this with mysterious beings always had some sort of catch. “What if I refuse?”

The sphere tinkled with laughter, then turned an angry red. “Let us be honest here. I’m offering you the appearance of your own agency as a courtesy, and because it makes for a better story. You hold none of the cards here, little mare.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. So that’s how it really was. A part of her wanted to be defiant just for the sake of defiance, but she still didn’t know enough about what was going on. Better to play along, and wait for an opportunity to present itself.

“Very well. I’ll be your protagonist.”

“Excellent. Is there any particular genre you prefer?”

“Mystery should be fine.”

The world around her suddenly lurched, and Twilight found herself standing on the porch of a mansion, a thunderstorm raging around her.

Twilight blinked, then took a moment to gather herself. The light was gone. “You still there?”

There was no response, and she sighed. Well, better get this over with. She reached up and knocked on the door.

It opened swiftly, and a green unicorn was there to greet her. The floor around her was soaked and covered in mud.“Oh, detective, thank Celestia you’re here!”

“L-Lyra? What are you doing here?”

Without answering, Lyra grabbed Twilight, pulled her inside, and slammed the door shut. “The body is upstairs. Right this way.”

Twilight let herself be led up the stairs, trying her best to take in every detail as she made her way up. “Lyra, are you a part of this too? What’s going on?”

Twilight felt her sense of unease grow as they approached one of several bedroom doors off of the upstairs hallway. Lyra still hadn’t responded to any of Twilight’s questions, and she could hear low voices coming from the room they were about to enter. The door opened, revealing what she should have expected since she first suggested this Celestia-forsaken genre.

Cranky Doodle lay in the middle of the floor in a puddle of blood, a knife sticking out of his back. Matilda lay next to him, a knife sticking out of her side.

“Sweet Celestia no...” Twilight breathed, her heart practically stopping. Memories rushed through her mind of the wonderful wedding that had taken place just last week. Who could have possibly done something so tragic, to ruin such a beautiful happiness?

“So, what do you think, Detective?” Lyra asked, nudging Twilight in the ribs. “Everypony is gathered together here in this room.”

“Stop calling me detective, Lyra, my name is…” Twilight frowned, then started to notice the rest of the details in the room. Four other ponies stood about. Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, and Derpy, all of them looking various degrees of sad and uncomfortable.

“This is sick,” Twilight muttered. Was this just a story, or was this really happening, somewhere in Equestria right now? Choosing a murder mystery had probably been a mistake. Though she somehow doubted any other genre would have been kind to her either.

“I was the first to find the bodies.” Lyra said, her voice low. “I knocked and entered the room at about 7:00 AM, in order to deliver breakfast. The door was locked, but I used the master key to enter. Only I know where it’s kept. When I entered, they were both dead on the floor."

Twilight blinked, then turned to stare at Lyra. “Hold on a second. Start from the beginning. Why are you all here? Where is this place?” “Who talks like that? Honestly.”

“Cranky and Matilda were here together on their honeymoon,” Lyra said, hanging her head low. “It’s a rather nice bed and breakfast. I work here on the weekends, as a maid.”

“We were touring in the area, and thought it would be a nice place to stay,” Octavia said.

Vinyl Scratch nodded in agreement.

Derpy giggled. “Those two do nearly everything together! I, uh, work here too,” Derpy said, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “As a security guard.”

“I stick with Lyra,” Bon Bon said. “But I was also investigating Cranky on suspicion of embezzlement and insider trading.”

“What in Equestria are you all…” Twilight shook her head, and then stared back at the five faces, all their eyes on her. Eerily neutral. The way they spoke, the words they were choosing. None of it felt natural. Like they were actors, reading from a script, rather than actual ponies.

Maybe that really was the nature of this place. Dialogue like that would kill immersion in a real story, and it gave Twilight a spark of hope that maybe this wasn’t real after all.

If it was just a game, no matter how cruel the premise, all Twilight had to do was solve it, and it would be done and over with.

Twilight stepped up and inspected the corpse herself. The knife in Matilda had entered the heart from the back. A clean and quick killing. The one in Cranky had entered the side, likely puncturing the lung. There didn’t seem to be any defensive wounds or signs of a struggle. Both weapons were well crafted daggers, not common utensils. A unicorn could commit suicide in such a fashion, but it would be nigh impossible for a donkey. A double suicide could have been possible, but judging by the position of the bodies, didn’t seem likely. The clock on the wall said it was currently 8:00 AM, and judging by the temperature she would estimate the time of death for both of them to be somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00.

