Chapters In the fading light of the evening, a purple unicorn filly squinted at a book of spells, rapidly flipping pages, a faint glow emanating from her horn. She was perched on a tasseled velvet pillow beside the wide windows of the palace library's loft, surrounded by a stack of books, a cup of tea, a few spare quills, and a pile of parchment scrolls. A half-finished plate of sweet ginger cookies made earlier in the evening by the palace chefs lay forgotten on a nearby table, and behind the table a collection of soft cushions and blankets rested piled against the glass window. The filly’s attention was focused solely on the thick green book hovering in front of her; all other concerns had been pushed from her mind by the importance of this task.
Twilight Sparkle read a page, and then another, and then magically tossed the book over her shoulder with a growl of annoyance, but thought better of that and caught the precious volume before it hit the ground. She couldn't risk damaging the Princess's valuable collection! Not after Celestia had chosen her as her own personal student. Twilight imagined for a moment the Princess’s reaction if she damaged a book, or didn’t learn the lesson, or even worse, failed to finish the assignment on time! She redoubled her efforts, determined not to disappoint the ruler of Equestria.
The books she had chosen soon proved to be inadequate for the task. She glanced across the room to the high gilded bookshelves that held Equestria’s greatest works on the art of magic. The shelves in the magical studies wing of the library had been built into the walls in order to leave a round open space in the center of the room. This space was often used by the unicorn students as a quiet place to study, and by the teachers as a fitting location for elite lessons. But in the evenings, it was closed to all but the palace staff and the Princess herself, and, of course, her chosen student. Few ponies, Twilight realized, had the privilege of watching the sunset through the magnificent window that was nearly an entire side of the room.
The rest of the library also contained many open spaces, but none as beautiful as this. It had been built to accommodate the alicorn Princess’s larger frame, and so was a far cry from the snug stacks of the regular Canterlot library Twilight had frequented before her induction into Celestia’s school of magic.
And Twilight loved it. The wide perch by the window put her far above the library floor, giving her a private space even when other students were in the room. Although Celestia had often suggested she study along with these ponies, Twilight preferred being alone with her books, especially when her work included special assignments from the Princess.
Twilight selected a volume from the high shelf and pulled it across the room with her magic. The heavy tome drifted into position and flipped open to a page bookmarked with a scrap of parchment. She glanced at the diagram and scrawled a few words onto a scroll, then shook her head and crossed them out. Twilight threw the scroll aside with a flick of her horn; it flew into a nearby bookshelf and then fluttered to the ground. The unicorn flipped to a second bookmarked page and stared intently at the miniscule text of a treatise on the proper use of magic. Twilight a paused to take a sip of her tea, then wrote a sentence on a fresh scroll, the floating grey quill glowing with magic as it moved across the paper.
Slowly lowering the quill, Twilight turned to the window and sighed. The late-setting summer sun slipped below the horizon in a blaze of gold and pink, making the gilded titles on the spines of the books shimmer in the last rays of light. The filly forgot her essay for a few moments to admire the Princess's work. Moments after the sunset was completed, magical lamps hung on the library walls flickered gently into life, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow, the steady motion of their silent warm flames echoing the Princess’s ever-flowing mane.
After a few minutes, the moon drifted up the dark starry sky, directed also by Celestia's magic. A pegasus pushed a lone cloud across the sky until it sat half-obscuring the moon; the pony’s dark blue coat was briefly illuminated by a silver haze of light. Twilight Sparkle smiled, comforted from her stress by the clockwork organization of Canterlot, and indeed most of Equestria. The sun and moon always rose and set on schedule. The weather was planned weeks in advance and each forecast was expertly performed by the weather pegasi exactly when and where it was needed. All the world worked on time, and so should she.
Twilight yawned, then turned back to her various books and papers and continued to write. The quill moved steadily across the paper, sometimes hanging in the air while Twilight read from a book. Slowly, the essay came together. After a while, though, the text began to blur before her eyes and she struggled to keep the quill aloft and her focus on the page. Still, she kept writing; by the time the moon had risen to its zenith she had filled nearly an entire scroll.
