For you, Twilight

Part 3, Return

By TCP127

It was late by the time Twilight arrived back in Ponyville, the stars and the moon casting a faint glow on the deserted streets as she quietly trotted through them, well aware of the fact that most ponies should be fast asleep by now. She eagerly wanted to get home, barely focusing on the things happening around her. She hadn’t been this worked up since the want it, need it spell incident, and the long night was taking its toll on her, giving her an uncomfortably strong headache.

“Ok I just get home first, then I can worry about the letter.” She reassured herself, temporarily stopping to calm down and focus on getting home to the library first. She began trotting again in silence, but the sheer beauty of Ponyville couldn’t keep her mind empty for long. The many picnics spent at the beautiful central park, dangerously sugary and delectable treats at Sugarcube Corner, tiring days spent with Rarity helping out at the Carousel Boutique, and even the time she and the others spent as “The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well” to get rid of Dash’s huge ego.

Twilight soon began grinning a little as a new thought popped into her head. “And how could I forget that?" Twilight reminded herself of the time she had agreed to go on a date with nice stallion her age named Clover. “He was nice enough, but not my type.” She thought, the events of the date playing back in her mind, she found herself chuckling to herself at the memories of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Explosive Experts, and then almost outright laughter at how they almost blew up poor Clover when he stepped in to stop them.

Within a few short minutes, Twilight found herself in front of the Ponyville library that doubled as her home. She absent-mindedly smiled as she gazed upon the large tree, a constant reminder of how much she loved Ponyville and its colorful residents. In fact, her love for the town had grown so much that she even wrote a letter to her parents, recommending that they should consider moving out to Ponyville, its idyllic nature a perfect change of pace from the hustle and bustle of Canterlot. To her disappointment, however, they declined; both of her parents fields of work were simply too important to just pack up and move to an entirely new place.

Twilight let out a sad sigh; it had been so long since she had last seen her family, who were often too busy to come out and visit her. The thoughts of her friends came back to her mind and she smiled, knowing that by now they were like a second family to each other.

Twilight gingerly grabbed the door with her magic, covering it with her signature lavender glow as she opened it gently, hoping not to wake Spike, who was probably fast asleep upstairs. She stepped inside as quietly as she could, her steps only producing a tiny clop with each step. Closing the door quietly behind her, she quickly slid her bags onto the floor, sliding the letter the letter out of one the bags with her magic.

Strangely, the library was even quieter than usual at this time of night. Noticing the open window near Owloysius’ stand, Twilight figured that he went hunting. Personally, she didn’t like the idea of creatures eating other creatures, the thought of it sending chills down her spine as she thought about it, but she understood its importance in the cycle of life.

Turning her attention back to the letter, she made her way to her private study in the back, grabbing her own notebook, her favorite quill, and a thick ledger of all the ponies in town, covering them in a lavender glow as they floated behind her. After casually setting her materials on her favorite desk, she quickly performed a sound-proofing spell to keep from disturbing her number-one assistant.

With a heavy sigh she sat down at her desk, cluttered with the materials she had brought. Using her magic, she brought the letter in front of her and began reading it again for what seemed like the millionth time,

For you Twilight,

I’ve always watched you from afar, your beauty one of the greatest things I’ve ever witnessed. Sadly, I was always unable to talk or even acknowledge my presence to you. Watching you for so long, admiring your beauty, your nerdiness, your flaws, heck, pretty much everything about you. But I only watched and admired, never acting on my impulses, eventually leaving a void that could only be filled by you in my heart. The void in my heart only grew and grew with each passing day, until finally, my heart was no more. But today, I wrote you this letter because I realized something, and that thing was. I love you, Twilight Sparkle. And if by some extraordinary chance you do get this letter, please, just please write back.

-Daniel

it finished with a flourish. The name on it was like nothing she’d seen before, causing her to believe is was an alias of an extremely shy pony. But somehow, just the sight of this letter made her ponder who this mystery stallion was, her imagination running wild with possibilities.

Twilight snatched the ledger with her magic, quickly levitating it over to herself. “This is emergency enough” she thought to herself, Ignoring the Mayor’s warning on the front to use only during emergencies or population census, quickly flipping it to the red tab that read ‘Stallions, ages 19-26’.

Putting her sharp intellect, as well as her knowledge of mystery and romance novels to use, she quickly came up with a list of qualities her secret admirer would likely exhibit that would help her screen out the suitable possibilities. “Somepony who is extremely shy, to the point where he would deliberately avoid other ponies” She thought, taking the obvious clues of the letter “but also a talented writer with extremely neat hoof-writing and a…… keen eye for details.” Twilight finished her thought, her lavender coat taking on a noticeably redder color.

With her list in mind, she began combing through the names, noting obvious fits in her notebook as she went along. When she finally finished, she came up with a list of forty two names that fit the majority of the description she had set. “Still too many for a detailed search.” Twilight thought, her face crumpling into a frown as she looked back over the list. Again, she found herself at a crossroads on how to narrow down the list.

Suddenly, a thought popped into her head, instantly raising her interest. “What if he was a unicorn? I’ve never seen any earth pony or Pegasus with that neat of hoofwriting, except maybe Big Macintosh, but that is an exception.” Twilight thought to herself, her thoughts already spinning at this new revelation “Not only that, but it meant it was somepony who could truly understand her at a magical level.” She finished, already grabbing her quill as she looked back over the list.

The sound of quill scratching began filling the air again as Twilight set about narrowing the list, diligently scratching out names up and down the list with quick swipes of her magic. Once the scratching ceased a few minutes later, Twilight let out an audible sigh of relief, pleased at her handiwork. Her list was now condensed into a list of ten stallions, all of whom were unicorns, save Big Mac, and they were nearly the description of what she was looking for.

The weight of the night had taken its toll on her; she could already felt her eyelids dropping on their own as she let out huge yawn. “I’ll get to work on the list tomorrow afternoon” Twilight thought to herself, already lying her head down on her desk. She soon found herself looked in the sweet embrace of sleep as her snores slowly began to fill the room.

Spike looked over the sheet again, still unsure on what to think about it. “Somepony wrote Twi a love letter? And she didn’t tell me about it?” Spike thought, mixed on whether he should be glad for her or disappointed that she didn’t tell him. In what he thought was usual Twilight fashion, she dedicated all her time and effort into one thing until she was utterly exhausted, and this was no exception.

The young dragon sighed, knowing his entire day would now be dedicated to finding this so-called ‘Mystery Stallion’. Already resigned to his fate, he began walking carefully out the room, quietly reminding himself to make a triple helping of coffee for Twilight.

The delicious aroma of daffodil coffee soon wafted through the library, prompting the lavender mare to stir. Mechanically, she stood up and rubbed at her eyes. Twilight stretched to get the kinks of sleeping at her desk out, when she realized the Spike was already up and fixing breakfast, now noticing that she was absolutely famished. She smiled eagerly and trotted out of the study, she had a good feeling about today.

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I'd like to offer a huge hug to CodeBrony for both editing and offering me some invaluable advice when I was making this, so when he posts his own stories, I'll send you guys a link to it.