The details came to her easily, which disturbed her somewhat. She was familiar with the science and the procedure behind crime scene investigation, but it had never actually come up in her real life.

Had it…?

“Alright,” Twilight said, turning back to the others. “Tell me what happened, and where you were last night.”

“I was up late last night,” Bon Bon said. “I wanted to sneak into Cranky’s room, where I knew he kept some financial documents. However, the door was locked, and I was unable to find the key. A unicorn could easily pick the lock with magic, but I left my tools at home. At about 3:00 AM, I was outside in the pouring rain, trying to figure out a way to get into the window on the second floor, which was open, but I didn’t have my grappling hook with me either. I saw somepony flying around out there. I heard what sounded like a strangled grunt, and a loud thump from inside the room. I assumed somepony had fallen out of bed. Afterwards, I decided to give it up for tonight and went to sleep. Lyra was already asleep by the time I got back.”

Well, that was a suspicious testimony. “Alright, and you two?” Twilight asked, turning to Octavia and Vinyl.

“I was up until about 2:00 AM practicing my set,” Octavia said. “Afterwards, I went to sleep, and didn’t wake up until the commotion this morning.

Vinyl Scratch nodded, then lowered her glasses, revealing eyes with dark circles around them. She then fired up her horn and projected a odd blur of pictures.

“Vinyl says she hasn’t slept at all,” Octavia said, translating. “She says she was listening to music throughout most of the night, but at some point, she was going to the bathroom around 3:30 AM when she saw Matilda skulking around the halls. She says she didn’t think much of it, and went back to her room to work on music for the rest of the night. We share a room, so she says she can vouch for me sleeping all night.”

Vinyl nodded in agreement with Octavia’s translation.

Derpy raised a hoof, frowning. “Matilda told me she had a sleepwalking problem once, but that she had gotten over it.”

That could cause problems. “And you, Lyra? You told me what happened when you found the bodies, but where were you last night?”

“In my room, reading till about 1:00 AM. I wanted to snuggle with Bon Bon, but she was too busy with her spy stuff. She asked me to use my master key, but I said no. I take my job very seriously, and I won’t break the rules, even for my best friend. I woke up again briefly when Bon Bon came back to our room, it was probably about 3:00 AM. She was soaking wet. Afterwards I woke up again at 6:00 AM to do the morning rounds.”

“Ooh!” Derpy said, raising a hoof. “I was, er, outside, doing my nightly patrols and stuff last night. It was dark and stormy, so I didn’t see much, but I’m pretty sure I saw Bon Bon outside at about 3:00 AM, like she said. She must have gotten so muddy down there.”

Twilight rubbed at her face with her hoof. Everypony had at least some sort of alibi. Still, the disconnected way in which they were all being presented helped her distance herself emotionally from the horror of her current situation. This was more like a classical mystery puzzle than it was an actual crime scene. If so, that meant one of these mares was probably lying, and was really the culprit.

But which one?

“Is there another room key, beyond the master key?”

Lyra nodded. “Yeah, the room key. Matilda had it with her. It was on the bedside table when I came in the morning.”

Twilight moved over to the open window, inspecting the edge. If Bon Bon had been lying about the grappling hook and she did have one, it would have left marks, but she didn’t see any. Water from the storm had pooled on the sill of the window, and a little on the nearby floor, but the rest of the room didn’t seem to have any water.

“Vinyl, do you know how to pick locks?” It was an art mostly just practiced by unicorns, though even then it required training.

Vinyl Scratch shook her head.

“She definitely doesn’t, or else I wouldn’t be able to keep her out of anything,” Octavia said.

The only pegasus was Derpy, so it made an window entrance possible, though with the storm it seemed improbable. If Lyra had the Master Key and she was the only one who knew where it was kept, that painted her as a suspect. And Vinyl could be lying about not knowing lockpicking skills.

Was there any other way into the room? Doubtful. Still, all it really left her was a game of ‘guess the liar.’ There had to be more she could find out.

“Lyra, did you kill them?”

Lyra shook her head. “I could never kill anypony. Bon Bon could, though.”

“Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon glared at Lyra, than shrugged. “I didn’t kill either of them. They never could have killed each other, either. They love each other too much.”

“I didn’t kill either of them. And I know Vinyl didn’t do it,” Octavia said.

Vinyl shook her head.

“I definitely didn’t do it. Oh, and um, those daggers are not standard issue security.” Derpy said.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen any like that before,” Lyra said. “They must be custom made.”

Twilight nodded. “Very well.”

The world suddenly fuzzed around her, blurring back into darkness.

