Twilight awoke with a start, surrounded by darkness. As she raised her head off of the surface of which it was placed, a sudden pain became apparent that jolted from her neck and down her back. She had clearly been sleeping in an uncomfortable position. As her senses returned and mind became clear, the events of the previous day hit her, like a tonne of bricks. Twilight let out a slight whimper and sagged her head, as sadness began to grip her in its entirety. Before she could be swept up into the deep abyss however, an object fell from her head; onto her lap, causing Twilight's eyes to promptly open. As her eyes adjusted, and pupils dilated, it became apparent that this was the letter that Celestia had given her the night before. Twilight's intrigue, and inquisitive nature where certainly caught and this eased the pain of thinking for a prolonged amount of time about her memories with the princess. She grabbed the envelope in her magic rather delicately, and the faint purple glow illuminated the room to a degree of which Twilight was able to spot the door, the same door she spent so long staring at the previous day, out of fear.

"If only I had gone in sooner..." Twilight sighed.

It was at that point Twilight rose, from her awkward positioning on the ground and began to wonder towards the door, being careful not to trip and fall on the bed-side as she did so. This time she opted to instead magically push the door, only with enough force to get her in and out as quickly as possible.

The sudden intense light forced Twilight to close her eyes, a slight burning sensation emerging from behind her eyelids. When her eyes adjusted, the distorted world cleared and Twilight looked around. Celestia's room was on the third floor of the building, and each floor was connected by a large circular open space that ran from the ground floor all the way up to the sky-light window, allowing for streaks of pure-golden sunlight to cascade around the entire building with gentle dust dancing and drifting downwards in a forever spiraling motion. It was an unfortold beauty that could not be explained. Twilight smirked and her spirits raised a little as she thought about Celestia and how the essence of her sun has lived on and will continue to do so forever.

"Luna must have raised the sun." Twilight said to herself, under her breath.

"she must be hurting even more then me, and yet she still fulfills her responsibilities. It's time for me to be strong."

It was at this point Twilight noticed a quiet and graceful sound of hoof-steps traveling towards her, from her right; matched only by the pony behind those steps. Twilight looked to her right and there was Luna. A fear began to creep through her, this was not a conversation she wanted to have.

"it'll only get worse if I leave it" Twilight thought.

"Twilight..." Luna said, sorrow clearly woven like a knot through her voice. With her regal mask broken, Twilight couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between the pony before her, and Luna just moments ago.

"Do not fret Twilight. I already know." Luna said, in a blunt manner, that was very clearly put on. But not for Twilight's sake.

"She loved you Luna, more then any-pony else." Twilight said softly, In a gentle manner.

It was at this point Luna stared into Twilight's lavender eyes. They shone with compassion and meaning. It felt like acceptance. She felt as if she were staring into the eyes of her sister one last time.

"You really are my sisters protégé." Now with a slight smile adorning her face, Luna spoke.

"I thank you Twilight for all you have done, for the land and for my sister. You need not say any words. They are not required. I will be departing for the day, so I bid you a loving farewell." And just like that she was gone, in a flicker of dark-blue shine.

"Goodbye." Twilight ended, to nothing in particular.

She then turned around and decided to just walk for a bit, to linger towards the old library she once called a home, and to open this curious letter.

The heavy door to Twilight's old library flung open, with the push of a magical release. A thick cloud of dust rushed out from within the building, creating a large fog that spread outside like a thick miasma before dissipating slowly. This caused Twilight to cough profusely, as her mouth was filled with the unpleasant taste and dryness of the old dust, and the smell of the withering books caused her nostrils to scrunch in an annoyed and pained expression. After the dust cleared, an exasperated sigh was the only audible sound to be heard.

Twilight wandered into the building, looking briefly around as she did so. The familiarity of the home bringing a smile to her face. The place was small but compact. In-front of her, by about two meters, was a half-spiral staircase which only did a 180 degree spiral up to the second floor,of which, acted as a balcony overlooking the area Twilight was currently stood in, and also additionally acted as an overhang of which acted as a roof, supported by small but strong pillars engraved with many magical sigils, for Twilight's bedroom and bathroom. This room was large, and did not have a door-way, in fact the entire building had no other door-ways other than the front door. It was still the organized area it had always been, with some of Twilight's old books and research notes on magical-dimensional theory neatly placed upon the bright-brown table on the left. The bed lay in the center and was rather simplistic in design, but, most importantly, had an other-worldly thick-red blanket across the entirety of the beds surface. Finally, in the room, where two additional book shelves on the right-wall which were primarily used to act as additional storage space, books currently being used, and books that needed re-sorting. Twilight now began to trot up the staircase, but not before gazing upon the great telescope that sat on the bottom floor, to the right of the staircase. Its height allowing the scope to view the entire upstairs area. Painful memories began to flood back of Twilight calibrating and cleaning and re-calibrating and re-cleaning all of the fine-minuscule components, mirrors and prisms within the complex device that she used to create a map of the night sky; was currently residing on the wall behind her above the front door. Giving another smile, Twilight now stood at the main, and most favorite, area of the house. The library. Each parallel wall off to the left and right, where covered in their entirety by large bookshelves filled to the breaking point with hundreds of informative books and the occasional fictional story. Similarly a great window (Directly in-front of her), that spanned the entire surface of what would have been a wall, allowed Twilight to gaze upon the entirety of canterlot, and the equally beautiful sky. The stark contrast between the complex architectural design of each house, and the simplistic; yet beautiful pattern of the stars, is what made the location so perfect to view from, for hours on end; though there were many more houses now, since the war began. This squandered some of the naturalistic beauty that the site originally provided.

