Stirring slowly as she came back to herself, the lilac alicorn moaned softly, nostrils flaring as she tried to scent what was around her. A moment later a harsh sneeze sprayed the ground in front of her with mucus. Groaning as she tried to breath, only to cough up a few mouthfuls of blood. "Celestia damn it," she muttered to herself, "I hate overusing my magic, this always happens." Shifting in an attempt to gain her hooves, she slipped, slamming her head against the ground with a solid thump.
Shifting after muttering a few choice curses, she pushed herself up again, bits of soil clinging to both fur and her darker mane. "Heh, Rarity would have a heart attack if she could see this," the mare muttered, opening her eyes to little more than darkness, in spite of feeling some sun dappling on her coat. "Well, I can't see myself…" she murmured, moving to look at herself in spite of that, "is this another effect of complete magical exhaustion? Temporary blindness? Hmm… I'll have to note this down as soon as I get back to the castle." Sweeping her head around, her ears and nose twitched as she tried to get some idea of where she was from senses other than sight. One scent stood out, mostly because it seemed to be used in every cleaning product for buildings and furniture ever. "Pine trees?" There weren't any pine trees in either the Everfree Forest or Whitetail Woods that she knew of, so that being the case, where was she?
She knew she couldn't stay where she was, though how she was going to find her way back to familiar territory was something else. Maybe if she could reach a higher point to see what was around? Blinking her eyes as blurs of colours and brightness invaded her vision, she tried to heave herself upright, only to go down with a yelp as pain flared along her legs, all four of them stiffening awkwardly and dropping her back onto her stomach. Groaning again, she rubbed her snout. "Note to self, magical exhaustion also leaves the body severely weakened." She muttered as the blur of colour slowly faded back into normal vision, leaving her sight filled with brown and green, mostly brown, seeing as the ground and tree trunks were that colour. "I don't think most ponies know how much magic we use daily. How did I underestimate it by that much?"
The shriek that sounded overhead had her ears flat even as she tried to find the source, head snapping upwards only for another snap to be heard from her neck, followed by a pained scream being wrenched from her throat, one loud enough that it would probably give a full grown dragon pause.
Whimpering and gasping, the mare slowly, painfully forced her neck to bend back into its natural position, clenching her teeth against the screams that ravaged her throat in an effort to escape, her horn glowing purple as she used magic to convince her muscles to relax enough to move, even through the agony causing them to contract. She knew how easy it would be for a predator to kill her right now, and the sounds of her pain would attract them just as surely as the scent of blood.
Gasping and panting as the pain faded enough for her to think about moving again, she whimpered as it coursed along her spine, not as bad as the initial burst, but still well beyond normal levels. Maybe this was why the others in Ponyville tried to get her to move around more instead of sitting and studying all day.
Slowly the reddish purple glow from her horn spread down her body, stilling the brutalised nerves along her back. It wasn't the best practice, since with numbed nerves, one never knew whether or not they were about to tear their body up even worse than they already had, but for now it was the best she could do, since lying in the middle of an unknown forest was the worst place to be when near drained of magic and injured, add to that how easy it would be to hurt oneself when trying to heal with magic…. The mare snorted softly. Not the best thing to do when she didn't know where she was or even what direction Equestria was in, let alone Ponyville. "Some princess I am…" she sighed, forcing herself to her feet. If nothing else, she needed some form of shelter by nightfall, otherwise she would be easy prey as she was.
Darkness grew quickly under the canopy of trees as Celestia's blue skies faded into the near black of Luna's night, leaving the lilac alicorn below trying to stumble her way through the ever growing dark.
The shift in colour made her frown into the gathering gloom reminded her of something she had been wondering about for a while, namely whether Luna's transformation was caused by a demon possessing her or whether it was really her own emotions, her jealousy, anger and sorrow.
Stumbling over a dip hidden in shadow, she almost went down. "Damnit Twilight, don't get distracted, focus on the mission at hand." She muttered to herself, pausing to look around. There was nothing but tall pines surrounding her, their straight trunks towering metres into the air before the first branches even appeared. "Well, I really can't get any shelter around here except for the trees, but how am I go—" She cut herself off, slapping a hoof against her forehead beside her horn. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, I can just teleport up." She muttered, shaking her head at her own idiocy.
For the third time that day, her horn flared with reddish-purple light, casting dancing shadows around her for a brief moment before white overcame it, surrounding her. A crack of displaced air signalled her disappearance from the ground and reappearance on a thick branch growing out of what seemed to be a few century old tree.
Shifting around a little, trying to find herself a comfortable position, she watched the blackness creep down, covering the land she found herself in. Higher up from the ground, Twilight frowned to herself, her horn starting to take on a faint glow as she used it to light the area, not wanting to fall from her perch. It would probably be safe enough now she wasn't on the ground and vulnerable to every predator going, to use some simple spells, the question was which ones of the several hundred she knew were actually useful in this situation?
It didn't take her long to decide on going with simplicity, given she had no idea how much magic she had left or how much she had managed to regain on the trek before teleporting, a spell that in itself ate a fairly large proportion of her magic, even if it was useful to get to places otherwise out of reach.
Twilight's horn flashed, laying out a mesh of magic to keep her on the branch should she shift around in her sleep, her body was already battered, it didn't need to add falling from several dozen feet up to the tally of injuries. Another spell added to the first, simply to alert her should anything hostile approach. "Don't want to share my bed with timber wolves after all," she muttered to herself, tying off the spell weave.
Settling on the branch, she sighed, frowning into the darkness. She was safe, for now, but that didn't answer the big question of where she was. Maybe the morning would shed new light on things, but even if she wasn't in Equestria anymore, maybe the morning would bring new discoveries; after all she was probably the first pony to get here, wherever here was. Who knew what new creatures or fruits would be around? Even if the latter probably wouldn't take off back in Ponyville, what with Applejack cornering the fruit market for the most part.
Laying her head down, she shifted slightly, grimacing at an itch in her wings. A quick check and preening later, Twilight wore a frown as she looked at the number of feathers in front of her. "I wish Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy were here, maybe they could tell me if pegasi moult." She sighed, shaking her head. Might as well wish for her tree library and the lab it once contained back, but that had been destroyed by Tirek so there was no chance of that happening now. Huffing out a soft sigh, she looked up at the moon for one final time, frowning a little. Was the moon blue rather than silver? If it was, it would be something she would have to look at in the morning, or at least after she had gotten some sleep. Laying her head down, she shifted a little and sighed. Maybe this was why Dash liked napping in AJ's trees, branches were pretty comfortable. That thought followed her down into a dreamless sleep.