The unicorn set down the quill. She lifted her drooping eyes from the parchment and glanced out the window; it was past midnight. Twilight returned her gaze to her work and groaned. The essay she had written was marred by smudges and droplets of black ink, the result of her tired spellwork. She looked around for another scroll to rewrite the report, but there was no blank parchment left. Sighing, she vowed to correct the paper at the first chance she got. Twilight finally allowed her head to drop onto the soft cushion. She considered what improvements she could make in the final copy, but these thoughts were soon overtaken by sleep.
~~~
The moon had just begun its slow descent when Princess Celestia entered the library. The doors swung open silently at her magical command and closed again behind her without a sound. The guards had not reported that Twilight had returned to her room, and so the Princess had become concerned that the young unicorn was again overworking herself over an assignment. Like many of the students at the school, Twilight considered her education to be of great importance, but unlike them, she often took her lessons far too seriously. Celestia hoped that Twilight would someday have other friends than just her books.
The Princess looked around the room, her eyes finally settling on the sleeping purple form up in the loft. She quietly climbed the staircase, dimming the lamps with her magic as she walked. She reached the top of the stairs and glanced around at the scattered scrolls and books. These she tidied up with a nod of her glowing white horn, stacking the varied volumes and vanishing the obvious scrapped papers, and moving the rest of Twilight’s writing to the table. The teacup and the plate she teleported down to the palace kitchens to be washed.
Princess Celestia’s horn glowed again as she gently laid a blanket over her sleeping student. Twilight shifted slightly but didn’t wake. The Princess made a mental note to reduce the next day’s workload. Twilight should have some time to play, even if her idea of playing was sorting books or organizing her room. Perhaps some adventure novels would offer enjoyment to the young unicorn. Yes, that would do nicely, and the Princess knew just the series to show her.
Quietly, as not to wake her student, the Princess left the library. Outside the window, the moon floated steadily across the night sky.
From her perch by the window, Twilight Sparkle could see the whole of the palace library's magic wing. Below her, on the carpeted floor, Flowershine, a tall pink unicorn with a cutie mark in the shape of a piece of chalk, taught a class on advanced spells, writing on a wheeled blackboard. A few older students, working on projects commissioned by the Princess herself, searched through books at the back of the room, taking notes on pads of paper with glowing quills that hovered by their heads. A librarian walked along the edge of the room, the basket of books she carried glowing faintly as she shelved them in their proper places. As it always did when busy , the room buzzed with magical energy.
Twilight stared intently at a volume of obscure spells. Her project today was to test their effects on various objects. Lined up before the unicorn were a stone, a block of wood, a bowl of water, and a tasty-looking tall pink flower in a pot of soil. She read over the notes on a simple color-shifting spell.
The book said this particular spell had been crafted by the ancient wizard Star Swirl the Bearded when he found his royal quarters too drab and tried to brighten them up. It seemed a pretty basic charm to initiate. Getting the spell to stick was the hard part, however. Twilight had spent the previous evening reading and rereading volumes of magical philosophy, planning this experiment. Layering spells was an important lesson for any unicorn. It wasn't cutting-edge research; she still had many things to learn before that would be a possibility. For now, she dutifully completed each new assignment. The Princess had told her that if she could solve the day's puzzles early, she could have the next book in the Daring Do series. It would have been a birthday present if Twilight hadn't finished the first one far earlier than Celestia had expected.
The unicorn stared at the spellbook for a few last moments, checking and double-checking the spell's instructions. Twilight's horn glowed with energy, and she directed the spell over the stone, which turned a bright blue. Satisfied, she released the magic, and the stone's brilliant color faded back to a boring gray. Twilight frowned and flipped through the book, dust rising from the pages; a moment later, she cast the spell again, overlaying it with a stasis charm. This time the color remained. With a small smile, she turned to the wood and cast the same spell. She held the magic in place for a few seconds as it permeated the block, the color slowly brightening.
On the library floor, the teacher was wrapping up her class. After writing a last few notes, she lowered her chalk and magically erased the blackboard with a quick cleaning spell. The students packed their notebooks away in saddlebags and ambled away, some pulling books down from shelves and starting work on their papers. Others left the library in search of a meal.
