An unknown sensation

"Oh my..." the lavender unicorn gasped, lying in her bed deep in the night. "I should definitely talk to Rarity about this."

The borrowed book she had been reading explained her feelings of the past time.

It began when she got an informal letter from Princess Celestia, explaining a rather embarassing situation.

"My faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

It has come to my attention that, despite your state of my personal student, you must take the final examination of my School for Gifted Unicorns.

I am confident in your abilities. Thus, you have been scheduled for the next examination period, which means that you will be taking it in two and a half months from now.

As you may know, the next two weeks are scheduled as holidays in said school. In order to know what to expect, you are to join the current final class after the holidays.

Princess Celestia."

It was not that this would terribly stress her. At least not more than going after her usual life did. But there was this strange sensation she could not explain.

At first, she blamed it on that she hadn't eaten very well the last days. However, after eating until she could not continue, she had to admit that the unknown feeling most likely was not hunger.

It bothered her more than she wanted it to. While at first life was normal for the unicorn, she started to experience trouble sleeping.

When Fluttershy noticed the circles around Twilight's eyes, she had insisted on borrowing her some books to relax.

"But what is the subject of those books?" Twilight attempted to argue. She would never accept her friends having any trouble for her, at least not without working for it.

"Hush. Those books are not about learning, they're to help you relax after a long day," Fluttershy instantly refused any resistance. "You look like you're terribly stressed by that big exam. Give them a read, please?"

Twilight had to accept them. Reading through the first, she had to admit that they were not that bad, and not having to learn what she had read did make them a good bed lecture.

The books did not have much impact though. They did help Twilight get one or two hours more sleep a day, but it was not what she had expected.

What was especially weird about them was that an awful lot of them didn't even include stallions, despite being a more romantic type of book.

Twilight did not mind much. Until she came across a very certain book containing multiple shorter stories, one of them being about a mare going on with her day until realizing she would never see her marefriend again.

She cried.

The story was not written very dramatically, but reading it gave Twilight a shock of emotion. She was forced to remember the many beloved she had already lost in her life. She felt the emotions she had felt over their graves.

And as if she was a scryer, she also felt the losses of her future. Some that she had to expect, some ridiculous accidents causing the death of her perfectly healthy friends, but also another, much more intense.

In her vision, she saw herself kneeling over the grave of some mare that she did not yet know, but for some reason had very strong feelings for.

It had only been her imagination. At least she hoped so.

She tried to shrug it off and continue reading, but the shock rendered her unable to continue reading, even out of another book. The letters would just blur before her eyes.

So, she used this time of emotional upheaval to meditate about her life. Her feelings. A train of thought she only half wanted to do, but was forced to by her own mind.

It was then when she realized there was a hole in her heart, but knew nopony to fill it. She needed somepony to love.

She also noticed how she had repressed her true feelings most of the time to favor study. She did have friends, but also much more under her lavender pelt that nobody knew about.

And how none of that would change in the next time, due to her approaching examinations.

Eventually, she could stop and fall asleep. But she had a pretty bad nightmare and awoke little relaxed.

Right the next day, she seeked out a well known white unicorn.

"Oh, you've come to take measure?" Rarity asked.

"N... oh right. I suppose we could do that as well. I came to talk, but it might take a while, so why not?" Twilight responded. She had forgotten the dress she had tasked Rarity to make.

"Well alright then, come in."

"What did you want to talk to me about?" The stylist asked while measuring out her fellow unicorn and copying the amounts she measured to a prefabricated grid on her noteblock.

"Well, I've read through some of the books Fluttershy gave me to help me relax..." Twilight shily responded, earning a glance from the other unicorn.

"I know what you're talking about, darling. I think I may have read those books before."

"It did not quite work out. In fact, I had a small... outburst last night."

"Huh?" The white unicorn asked, not looking up from the noteblock.

"I found that terrible story where one mare finds out about her marefriend's death the hard way..." Twilight explained, "and it caused something in me. I could see them, Rarity! The ponies who have left me the same way the marefriend did in the story! Um, not so much see as relive the moments of biggest grief I had after their deaths. I felt like they had all just died yesterday."

"Oh..."

"And the worst thing was, it did not end there. I could also feel what it would be like if I lost my current and future friends. You, for instance. It was like a vision. As if losing every individual one of you wasn't bad enough, I felt...another pony. One I have not met yet, but the pain of her loss was stronger than what I felt for you all combined. No... no offense."

"What a horror!"

"I know. But after the vision, I was practically forced by my mind to recollect my past life, and what place my emotions took. Then I noticed how I had lived just for studying, almost. Since then, I feel a clear double of what I did before. And I noticed a terrible absence in my life. Can you think of what I am missing?"

"An encyclopedia of life, the universe and everything?" The designer teased, only earning an annoyed look from her lavender coated friend. "Sorry."

"Love. I know this might be a bit of a surprise, but I can't think of another pony that I could talk about this to than you."

"You're not trying to flirt, are you?"

"What? No! I've just noticed that I have never been with another pony to share my feelings with. I mean, I've got you five, but Applejack and Rainbow Dash are already in a relationship, Pinkie's... Pinkie, you're not...my type and I don't think I want to be more than friends with Fluttershy either."

"So you're saying you need a partner?"

"Yes and no. I want to experience the magic of love first-hand. But I'm not ready to bind myself to any stallion, or mare. I'm in love with somepony I'm not sure even exists."

"I am impressed. But why don't you just go into the world if you're so lonely then?"

"That's the second problem. I can't do anything about my current problems because the final examination in magic is drawing near. I did tell you about that, right?" Twilight asked, earning a confirming nod.

"It will all come in time, I think. Sorry I can't give you more advice about the situation. But while you're here, how big and heavy are you again?"

"I'm..." The lavender unicorn began, but could not finish her sentence from surprise. Rarity seemed to just remember her values, anyway.

"Ah, yes. Now, would you mind helping me with an order from Applejack? She's too busy to come personally, but you're about the same size as her. I'm afraid I must have forgotten her dimensions..."

"Of course!" Twilight said, posing while Rarity fit a surprising amount of white cloth around her. It did not take long for her to put two and two together.

"Am I invited?" She asked outright, taking Rarity by surprise.

"O... of course. At least, according to what she said until now."

While the advice Rarity gave her hadn't been too helpful, Twilight found herself more relaxed after her talk, possibly because she simply had needed to talk those feelings off her chest.

When she went to bed that day, she managed to find a dark, dreamless sleep fairly quickly, allowing her to catch up to the sleep she lost before. She was still in the same situation, but at least she had been able to talk about it.

The next day, Spike woke her up. She found herself in a fetal position on her side, body stiff like she had not moved all night, and incredibly refreshed. A look out the window took away some of that feeling though.

Celestia's sun was already past her peak.

Twilight didn't feel too stressed out by it. Unless somepony needed the wisdom of her library, which happened rarely, she was the only one reading from her books anyway. Consequently, she hadn't missed out on any business that Spike couldn't handle by himself.

In fact, when she took Spike out for lunch, or breakfast in her case, she decided that she could take the day off from study easily. Not that she could have studied anyway, with the thoughts of the past day still going through her mind.