Several hours earlier
Darkness fell like a mantle as Spike trudged through the forest picking up firewood. It had been a long day and he felt tired and hungry, but it would soon be night and predators would come out of their lairs hunting for food. He was sure they'd given Commander Storm Chaser the slip, but they'd been running all day and the Everfree Forest was no place to go strutting around at night.
"Awoooohh!" a long deep howl disrupted the tranquility of the night. 'Perhaps a timber wolf?' he thought to himself nervously. 'After all, they are very territorial creatures and Celestia knows they wouldn't be too happy after a hundred ponies went galloping through their hunting grounds in a single day'. He hastened his pace as he approached their hiding place under the gnarled roots of a Giant Sequoia tree. The roots of the old, gargantuan specimen had long depleted the nutrients on the soil's surface and eroded the ground underneath it as they grew deeper and deeper into the earth in search for sustenance. This had created a somewhat spacious refuge between its roots; a dark, stuffy, and moist refuge but a refuge nonetheless.
"Twilight? You awake yet?" whispered Spike as he crawled beneath the tree. A small plum figure lay there motionless, breathing slowly, without any sign of response. "Guess not," he said to himself as he set a few dry branches he'd collected in front of him. 'Can't blame her. She's been running since daybreak, and she's used a fair amount of magic teleporting around the forest to throw off the guards while I've done nothing but ride on her back yelling instructions at her' he thought to himself guiltily. Teleportation magic was one of the most unpredictable and difficult kinds of magic, a kind of magic even Twilight struggled with, and under these stressful conditions the continued use of this spell had strained and pushed her to exhaustion. It was one thing to cast the spell under pressure, and an entirely different story to cast it with the whole Imperial Guard chasing you, their muzzles filled with death threats, while running through one of Equestria's most dangerous landmarks. Soon after she cast the spell for the third time she had collapsed in the murky ground. Be it fate or a lucky coincidence, she had chosen one of the most convenient places to crash as Spike noticed the hiding space between the roots of a nearby tree just a few feet away. He hauled her with some difficulty through the moist ground and managed to shove her beneath the tree where he laid her carefully. Certain that the guards had long lost their tracks, he'd set out in search of woodfire: they'd need it if they were to survive the cold and ward off predators.
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," grumbled Spike's stomach in protest. "Right, I haven't had a bite all day long," he reminded himself. After all they'd been on the run ever since they'd gotten wind that Canterlot's D.A. was prosecuting them for property damage, grave injuries, and conspiracy to commit regicide. And though he knew they were innocent, the overwhelming evidence that had popped out of nowhere, and the public's reaction as well as that of their friends clearly spelled that they'd get nothing like a fair trial. 'Their friends' he thought painfully. 'How could they believe that this whole thing was their doing? Hadn't they known each other for almost a year? Spent so much of their time in each other's company? Faced so many trials and adventures? Well, it's true that all the evidence pointed to them and then there was Twilight's sudden change in behavior after the Princess came to visit them about a month ago. But it was all justified, who wouldn't freak out after being trusted with such important information? And yet they'd both promised the Princess that they wouldn't breathe a word of this to anypony. Despite all that isn't one supposed to trust and have faith in their friends? No matter how you thought about it, the justifications he might find, to think that their closest and dearest friends thought them anarchists and murderers was a complete shock'.
He shook these thoughts away as he arranged the branches he'd collected. They'd figure out a way to cope with it later, for now he had to focus on making it through the night. "Nhahhh" inhaled Spike as he drew the stuffy air around him into his lungs, his head drawn back and his chest pumped. "Fooooh" he exhaled releasing a jet of green flames onto the firewood he'd gathered.
"Mmmmf," groaned Twilight who had begun stirring, slowly awakening from her deep slumber.
"Twi? Are you okay?" asked the dragon gently as he lowered his head to take a look at her.
"Where are we...?" she asked in a feeble voice as she looked around the hole Spike had dragged them into.
"I found this place underneath an old tree," he replied casually. "I know it's not much but it was the only place I could find after you fainted. The entrance is somewhat narrow so anything bigger than a pony will have trouble getting in here," he added as he pointed toward the space above them, between the roots.
"What happened to me?" she inquired as she rubbed her head. "Where did the guards go?"