Giving the students no more than a brief glance, Twilight returned to her experiment. After checking that the color still held on the stone and wood, she took the time from a clock hanging on the wall and neatly entered it into the perfectly-ruled table she had drawn in a fat notebook. Once this was done, she lifted the rock into the air and levitated it over the bowl of water, slowing lowering it towards the surface. With all her focus on this motion, she didn't notice the blue unicorn filly approaching from behind. The unicorn strode towards a bookshelf, shoving Twilight aside.
Twilight yelped and jumped backwards. Her concentration broken, she dropped the magically-held stone. It splashed into the bowl, knocking it onto the spellbook and sending drops of water flying over Twilight's mane.
“What are you doing?” she choked out, glaring at the filly, “This is a very valuable book! If the Princess finds out it's damaged...”
"Whatever. I don't care,” the filly said, giving Twilight no attention. She continued walking, stopping at the shelf and staring up at the titles. She pulled one down from its place.
Grumbling, Twilight looked back to her book. The water had soaked into the pages, leaving them wrinkled and translucent. She tried not to panic and thought for a few moments. A burst of light later, she was carefully drying the spellbook with a flame spell modified for heat. The other unicorn fastened the strap on her saddlebags and turned to face Twilight.
“Keep going with your crazy important experiments, bookworm. I'm sure turning rocks blue will totally be useful someday.” She stepped towards Twilight's setup. “And I'm sure you don't need this anymore.” She leaned over the line of objects and bit the flower clean from its stem.
“Stop that!” Twilight jerked her head up, lashing the heat spell across the unicorn's flank, a little stronger than she had meant. The blue pony yelped in pain and coughed on the flower in her mouth.
“Twilight Sparkle!”
The ponies turned to the teacher's stern voice. Flowershine glared up at them from the library floor.
“Both of you, come down here now!” she ordered. Twilight stepped fearfully on the stairs, the blue pony smirking at her the whole way down. The other students in the room had turned to stare at them, and Twilight shrank under their curious gaze. The unicorns reached the floor.
“Sea Star, stay here,” Flowershine ordered the blue unicorn, whose smirk faded somewhat. She rubbed at her side where the spell had hit; a red line had started to form on the burn. “And you, Twilight,” the teacher continued, “You're not my student.”
“Yes ma'am,” Twilight confirmed, nervously.
“Therefore I shall refer this matter to the Princess.”
“No!” Twilight gasped, “You don't need to bother her with this! I'll keep working. I'll be quiet!”
“This is serious, Twilight. Magic is never to be used to harm others.” Flowershine levitated a sheet of parchment and a quill from a desk at the edge of the room. Twilight watched helplessly as the quill dashed across the page, then flew back to the table while the paper curled into a scroll. The teacher's horn glowed brighter for a moment, and the letter vanished in a burst of light. Within a minute, a response letter flashed into existence. The teacher unrolled it and scanned the contents.
“Twilight, you are to meet Princess Celestia in her study. Now.”
~~~
She had never been in trouble before! What if she was punished, or expelled? Twilight shivered at the idea of having to leave the school she had worked so hard to get into. This school, this life, learning magic and history from the goddess of the sun herself: these were the only things that mattered to her. She stared at the details of the beautiful palace around her as she passed through the hall, trying to memorize every painting and doorway before she was forced to leave forever. But that time was over all too soon; she reached her destination. Shaking, she turned the corner to the white-painted door of the Princess's private study. The stentorian gray pegasus guard at the door raised an ear as she approached.
“Miss Sparkle?” he asked, not unkindly.
“I... F-flowershine told me to c-come here...”
“Yes, Miss Sparkle.” The guard nodded and knocked a silver-clad hoof on the door. Celestia's voice answered him.
“Twilight? Let her in, Slipstream.” Twilight could not tell from her voice whether she was angry, but suspected she was. What else could be expected after her own student had broken such a basic law of magic? Twilight prepared herself for the worst and walked into the room.