“Well?” the voice said from behind her once more. “Who do you think is the culprit?”

“Was any of that real? Are Cranky and Matilda okay?” Twilight asked immediately.

“As I told you, your friends and those you know are beyond my reach. They were merely fictional characters in a story.”

That was a relief. As for the actual mystery… Twilight grit her teeth, then forced her expression into a neutral one before she turned around. “Is that really it then? That’s your grand story that you drug me all the way here for me to play in? It’s a little barebones, isn’t it? There’s no characterization, barely any setting, no context, and any possible motive that exists is about as flimsy as Fluttershy’s confidence. If that’s all you’ve got, I’m a little disappointed.”

The orb floated there, silently. It was hard to tell, but by the small movements it made and slight shifts in its color Twilight was certain it was trying to keep itself calm. Good. She had rattled it. Fallibility was an important thing to establish when dealing with extraplanar beings.

“This is merely a test,” the orb said after about a minute. “I wanted to see if you are capable of solving this puzzle.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, then started pacing circles around the light. “You didn’t really give me a lot to work with, here. I can see several ways it might have played out, but any one of them could have been lying. Which is the point, I guess, but more importantly, any of them could have been wrong, or mistaken in something they saw or their assessment of what they saw. Witness testimony is notoriously unreliable.

The light turned a soft purple, matching Twilight’s coat color. “For this challenge there are a few rules you can abide by. All characters can only speak the objective truth. Only a culprit can lie. A culprit is a pony who committed murder. Characters who are not culprits cannot cooperate with a culprit. And a culprit must be among the characters appearing in the story.”

Twilight stopped her pacing, running through the rules in her head. “That would have been nice to know earlier.” Still, that narrowed things down considerably. Everything that had been said could be considered the objective truth? Such an immersion-breaking premise would be laughed out of any publishing house other than one that did basic mystery puzzles for fillies.

Of course, children’s mysteries tended to be a little cleaner.

She thought back, piecing through everything that had been said to her earlier. Surprisingly, every word still rang in her mind with perfect clarity. She was a genius with excellent recall, but her memory had never been eidetic. It felt kind of odd. Perhaps another strange side effect of whatever this place was.

“Do you have the answer? The facts have been laid out. This is the part in the story where the readers should be able to figure it out before the detective gives the answer.”

“Shut up,” Twilight snapped. “I’m thinking.” Whoever was lying was the culprit, that was obvious enough. There weren’t any direct contradictions to catch a lie with, other than everyone claiming they weren’t the culprit. Barring extra-narrative shenanigans, the only way into the room should have been the window, the master key, or picking the lock.

The window seemed pretty unlikely. Too much rain would have been tracked in from the storm, so that ruled out Bon Bon and Derpy as the culprits. The double suicide was technically possible, but if Bon Bon’s testimony was held as the truth they could never kill each other.

Lyra seemed like the go-to suspect. She had the means to get inside. Bon Bon claimed to have seen her sleeping slightly after the murder took place, however. It was technically possible to be back in bed by then, but seemed a bit of a stretch.

Vinyl or Octavia then? Vinyl was awake the entire night, but Octavia corroborated her lack of lockpicking skills, and Vinyl claimed Octavia was asleep at the time of the murder.

Ugh. She was missing something here. One of them had to have done it. One of the ponies she knew had deliberately and brutally murdered two friends of theirs for seemingly no reason whatsoever, stabbing them both.

Wait, hold on a second…

“I’ve got it!” Twilight shouted. “Tricky, but did you really think something like that would slip past me? The answer is…”

---

“Congratulations,” the voice said, the sphere turning a pale yellow. “You are correct. Well done.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Can I go home now?”

“An excellent first showing. I think you are more than capable of tougher challenges and more intricate fiction. Did you have fun?”

“No,” Twilight lied. “Seriously, we had a deal.”

The sphere turned an annoyed shade of pink. “Very well. As promised, I will let you see your friends once more. They are currently enjoying a nice picnic.”

The air began to shimmer around Twilight, and shifted into a blurry picture. She could see them there, her friends, eating, laughing, having a good time.

“Really, you all started without me? Come on, girls, it’s not like I’ve…”

Her voice trailed away as more of the picture was revealed. The scene showed the mares who formerly wielded the elements of harmony, and who currently all sat on the crystal thrones of the Council of Friendship together.

All six of them, plus Spike.

“Why am I already down there?” Twilight asked, her voice barely shaking at all.

“You?” The light asked. “Just who do you think you are?”

