A Natural Order to Things

"Concentrate! Concentrate!" the demoness chants to herself as she struggles to maintain the spell.

A bead of sweat rolls down from her forehead where her two stubby horns reside. Strands of dark blue hair stick to her forehead hidden strands of pink hair mix in along with dark purple. Her hands stretch before her as she focuses her mana into an egg on the table. The previous nine students did not hatch the egg, but those previous students were not Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle had spent the last five years of her young life preparing for this moment: graduating from Princess Celestia's School for the Magically Gifted and Talented. Hatching the egg is not necessary for graduating, only seven students have successfully performed the spell: both the ruling princesses, Starswirl the Beared (the only elf to have grown facial hair), a student she had only been able to find a name—Factual Theory, Prince Blueblood, Princess Cadance (Twilight's babysitter), and Princess Celestia's current student—Sunset Shimmer. Twilight knows ambition and yearning alone will not make her dreams come true; today, all her training will bear fruit… at least that is why she is straining to completing the spell.

Princess Celestia watches as the young demoness performing the spell earnestly. The princess smiles at the girls hard work. As she steps up to the child to ask her to quit, an explosion outside catches her attention. A rainbow expands across the sky. A smile finds itself on her lips. A cheer from behind makes her turn around.

"I did it!" Twilight Sparkle cheers. She leans forward to smile at the purple baby dragon. "Hey there, little guy! I did it! I made you hatch!"

So the surge of magic was not only from the sonic rainboom but also from this child, the princess thinks to herself.

"Princess Celestia, I did it!"

Hearing her name shakes he princess from her thoughts. The smile on the child's face spreads to the princess. "Well done, my little student. Congratulations on performing the spell. You may keep the littl guy as your pet."

"Thank you!"

"I am also inviting you to become my personal student. This means moving to my castle and—"

"I accept!" Twilight's exclamation interrupts the princess. "I accept a thousand million times!"

Princess Celestia chuckles. "Very well. I still have to talk to your parents about this."

"They will agree wholeheartedly!"

Which Twilight's parents did. Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle's mother, had reservations about letting her little girl move away but her husband's persuasiveness and remark on Twilight "only being a ten minute walk and appointment away" eases her reservations.

Princess Celestia had noticed Twilight Sparkle's potential but the demoness far exceeds her expectations. The demoness blows past any and every test and her quick ability to grasp complex magical concepts greatly impresses the princess. Within a matter of three years, when Twilight Sparkle is sixteen, the princess declares her a protégé. By eighteen, Twilight earns a knighthood for her theories and for rescuing children from a monster with a new teleportation spell.

As Twilight grows closer to the princess, another student grows distant and bitter. Sunset Shimmer turns on the princess and as punishment is sent away to a far away land. The princess is more hurt emotionally than physically at the end of the ordeal.

When Twilight Sparkle turns twenty, the princess allows her to move into Canterlot Library where Twilight focuses on her own experiments and research.

"Spike! Come get your breakfast!" Twilight calls out. The young woman runs about the library searching for her best friend. She heads up stairs to the second floor, the only place she has yet to search. "Spike!" she exclaims when she finds the young purple dragon with green spines gnawing on a book.

She uses her magic to open his jaws gently and remove the book. "Spi~ike, what have I told you about chewing on books?"

She glares at the drake and his emerald eyes smile back at her. She groans in defeat and hugs the young lizard. When she sets him down on the ground, the book in her hand catches her attention.

"Hm? I've never seen you before," she muses.

She turns the book over looking for a title but fails in her search across the pale white leather binding. She opens the book where black letters, almost like jet, sparkle on the first page, "The Desolation of Discord," she reads and then gasps. "The day after tomorrow is the Summer Sun Celebration which also marks the thousandth year of Queen Aurora Borealis' death," she talks to Spike.

The reptile blinks at her.

Twilight sighs and smiles sadly at the dragon. She pets his head and says, "Sometimes I wish you could talk."

She sits on the ground where Spike curls up on her lap. She flips to the next page where another set of jet-like letters decorate the page, "'And the accounts of those who were there.'" Twilight's amethyst eyes grow wide and she flips through the pages feverishly. "Just as I thought! Some of these are Queen Borealis' writings along with the other Heroes of Gaia: Grey Whulphe, the King of the Werewolves, Onyx Blueflame, the Lord of the Dragons," Twilight looks down at the dragon in her lap, "They are your larger, bipedal cousins of sorts. They were Elves who changed themselves into dragons and over time they started looking like dragons."

Flipping through more pages she finds Commander Hurricane of the Angels, Chancellor Puddinghead of the Terrans, Clover the Clever, royal advisor to the Demon King, and King Sombra of the Vampyres. Each of the heroes mention "the Elements of Harmony" and how using them had been the only way to defeat Discord. She also discovers that King Grey Whulphe is the only one that writes about Queen Aurora's death and sacrifice. Twilight feels as if King Grey had developed feelings for Queen Aurora during their quest just by the tone of his writing.

Just as Twilight gets to the part about the King holding a secret and wanting to share it, Spike jumps out of her lap, belches green flames, and a scroll hangs in the air for a moment before falling into Twilight's hand.

She pets the dragon's head. "Thanks, Spike." As Twilight unrolls the scroll, Spike rubs his head against Twilight's knee akin to a cat.

My dear Twilight, there is more to a young woman's life than studying, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year's location: Ponyville. And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends!

"What?!" Twilight exclaims which startles Spike and sends him flying off her lap. "Sorry, Spike," Twilight apologizes and returns to reading the letter.

I know you already have Spike as your friend and your former sitter, you would benefit greatly interacting with others your age. With the recent wolf attacks, I would also like you to inspect the integrity of the Wall and I give you the power to change anything if necessary.

I have made arrangements for you to stay at the local library there, Golden Oaks, since I know you would be more at ease surrounded by books. You are more than welcome to take Spike along with you. So try to have fun, my dear student.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia

Twilight huffs and stands to her feet slowly. She walks over to her desk which has piles of parchments, rolls of vellum, mountains of books, and several books lay open. Luckily, the oak desk is large enough to support all the clutter. Twilight sits in the desk's accompanying red velvet oak chair to begin writing her response to the princess. After a few minutes of writing, she sets the quill down, stands up, and tosses the letter to an eagerly waiting Spike.

Spike blows his green fire on the letter and the letter disappears. He follows after Twilight on her heels.

As Twilight finishes packing her last suit case, Spike belches out another letter, this one an informal reply. Twilight uses her magic to bring the letter to her. Princess Celestia writes her enthusiasm for Twilight accepting the task and that a coach will be waiting outside to take her to Ponyville. Twilight walks over to the window and sure enough she sees a red coach with two white pegasi in gold armor attached to the coach along with two guards sitting on the coach and two guards waiting at the doors of the coach.

She groans. She has a sinking suspicion that the princess had arranged this so that people would approach her and recognize her as from Canterlot.

With a sigh she levitates her trunk and suitcase with magenta magic and totes it behind her as she leaves the room. Spike follows her and also has his own luggage on his back. The two guards at the door load up her luggage and Spike's luggage on top of the coach. With Twilight safely inside the coach, the guards close the doors and take their seats at the rear of the coach. A whistle later and Twilight feels the coach lurch forward.

"It's not like Gaia depends on me making 'friends', right, Spike?" Twilight pets the reptile in her lap as she watches Canterlot grow smaller. Spike licks Twilight's cheek and makes her giggle. "Yes, Spike, you're the only friend I need."