The Princess sat behind a desk piled high with letters and documents. She was reading from a curled paper that hovered in front of her eyes, suspended in a soft yellow glow. Behind her, a flame-colored bird slept on a perch, its head under a wing. Bookshelves and a tall window completed the far side of the room. On another wall, a soft round rug lay before a large fireplace. The hearth was empty, unused in the hot summer months. Celestia lowered the paper, and Twilight saw that it was Flowershine's message.
“Sit down, Twilight. I would like to talk to you,” she said. The unicorn hurried to the center of the room and sat stiffly, avoiding Celestia's gaze.
“Could you tell me what happened in the library?” she asked, her voice calm as always. “I have Flowershine's accounts of the events, but I would like to hear your side of the story.”
Twilight decided it would do no good to stay silent.
“I was working on the experiment you assigned me, the one about layering spells,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, “and I had just managed to change the chromatic expression on the samples. Sea Star interrupted me and....insulted my studies.” Twilight's ears shot up in alarm. “The book!”
“What's this?”
“The book for the new spells! Sea Star startled me and I knocked over the water for the immersion experiment! I tried to dry it with a heat spell...” She shrank back in fear. If hurting Sea Star wasn't enough to get her expelled, ruining a book certainly was! She shuddered as the Princess began to speak:
“That can be easily remedied,” Celestia said. Twilight relaxed slightly. “I assume that was the heat spell you hit Sea Star with?”
Twilight stared at her hooves. Her ears drooped as she tried to disappear into the floor.
“Yes.”
The Princess sighed quietly. “Twilight, recite to me the First Law of Magic.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “ 'Magic is to be used only for good and never for harm.' “
“Correct. And quite frankly, I am disappointed that you would so blatantly disregard that law, as well as any common sense on the matter. I thought I taught you better than that. It was wrong to hurt Sea Star. Do you understand?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. I'm sorry.” She lowered her head sadly. “I'll pack my things.” She stood up to leave.
“Stay, Twilight,” the Princess ordered, “I'm not going to expel you.”
Twilight turned back, looking Celestia in the face for the first time. “Huh?”
“You shall stay my student at the school. However, the fact remains that you have attacked a fellow student. In matters such as these, “ the Princess said calmly, “punishment is left up to the teacher.”
The filly sat back down.
“I will not have you write a paper on the First Law, as you would enjoy that entirely too much.” Twilight gave a sheepish grin at that. Celestia continued: “Instead, you will help teach the magic kindergarten classes for two weeks, in addition to your existing studies.”
It was certainly better than the alternative, but having to deal with young unicorns who were still learning the simplest of spells? Twilight inwardly groaned at the idea. But at least she was still in good graces with the Princess.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said, “you are a wonderful student with much potential. But you need to use your powers for good reasons. I expect that something like this will never happen again.”
“I understand. Thank you, Princess.” Twilight rose.
“Report here tomorrow morning before classes.”
“Yes, Princess.” Twilight bowed politely and left the room.
~~~
Once the door closed again, Celestia turned to the phoenix on her perch. They shared a sorrowful, knowing look. Such a powerful pony, the Princess of the Sun knew, must have the strictest rules regarding her behavior. She and Philomeena had both seen what could happen if a pony used powerful spells in anger.
The Princess stood and prepared to raise the moon.
Twilight had been awake since long before sunrise. Actually, she had been awake all night, studying for her next lesson with the Princess. Though Celestia had told her to rest, as the magic she would learn needed focus, that had only stirred the unicorn into an overnight fervor of research. Because she didn't know what the lesson would be around, she had studied everything. Now, surrounded by stacks of detailed notes, she finally felt ready for the lesson. With a quick flash of magic, she shuffled the spellbooks strewn across the floor of her room into alphabetical order and pushed them into a corner of the room in a neat pile.
Fighting sleep, she stood up and, yawning, looked towards the window; the sun was still low in the sky, but the day was already bright. She turned to the clock hanging over a small bookshelf. There was still some time before she was set to meet with the Princess, but it was infinitely better, she reasoned, to be early than to be—she shuddered at the thought—late. Twilight ran through the last of her notes in her head, then left her room for Celestia's study.