She now looked at a thick book that lay open, on an otherwise empty brown table. It was the book a Twilight had been reading before she left to Ponyville, the one that had informed her of the return of Nightmare moon.

"If it were not for her, I would have never met my friends." Twilight thought out-loud, with a slight laugh, as a small tear streaked down her face at the thought of how simple things used to be.

She hadn't seen them in a while. They where all resided in Las-Pegasus; rebuilding it after the very first battle 3 years ago. They could no longer use the elements of harmony since their destruction and release of the shadow; so they instead helped in other pursuits such as aid and, currently, rebuilding. The only one who actually fought, besides Twilight herself, was rainbow-dash. Unfortunately her wing had to be removed by some pony on the battle-field, after she became infected. Thankfully she was alright, and due to Twilight's and other scientists help, they were able to make a break through in the rebuilding of limbs. However, would take a long time to create an entire limb like a wing and so she was put out of commission.

Twilight gently removed the large book from the surface of the table, leaving it empty. She then a-lit her horn; faint glows spiraled their way up her horn, before meeting at the tip and sending out a slight burst of magical energy and the previous purple glow now emanated a golden one. The magic coalesced on the table, in swirls of energy that began to condense at a single point. The magic suddenly released and showered down around the table, leaving behind the old envelope that Celestia had given her. It was too delicate to carry all the way to the library; so Twilight had made good use of her dimensional magic, she had learnt in this same building. Twilight smiled proudly at the efficiency of which she had performed the spell, before turning her attention to that of the envelope once again. Delicately, Twilight lifted the envelope in her magic. A faint but audible sound could be heard, as the centuries old glue like substance began to separate from the equally aged paper. She removed the thin paper from within the envelope with finesse as intrigue and curiosity took over.

"The paper is incredibly aged." Twilight thought to herself in confusion.

"How is this possible?"

She opened the parchment.

Hello Twilight.

If you are reading this then Celestia has tragically passed away, and the war has come to a standstill, due to your magical outburst. I'm sure your wondering who or what I am but I assure you that my identity is of no relevance to what I am about to tell you.

Firstly, I'm going to explain the shadow and how it operates. This will not take long, as you figured out most of it during your thoughts on the connection of the villains you have faced. However, I shall tell you that the shadow is both a physical manifestation that can move freely amongst the world, and an emotion of power that grows and cultivates in ponies. This explains how many more ponies are not converted, because for the ponies to "lose" themselves they must first be consumed by the emotional magic and attacked by the physical creature simultaneously.

An alicorn, which possess all types and variants of magical essence has their ........................................ when in the presence of .................................. embody. For instance Celestia .............................., when in the presence of the sun. For she is the embodiment of the sun, as a being and you Twilight, ........................................................................ Twilight hour of the day. Which explains how you were capable of creating such a blast against the shadow, and were able to stand against Tirek (Even with all the princesses magic). However this is not all. Furthermore...

*The letter reads blank and the ink too aged to discern any language*

"What does this mean?", "If only it weren't so aged..." Twilight said in a tired manner.

You must use the ............. hour, to perform a Time spell. It is the only way. You must return 3000 years ago, and adopt the name Clover, and you must find Starswirl. Once this has been accomplished do whatever you can to create a magical storage cell, one more powerful then any in creation. One that has the ability to absorb positive emotional magic and use it to absorb the fire of friendship. This is what will start the world. You must do this Twilight. Do it to save Equestria.

Without any words to speak Twilight turned the page around to see the image of a complex magical sigil.

A time sigil Twilight had never seen before.

Author's Note

Well this is the longest chapter I have written so far. I seem to be getting better at making them longer, as I go on. Which is great but I can see how the amount of time it takes to make a chapter increases exponentaly. With all the checking and re-checking. But, regardless, I'm enjoying it and thats all that matters really.

Once again, Thanks for reading.