"You overused your magic and collapsed right afterward," he explained. "You haven't had anything to eat all day long and you've been galloping for hours. Your body probably reached its limit after the third teleport. But don't worry, we've put a lot of distance between us and those guys. They don't have any hoofprints to track you with since we've been teleporting around, and even if they did it's way too dark know to find any tracks," he finished in a lighter tone.
"Well, what about this fire?" she asked concernedly. "Couldn't they spot it? And isn't it, oh I don't know, a little bit dangerous to light a fire right underneath a tree?" she prodded with a mixture of irritation and concern.
"Relax Twilight, I'm keeping the fire small so that we won't be spotted from a distance, and don't worry there's plenty of space in here so that it can't reach the roots. And besides, it's pretty cold out there right now, we need something to keep us warm," replied Spike as he rubbed his hands in front of the fire.
"I know, I'm sorry," sighed Twilight as she gazed down. "It's just that I'm sick with worry after all that's happened today. I don't know what we're going to from now on," she added as she paced around.
"We could stay here for a while, you know? Live of the forest, until this whole thing blows over," suggested Spike.
"Spike, be serious for a minute!" retorted Twilight as she stomped her hoof on the ground. "We're wanted criminals! There's a few dozens of injured ponies out there! The whole army is chasing after us! AND they're probably putting up wanted posters with our pictures all over the country as we speak!" she said emphasizing the direness of their situation.
Spike kept his silence hoping to avoid any nuance that could remind her of their friends or the princess. He wasn't sure how Twilight would take it once she had to come to terms with reality. He knew he was only delaying the inevitable but he just didn't have it in him to talk about it, nor did he want to see his life-long partner suffer. Twilight was more than just a friend to him, she was a sister, a mentor, a pony he loved and admired. To think that other ponies would brand her a criminal was more than he could bear.
"It would be pointless to keep hiding in the forest. With the Imperial Guard after us, somepony is bound to find us eventually, and it doesn't exactly help our case that we ran away," she murmured as she looked outside their refuge.
"But we had no choice! You heard the guards! They all think we did it, and there's too much evidence against us! Besides where else can we hide? You said so yourself, everypony all over Equestria is looking for us," replied Spike with a definite tone of disappointment in his voice.
"Maybe, but whoever set us up is still out there. And every minute that passes us by is another minute that crook can use to erase his tracks and produce more false evidence," she pointed out.
"Not to mention he could try to kill the Prin-" he started before he realized what he'd just said. Now he'd done it, he had tried to be careful and avoid the topic of the Princess and their friends to spare her more worry. Somehow it just slipped his mind while trying to make sense of things, and sure enough Twilight's expression was slowly changing from puzzled to miserable as tears began swelling up in her eyes.
"P-princess Celestia" she stammered as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Oh how could they do this to her? Why would they even consider hurting her?" she wailed as she covered her eyes with her right hoof.
"Don't worry Twilight, I'm sure she's okay. I'm sure she'll pull through," Spike reassured her, though not entirely convinced himself.
"She's always been so kind and gentle, why would anypony wish her harm? You wouldn't meet anypony as friendly as her, except maybe Pink-" she choked as she began to take in everything that had happened since they had returned to Ponyville two days ago. How the newspaper had pointed her out as the prime suspect, how the police had arrived in Town interrogating everypony, how her friends had sided with her, how they'd reassured her that they would stand with her no matter what, how they'd guaranteed nothing was gonna happen to her, how they'd overheard the officers discussing the evidence they'd gathered, how their faces changed after that conversation, how they started slowly drifting away when their time came to be interrogated, how they started looking at her with fear and distrust, how they looked at her when the news of a large amount of explosive material found in one of the royal suites reached them, how they deserted her as she ran for cover when the Imperial Guard arrived in Ponyville.
"How could they believe I'd be capable of such a thing," she sniveled. "I thought friends stuck with you no matter what," she wept her face now contorted with sadness as her tears grew into wide streams pouring from her eyes.
"There, there Twilight," Spike consoled her. "I'm here for you, we're in this together," he added as he sat down next to her and rested his head on her shoulder.
"T-thank y-you," she sobbed in a barely audible whisper as she laid her head on his, wondering what her friends were doing now, and what they thought of her.