~~~
Celestia was in the midst of reviewing a letter when her guard called from outside the door. It was an application from a young Cloudsdale pegasus to join the Wonderbolts. Normally, such a request would be redirected to the stunt team's captain, but the letter's enthusiasm had caught the Princess's interest. The pegasus, a mare named Spitfire, had won the last Young Fliers Competition, and Celestia suspected she would make a very good trick flier.
The princess neatly folded the letter away and invited Twilight into the room. The filly entered, giving a respectful bow and then skipping cheerfully inside.
“Good morning, Princess!”
“Good morning, Twilight,” Celestia greeted her, “It's a bit early, isn't it?”
Twilight's expression turned to concern. “Is that a problem?” She looked around anxiously. “I only wanted to be on time. Dedicated students are always on time!”
The Princess laughed. “That's quite all right.” She closed the door with magic and moved to stand in front of Twilight, who sat down and looked towards Celestia, eager to begin the lesson. A few moments passed, and she yawned, unable to stop herself.
“Twilight, have you slept?” the Princess asked, reproachfully.
“Um.. not really...” Twilight replied with an embarrassed laugh, “But I am ready! I've studied!” She hopped up to her hooves. “I can do it! I'm ready!”
Celestia raised a hoof for Twilight to be calm. The little unicorn sat back down and grinned up at her.
“Let's get started. Today, I want you to practice a shielding spell, as illustrated here,” -a scroll fluttered from a shelf to land in front of Twilight- “It's a fairly complex spell, so we're going to start small. What do you think?”
Twilight scanned the page, growing more nervous with every line. This was completely unfamiliar; nothing like this had appeared in any of her books. The stylized diagram showed a unicorn pony rearing back and casting a spell that formed a dish-shaped shield of magical energy that deflected another spell off its surface. She swallowed.
“I...I can do this.”
“What are the components of this spell?” Celestia asked. Twilight thought for a moment.
“It's a stabilized field of magic condensed into a physical object...so there's the energy needed to hold the spell, and the force required to shape it.”
“Correct! Now then-”
But Twilight had already attempted the spell. Sparks fell from her horn as a patchy sheet of magic formed above her head, ever-shifting holes riddling its translucent purple surface. Celestia smiled and tapped it with a gold-shod hoof. The spell disintegrated, falling away into glittering dust.
“Try again, but try to put more energy into a smaller space,” she advised. Twilight nodded, then began a second attempt, scrunching up her eyes in concentration. This time, the disk of magic was smaller, but solid. It cast a pink glow on the floor, turning the gold-and-purple rug orange and brown. When Celestia tried to break it, the shield shattered like thin glass into shards that faded away as they separated. Twilight growled in frustration.
“Too brittle!”
“Why do you think that is?” Celestia prompted as Twilight stared at the instruction scroll. She felt exhausted; this spell took more energy than any one she'd worked on recently, and the sleepless night wasn't helping things at all.
“The spell was too solid. It needs to have some elasticity to prevent breaking...” Twilight concluded, stifling a yawn. She prepared to cast the spell again, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Princess Celestia,” the guard called, “Prince Blueblood requests an audience.”
Annoyance momentarily showed on Celestia's face, but she quickly resumed her typical calm.
“Please wait here a minute, Twilight. I'll be right back,” she told the filly, and stepped outside the door to talk with an angry-looking teenage unicorn.
Twilight saw the opportunity this gave her. For a moment, she considered the risk of practicing this spell without the Princess's supervision, but that argument quickly faded from her mind. She so wanted to impress Celestia, and what better way than to pull off the shield spell perfectly? The unicorn listened briefly to the conversation in the hall, hearing Blueblood's irate tones answered by Celestia's serene ones. Deciding she would have enough time for at least a few attempts at the spell, she took a last look at the paper and again focused her energy on her horn. She struggled to recall and align all the elements of the spell, her normally flawless memory dulled by her tired mind. A glowing shield appeared for an instant and then sparked out of existence. Twilight looked up, grinning. That was the proper result! Now, she just needed to strengthen it and hold the spell...
