Twilight Sparkle tossed and turned in her sleep, muttering restlessly. To any observer looking into her room, it would appear as if she was having a nightmare. To say that she was having a nightmare would have been an understatement. The young filly was trapped in her own special corner of Tartarus. Beads of terrified sweat ran down her forehead and soaked the sheets that she lay in.
“I-I can’t!”
Twilight Sparkle looked at the mountainous task before her, shaking slightly. This is impossible! Nopony could possibly do this! How could you expect a filly to be strong enough in magic to do something like this? She looked towards her objective, lying in the middle of the room. It was a boulder almost as large as a house, sitting there and taunting her, mocking her with its sheer magnitude and immovability. Next to her stood four unicorns and the Solar Princess herself, each observing her with a scrutinizing look.
“I assure you, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia spoke up, seemingly reading the filly’s thoughts. “It is not an impossible task; thousands of fillies and colts have been able to do it before you. Unless… Did you not practice, Twilight Sparkle? You know how the school administration feels about slackers.” Celestia pulled a clipboard and quill from behind the massive rock somewhere with her magic and looked down at Twilight.
“N-no! I studied for weeks!” Twilight stammered.
“Well then, are you going to move the boulder, or are you just going to sit there? You know, if you are, we have much more deserving unicorns waiting to be tested today, and you’re denying them that privilege by wasting our time. Most unicorns would be grateful to even get the chance to attempt such an opportunity, but here you are, too spoiled to try. It’s not even that difficult. You only have to move it a few feet.” Princess Celestia picked up the boulder and moved it forwards, backwards, and all around the room as if it had been made of nothing more than air. She then set it back down in the exact position that it had started in.
“B-but Princess… That thing must weigh more than a ton, literally!” Twilight’s stubby hooves pointed at the massive rock as she frowned. Princess Celestia simply shook her head and scribbled onto her clipboard as the other four unicorns muttered under their breaths. She could feel their cold gazes burning into the back of her head, and she already knew that she was failing. “No, please! I’m grateful! Please don’t mark me down! I’ll try!” Twilight was nearly in tears now. Her eyes watered and her lower lip quivered with sadness. Princess Celestia merely tilted her head to point towards the boulder.
Twilight braced herself and dug her hooves into the ground, as if it would help her to balance the weight of the rock. She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could, focusing on the object in front of her. Come on, Twilight. You can do this… Focus. You just have to focus. She felt her horn light up and felt the shape of the rock in her mind, trying to pick it up in her magic. She heaved with all of her mental might, her mind straining from the pressure and blood vessels in her face starting to light up bright red. She tried again. And again. All of it was fruitless, and fairly soon, Twilight felt the need to open her eyes to see what she was doing wrong.
To her surprise, her horn was still lit up brightly, but her purple aura of magic was only barely covering the bottom thirtieth of the rock. She felt tears starting to fall down her face as she kept on tugging, trying in vain to move the massive rock. All the while, the unicorns and Celestia just kept shaking their heads, writing their criticisms down on their clipboards. Finally, Twilight grew exhausted after struggling for so long. She let the magic in her horn stop flowing and dropped to the ground, panting and rubbing her temples.
“Twilight Sparkle… I am so very disappointed in you. I was told that you were quite talented, and yet, you cannot even perform the simple task we asked of you. It is for this reason, as well as several others, that we regret to inform you that you will not be attending Celestia’s School For Gifted and Talented Unicorns. You may as well grab your things and head over to your parents. I’m sure they’ll be less than enthused to hear the news, and we have more tests that we need to be conducting. Move along.” Princess Celestia waved her hoof at Twilight, signalling for her to leave.
Twilight just stood stock still, shaking and quivering in utter failure. “P-please! Another test! Anything! Please! I don’t want to go home a failure like this!”
“Can you transform the rock into a mouse? That would be fairly impressive for somepony of your supposed skill level.” Celestia barely even payed attention to Twilight, instead choosing to observe her clipboard as she asked the question.
“N-no, but…”
“Can you teleport? Can you make one of us see something in our minds?” Celestia asked, seemingly annoyed.
