Filly Tales

The world blocked out for Twilight Sparkle. She was locked away in a dreamless sleep, or as it seemed. Despite her inability to use most of her senses to analyze her current position, there was one particular vibe that she could function to assist her. That was the beating of her heart. Lub. Lub. Lub. Lub. The rhythm was extenively organized. Lub. Lub. Lub. Lub. This was only substance that accompanied young Twilight Sparkle. There was absolutely nothing else she could do but accept her powerlessness at this point. Lub. Lub. Lub. Lub. Not even the most powerful unicorn in all of Ponyville couldn’t help herself. The heart continued to beat regularly, as a sign of her inadequacy, yet at the same time, it was an assurance that she was still a prevailing vitality inside an anatomy of some sort. Lub. Lub. Lub. Lub.

In the middle of all of it, Twilight Sparkle gradually gathered her qualification to hear voices surrounding her. "Twilight?" The voice was faint, but with each word, it became more and more apparent, rather than jibberish that could even be considered a foreign language. "Twilight! I'm serious this time!" Finally, Twilight Sparkle identified the voice as her baby dragon assistant, Spike, who evidently ended up in the same location as herself after being gobbled up by an ancient book.

Twilight Sparkle struggled to speak. "Spike." She barely mumbled, struggling to process hardly any thoughts. "Princess Celestia." "There's no time for Princess Celestia!" cried Spike. His words caused a major distress, a mental earthquake in Twilight Sparkle's instinct. [i/]How Spike ever[i/] consider Princess Celestia unimportant to her most loyal, hardworking student? Twilight Sparkle erupted from her idling rest. In haste, she opened her plum-colored eyes instantly. She was prepared to scold her assistant in the fiercest manner possible, but instead was broken off by the surrounding she had awakened to.

Twilight Sparkle was in much too awe to even gasp in despair. Once again, words defeated a pony with the most diverse vocabulary. She found herself in her own bed, literally how she began her today. In particular, she was in her library at home, but the entire room could be no further than modern. Despite the house practically being a tree before, it had a more elderly atmosphere than it ever had previously. The bed was designed from wood chopped from an old oak tree. The sheets were a plain boring white color, not like the comfortable patterns of constellations Twilight Sparkle owned that precisely matched the personality of a brilliant young mind. Every book on the book shelf possessed a dull color of brown.

The unicorn finally looked down at Spike. He was dressed in akin apparel as his costume for Hearth's Warming Eve. Twilight Sparkle looked down at the shiny floor below her, only to see her reflection staring at herself in *her " own Hearth's Warming Eve costume. "I told you, Twilight," Spike told her. "My library! My home!" Twilight Sparkle scampered around the place. She charged at a book at random on one of the shelves and sprinted through its pages. "All of these books consist of old spells! These are spells nopony uses anymore! Spike! What's happened?!"*

"Get a load of what's *outside, Twilight," Spike announced, walking downstairs and opening and holding the door for her. Twilight Sparkle made a run for it to see the what Ponyville had become. Speculations came flooding through Twilight Sparkle's head like tsunami. Has Discord returned? Did he outmode Equestria? That's impossible! Then it would be raining chocolate and cotton candy clouds! Have I been punished by Princess Celestia? Am I loosing my *mind?* None of her predictions could be further from the truth. Outside of her humble home was nothing more than trees. It was an aphotic, blackish forest. Her house was in the middle of scenic nowhere. "Look up at the sky," suggested Spike. Twilight Sparkle obeyed. There was no sky. Instead, there were gargantuan words softly, yet firmly printed on a decayed page.*

"I told you Princess Celestia is going to be no help," Spike declared. "Because she *isn't here. We're in a story book of yours. If you could have just listened to me, we would've been in this situation." Twilight Sparkle could be hysterical no longer. Spike was right. "Spike," she declared. "We must go into those woods if we are to discover how to get out of here." Spike hesitated for an abrupt second. "I don't know, Twilight. They look kind of creepy. It could be really dangerous." "Not if I can help it," Twilight Sparkle asserted confidently. Once more, she bestowed her magic, casting a spell to urge a temporary blaze of light to shine from her horn. Spike hopped on to her back, getting a grip on her neck. He took a deep breath. "Okay, Twi."*