Encouraged by this success, she again poured energy into the spell, emphasizing the stability of the shield. It seemed to be working: a purple dome filled her field of vision...then the spell broke off, Twilight's energy exhausted. Gasping, she looked around-- and realized she was floating. The shield hadn't faded! Instead, it formed a tight bubble around the young unicorn. Twilight stretched out a hoof, and the edge gave slightly under the pressure, but didn't break. She was trapped! The unicorn tried to take a breath to steady herself, but the interior of the shield was devoid of air; she had forgotten to balance it!
No! No! Twilight scrabbled at the bubble frantically. I'm going to suffocate! In her panic, a ball of energy shot from her horn and rebounded against the glowing shield, smashing back into her leg. She convulsed at the pain, trying to find a way to escape, but her strength and breath were rapidly running out. Even if she had enough energy, her panicked and confused mind could think of no spells that would help. The bubble began to shrink in on her. She thrashed wildly against the enclosing spell...and then a burst of light filled her fading vision.
~~~
The little filly hung limp and gasping in a golden cloud of Celestia's magic. The pegasus guard at the door stared in awe as the Princess slowly lowered the unicorn to the ground.
“Slipstream,” she ordered, turning to him, “find me a doctor.”
“Yes, Princess.” The guard saluted her and ran off down the corridor. The Princess lifted Twilight with her magic, gently draping the unconscious filly across her neck. From the corridor, Prince Blueblood looked at the scene with unconcealed disdain.
“The little fool...” he spat.
“Enough ,” Celestia commanded in the sternest tones the unicorn prince had ever heard her use. He blinked up at his aunt.
“Blueblood, you are dismissed. We will continue this conversation at a later date,” she said, and turned away without another word, following in the direction Slipstream had gone.
“Wha-” Twilight panted, waking for a moment.
“Be calm, Twilight. You're safe,” the Princess said. Twilight slipped back into darkness as a unicorn hurried down the hall to them.
~~~
Twilight woke to find herself in a bed, a bandage around her hind leg. She struggled to think why, then remembered the nearly-catastrophic spell. She could hear low voices: one the Princess's and the other belonging to an unfamiliar pony. Figuring she was in the palace infirmary, she opened her eyes to see Celestia speaking with a white-maned old blue unicorn. The room was dark, and she could see little else.
“Somehow, she managed to create a mostly stable vacuum within a shielding spell,” the unicorn was saying. “Mostly stable; given another moment, the outside air pressure would have caused it to collapse in on her. Thank the Sun—quite literally” at this he gave a reverent nod to Celestia, “that the spell was broken before that happened.”
“Yes, ” Celestia said softly. Twilight could hear—guilt?—in her voice. “Though if I had not been so near...”
“Let us not concern ourselves with what might have been,” the old unicorn interrupted. Twilight had never heard anypony speak on such equal terms with the Princess. She tried to lift herself up to see better.
“Ah! You're awake. How are you feeling, my dear?” the old unicorn said kindly, turning his attention to Twilight. The filly considered this.
“Tired,” she responded truthfully.
“Yes, I would expect so.” The unicorn stepped away from the Princess and towards Twilight. His cutie mark was in the shape of an hourglass. “You've overexerted your magical energy, little one. It was unwise to attempt such a spell alone and on such little sleep.”
“I'm sorry...” Twilight began, but was cut off by Celestia. The Princess nuzzled Twilight softly.
“Not now, Twilight. We will discuss this later. For the moment, what is important is that you are safe.”
“Indeed,” the old unicorn agreed. “You must rest, child.” His horn glowed blue, and the lights in the room dimmed further. Twilight fell asleep instantly, unable to stay awake any longer.
~~~
The old unicorn and the Princess left the room and the sleeping filly without another sound.
“She has immense power, Celestia,” the unicorn said once they were outside. “I assume that is why you decided to train her personally?”
The Princess nodded. “She has much potential. Possibly even enough...” she trailed off.
“The Elements haven't been used in nearly one thousand years. She could very well be the one to reawaken them.”
“I can only hope that you are right.”