“No, but if you just give me something else, something a normal filly would be able to do, then-” Twilight was cut off as Princess Celestia raised her hoof to signify an order to be silent.
“That is where the problem lies, Twilight Sparkle. We do not accept ‘normal’ fillies here. This is a school for only the most exceptionally talented unicorns of our generation. I suggest you leave before you make things any worse off for yourself. You’re testing my patience.” The other four unicorns nodded in agreement, just as bland and stoic as they had ever been. Twilight ran from the room and didn’t look back until she had found the restroom, slipping inside.
Once inside, Twilight looked at the pristine bathroom. Its walls practically glistened, and even the stall, toilets, and counters looked immaculate. It simply served as a reminder of what Twilight was never going to be able to experience. This can’t be happening to me… It just can’t! Now I’ll never get to be good at magic. Mom and Dad will be so disappointed in me… Why me, Celestia? Why me? Twilight crawled into one of the stalls and curled into a fetal position, muttering and trying to comfort herself.
“This can’t be happening… This isn’t happening… This can’t be happening!”
”NO!”
Twilight awoke with a start, shooting up in her bed and causing the covers to go flying about. She looked around the room for a moment, expecting to see the giant boulder there, mocking her once again. Instead, she found that she was still in her bedroom, and that it was somewhere in the dead of night. Twilight sobbed to herself and shivered. That… That seemed so real… As she lay back down in her bed to try and go back to sleep, she heard hoofsteps rushing down the hall and towards her room. The door burst open as her father charged in, scanning the room for any immediate signs of danger.
“Twilight? Is everything alright? What’s wrong? What happened?” He looked at his sobbing daughter, and at the disorganized state of her beddings. Twilight shook her head to relieve herself of the shock of her father bursting into her room. Small rivers of tears still ran down her face and matted her fur, but she did her best to turn away and hide them.
“E-everything’s fine dad… You can go back to bed. I just had a bad dream is all.” Twilight quickly wiped her face off with her hooves in what she hoped was secret and turned to face him, giving him a small smile. She could still feel the fear of the dream gnawing at the back of her mind, but she tried her best not to let it show.
“Twilight. I can tell that something’s bothering you. I can see it in your eyes,” he said, turning her chin upwards and towards himself so that he could see her face clearly. He could see the matted patches of fur on her face from where her tears had been running down. “Twilight. What’s the matter, sweetie? Why were you crying? Bad dreams don’t normally make ponies cry. You know that you can talk to me about anything. Tell me what’s on your mind.” Her father took a seat on the bed next to her, smiling softly.
Twilight shifted and her features twisted into a grimace as she remembered the dream. “I had a bad dream. It was so scary! It felt so real…”
Her father simply nodded his head. She must be worked up about the test tomorrow… She’s been studying so hard for it. Makes sense that she’s probably worried out of her mind about it.That little filly. She works so hard, sometimes she even makes me jealous! The stallion shook his head to clear his thoughts, chuckling a bit in his mind.
“Twilight? Is this about the big test tomorrow?” The filly simply nodded her head and hugged her father’s waist tightly, surprising him a bit. Nevertheless, he returned the hug as gently as he could. “Well… Do you want to tell me what it was about? Maybe I can help you.”
“It… It was so scary! There were these four unicorns that just kept staring at me and judging me, and they kept muttering bad things about me. And Princess Celestia brought this huge rock into the room, and told me to lift it, but I couldn’t, and she was really mean to me. She didn’t even give me another chance. She just kicked me out and told me that you would be so disappointed in me, so I ran into the bathroom and cried…” Twilight looked down, slightly ashamed.
Her father chuckled involuntarily at the thought of Princess Celestia being rude to somepony else. Princess Celestia, mean? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so much as utter an insulting word at an insufferable noble, let alone be rude to one of her subjects. Twilight frowned a bit at his laughter, and her hug slackened a bit. He simply wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her on the forehead.
“Twilight. Do you really think that Princess Celestia would do any of those ‘mean’ things to you? She wouldn’t ever hurt a fly. Honestly, she’s one of the nicest ponies I know, and I was glad to have her as my teacher. The other professors there are pretty friendly too. You really have nothing to worry about when it comes to that side of things.” He smiled down at her. What he’d said seemed to have cheered her up a little, as she was no longer sniffling.