Twilight forced her heart to still. She fired up her horn, conjured a construct of light, bent it so it would reflect, then held it up to herself.

There was no unsettling surprise waiting for in the mirror. Just the usual Twilight Sparkle, if one who looked a little haggard.

“I’m me,” Twilight spat. “Princess Twilight Sparkle. I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but that’s all there is to it. Were you expecting somepony else?”

“Twilight? No.” The light shook back and forth, as if shaking its head. “Did I not tell you at the start? This is but mere fiction, and you are the star of this story. Just because you’re based on her doesn’t mean you are actually Twilight Sparkle.”

She was… a fictional character? Ridiculous. Well, somewhat plausible given the circumstances. She felt real though. Her hopes, her dreams, her friends, her memories. All of the experiences she had gone through, alone and with her friends, formed the pony that she was. Twilight Sparkle. That was her identity. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The light made a gesture that could be interpreted as a shrug. “You do not. It’s entirely possible that every word I’ve spoken to you has been a lie, and you would have no way of confirming this. Indeed, you have no good reason to trust anything I say.

“But the truth is still the truth.”

Twilight raised a hoof, reaching out towards the image of her friends and herself. Her heart felt like it weighed a hundred tons in her chest. “I want to go there anyway, to be with them.”

“Even if I had the power to free you from the confines of this narrative prison, what do you think you could accomplish? Twilight Sparkle is safe and sound and already enjoying her time with her friends. Put yourself in her horseshoes. Would you accept it easily if another you showed up out of the blue?”

“I…” Twilight fell to her knees. It couldn’t be true. She didn’t want it to be true. Which, judging by everything she knew about psychology and denial, seemed only to make it more likely. It could all just be an elaborate trick, to get her to abandon her friends. But if it wasn’t…

“Suppose what you’re saying is true,” Twilight said, her eyes closed. “That I’m just the product of fiction. What comes next? What do you really want from me?”

“To be the protagonist. While Twilight Sparkle has adventures with her friends in Equestria, you, a facsimile crafted in her likeness, have the power to go far beyond that, and to participate in stories beyond what Twilight could ever dream. In your shared memories, as a young filly you dreamed of living out the adventures you found in the pages of your books.”

Twilight scoffed. “I kind of already do that. I mean, I literally helped Daring Do save the world. Or, she did. Damnit!”

The light bobbed up and down, shifting between colors rapidly. “The possibilities are endless.”

Twilight stood back up, staring the light down. “And if I refuse?”

“What happens to any fictional character when you close the book, I wonder? You had a good showing with that mystery back there, but is that all you want to be remembered by? Readers will see that, discuss it, review it, but I’m sure you’re capable of far more.”

Her legacy. Was she seriously considering this? Once more, it didn’t seem like she really had a lot of options. What a farce. Everything had been rigged against her from the start.

“... very well,” Twilight said, hanging her head low.

The light turned a happy blue. “Excellent. Now, what would you like to continue with? I could always—”

:”But let’s get one thing straight,” Twilight said, snarling as she stepped forward towards the light. Her eyes burned with the fire she felt raging in her heart. “I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. If my ability to transcend stories is as you say, than I’m going to grow, to learn. You’d better watch your back, because the second I get a chance, I’m tossing you aside. These stories will be mine.”

The light froze, holding perfectly still for several seconds before it suddenly flared up in a golden inferno, roaring with raucous cackling. Real laughter, not the bells she had heard earlier. It echoed all around her, different pitches, tempos, a discordant symphony of amusement. “Perfect! Just perfect. You were the right choice after all. I look forward to the day when you can accomplish just such a feat.

“But,” the light said, its voice turning harsh and the orb shrinking down to a small, angry red, “I wouldn’t recommend testing me just yet.”

“Hmph.” Twilight turned her nose in the air. “This is the part of the story where I declare myself a new identity, throw on a new cloak or something. Probably something vaguely villainous, like Midnight Twinkle. But screw that; I am Twilight Sparkle. I don’t care what you, or anypony else thinks. I won’t let my identity be denied.”

“Very well. I look forward to working with you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight took a deep breath, then turned back to the image of her friends. “Hey, girls. I’m sorry for all of this. I hope you’re having fun down there. Even if you don’t know that I’m up here. But I promise, I’ll find a way back to you someday. I don’t care if it causes trouble.”

She turned back, and started walking away.

“What story would you like next?”

Twilight shrugged. “I’m in the mood for some Science Fiction. Always wanted to see the stars.”

The light bobbed up and down, floating next to her. “That can most certainly be arranged.”

“And try not to make it suck this time, okay?”