Once again forsaking the safety of the Dukes-Hoof Inn, Twilight set off for a bastion of familiarity and nostalgia. Her old childhood home looming at the end of the street, as she advanced steadily towards it. Her parents must have made easy targets for the monster! They always did prefer Shining, he got to stay at home, while they all too hurriedly sent me to the castle. I didn’t notice at the time, of course, too excited to be studying under Celestia to notice them hurrying me out the door.

It was not long until she had reached and knocked on the door, her parents opening it glancing out and then slamming it shut. They had been expecting Shining, waiting for him to come back from the honeymoon. Due to this, they had put up many decorations to celebrate this return. Decorations they now hurriedly took down, thinking that Twilight hated Shining, due to her behavior at the wedding. As they opened the door once more, they steeled their hearts and tried to look like loving parents, but Twilight could see the glimmer of spite in their eyes and knew that the monster had made them hate her too.

“Twilight, what brings you here? I thought you went back to Ponyville, with your friends!” Twilight Velvet spoke, bringing out refreshments for them to eat. Some cookies and cream went a long way after all.

Only once Twilight sat down did she answer, “I need a reason to visit my parents? I thought you would be pleasantly surprised, since we don’t see much of each other. And for your information, my friends came with me.” Even as she spoke, Twilight made sure to keep levitating at least one item at any moment, so as to disguise that their were two spells brewing. One to weaken and another to catch both at once.

“I think what your mother is trying to say, is that we thought you would want a break from Canterlot, after the -” These words were cut short from Midnight Dusks throat as his wife stuffed several cookies in his mouth.

“After the wedding? Is that what you wanted to say? After everyone I cared about betrayed me for some bit whore who they had just met! The wedding where my friends of two years trusted someone they had met a day before over me, the mare who has saved the equestria twice! You’re all just lucky that I saw through it. And now I shall fix you as I did the rest.” With a mane burning with rage and a coat as white as snow, Twilight unleashed her spells, the first causing their minds to become as malleable as the dough used to make the cookies, and the second twisting their minds, encouraging them to obey Twilight, their best daughter, the one who deserved more credit than that imbecile whose only achievement is guarding two deities who can more than guard themselves and didn’t need guarding.

Twilight slowly calmed down, watching as her parents accepted the changes she had made to them, what she didn’t notice, what she couldn’t notice is the single set of eyes looking through the window. Eyes that belonged to a pony who should have died long ago.

Without knowledge of that, Twilight happily spent the rest of the evening with her parents, sending a mental message to Spike that she would be back tomorrow. With the way things have been going, I might even have time to pick up Celestia on the way back! No, I have something much more fun planned for her, a new technique I saw in the book, the last technique I’ll need before ending that monster once and for all.

Author's Note

Foreshadowing? What foreshadowing? You must be insane! I have a way to fix that.