“Y-you went to the School For Gifted and Talented Unicorns too?” Twilight asked, looking up at him curiously.
He chuckled. “Yes, I most certainly did, though I don’t tend to mention it often because I don’t like to brag about it. It’s not really something that comes up in casual conversation, so I haven’t really gotten a chance to mention it. Let me tell you, Twilight. The entrance examination? It’s nowhere near as difficult as you might think it is.”
“How do you know that?” Twilight asked.
“Well, Twilight. I went there when I was just a little colt, and I had to take the test too. I remember I was feeling a lot like I think you are right now. I was so scared of failing… so terrified of disappointing my parents and being labeled a failure. That’s what you’re worried about, right?” Twilight nodded and stared at her father.
“I had a similar nightmare. Well, it was different of course. Mine was about stopping a tornado and herding chickens…” Twilight’s father shivered at the mere memory of it. “Anyway, the point that I’m trying to make is, everypony has fears sometimes. Everypony has some things that they’re scared of, but you can’t let those fears over take you. Twilight, you are one of the smartest, hardest working fillies I know, and if anypony can pass the test, it’s you. You’ve studied long and hard for this. There’s nothing for you to be worried about!”
Twilight now seemed to be steadily calming down, no longer fearful. A hint of doubt still lingered in the back of her mind as her father smiled down at her though. “But dad. What if I do fail? What if I end up disappointing you and mom? What if the studying doesn’t help? What if… What if I don’t get in?” Twilight’s question hung in the air like a thick veil being cast over the room. For a while, Twilight’s father seemed to be deep in thought, pondering over what to say next. He picked her up in his magic and sat her on his lap so that he could look her directly in the eyes.
“Twilight Sparkle. You have never done anything other than make your mother and me proud. You’ve always gotten perfect marks in school. You’ve done excellently in everything you’ve put your hoof too. You’ve done more in your short life than either your mother and me combined. We never did so good in school. We were never invited to take the test at Celestia’s school. We had to apply, and work to get a chance to take the test. But you were good enough to be invited. And you’ve made us so proud.”
“Twilight, even if you don’t get in… even if you do fail to pass the test, it’s not the end of the world. One simple test isn’t going to cause us to disown you. Even if you do fail, you don’t fail forever. You can always reapply and retake the entrance exam next year, and this time you can use what you learned wrong from the last attempt to do better. Do you feel a bit better now, Twilight?”
Twilight giggled and climbed back down onto the bed. She felt as if all of her fears had melted away completely after her pep talk. Dad is right. Even if I don’t get in, I can always try again next year and learn from what I did wrong. Besides, I’ve been studying for weeks! I’m probably the most prepared filly I know! It seemed silly to her that just a few minutes ago she had been having a terrible nonsensical nightmare about something that she knew wasn’t true.
“Yes, Daddy. I feel a lot better!” Twilight smiled at her father. He picked her up once again with his magic and fixed her bed for her, tucking her into the sheets.
“Good. Just remember, Twilight, we’ll always be proud of you. Now get some sleep. It’s three in the morning, and you’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow. You want to be well rested and happy before the test.” He walked over and kissed her on the forehead again. Twilight let her head fall back onto her pillow and fell asleep almost immediately.
“Goodnight, Twilight. Poor filly. Probably didn’t even realize she was so tired…” With one last, loving look, her walked out of his bedroom and back into his own. He left both doors open, just in case Twilight would need him again sometime in the middle of the night. Happiness filled him at the thought of being able to make his daughter smile in her time of need. He sighed happily and crawled into his large bed, next to his wife.
“Is everything alright with Twilight, honey? What happened?” His wife looked at him with a hint of concern in her eyes.
He chuckled softly. “Oh, nothing dear. Twilight just had a bit of a bad dream, but it’s over now. You and I should get back to bed though. Got an early day tomorrow, and we need to be able to support Twilight to the best of our abilities.” He reached over and turned out the night lamp on the table beside their bed. The Sparkle family slept peacefully through the night, each of them having sweet dreams, and eagerly awaiting tomorrow.
