//-------------------------------------------------------//
                     Twilight's Scale                      
                      -by False Door-                      
//-------------------------------------------------------//
//-------------------------------------------------------//
                         1 Issues                          
//-------------------------------------------------------//
1 Issues
Metal springs creaked as Twilight Sparkle stirred in her bed. She groaned as an imaginary screw began to tighten into her skull. Then she became aware of the snoring.
Bleary eyed and head swimming, she at first couldn't put the pieces together and when she tried to focus her eyes, the early morning light from the window came in and made her head worse. She rolled back over and came face to back with a red wall.
"Oh, shit," she breathed. A lightning bolt went through her and she shot upright. "This is not my room. This is…" She turned to the mountain rumbling next to her. "Big Macintosh? That's right, I-" She gritted her teeth and pushed her head into her hoof as the screw tightened again. "Damn it, this wasn't how I wanted this to happen," she muttered woefully.
Twilight turned and slid slowly to the floor. Maybe if I can just sneak out, she thought, slinking to the door. Maybe he won't remember anything either and I can just pretend this never happened. She stepped out and closed the door softly.
"Twilight," called an agitated voice from behind her.
She turned fearfully slow to face the green-eyed earth pony.
Applejack glared straight into her. "Ah invited ya over ta help with the harvest, not help yerself to the moonshine and fornicate with my brother."
"Well I did help with the harvest," Twilight countered with a nervous grin. "That is definitely one of the things I remember doing." She squeezed the sides of her skull as another wave of pain came over her. "Ugh, I'm sorry, Applejack," she groaned. "I have to go."
Apple Bloom stuck her head out the crack of her bedroom door just in time to see Twilight disappear down the stairs. "Twilight spent the night?" she muttered.
Applejack turned with a start at hearing her little sister but smiled best she could. "Oh, uh, she was just too tired yesterday to make it home is all."
Twilight fled the farm in shame, frustrated with herself. She tried to trot down the dusty road back to town with her eyes closed to block out the harsh sunlight. It was a miserable slow going. Somehow she made it back to the Golden Oak Library and staggered through the door where Totality was waiting on the couch, reading.
Since Spike's untimely demise in a lab accident four months ago, Twilight had been mired in depression and alcohol. It wasn't long before the house and her research got away from her, and then there was the loneliness. Though she hated to think of replacing Spike, especially so soon, it had become unavoidable.
Her new assistant, Totality, was a charcoal gray unicorn with square frame glasses and a frizzy yellow and orange mane. She was a moody and bookish highschool student from… Manehatten, was it? Twilight hadn't paid much attention. She knew she was about to enter her senior year. She had aspirations about going to Canterlot Academy and viewed her stay as some sort of internship, thinking Twilight could help her get in. Twilight agreed to help but honestly didn't care. She couldn't find extra care to give right now in her life. She just wanted the house clean, and admittedly having somepony else just being there again was nice, even if it would only last two or three months.
Totality put a bookmark in her book when she saw that Twilight enter, disheveled and distressed.
"Sooooo, where were you?" she asked carefully, eyeing her up and down.
Twilight squinted and tried to moisten her lips to speak. She fumbled for some nice lie to feed her but was coming up empty, and the sudden attempt at creative thinking was making her hangover worse. "I got into the booze and woke up in Big Mac's bed," she admitted, just wanting the question to be over.
Totality's eyes widened. "Oh… so... yay?"
"No," whimpered Twilight. "Not 'yay.'"
"Isn't he the stallion you like, though?"
"Yes. Which is why I didn't want to screw things up and make it weird and then I did. And also I don't even remember... how it was.” Twilight cringed. “I shouldn't be having this conversation with a high school student."
Totality shrugged. "If you were too drunk to remember, it probably wasn't your best work."
Twilight turned away to head for her bed. "Just another reason to hope he doesn't remember," she muttered to herself. "I have to go lay down. Will you get me water and pain meds?"
"Yeah," sighed Totality.
Twilight went upstairs and crawled into bed. Totality tailed her with pills and a glass of water which she set on the nightstand with her levitation magic.
"Thanks," whispered Twilight. She eyed her temporary assistant's cutie mark as she turned to leave.
Totality's flank had a potion flask with green liquid in it. The flask was upside down, which would have been fine if the liquid was pouring out of the neck or something, but instead it appeared to be defying gravity, staying up in the bottom with a level surface. It didn't make any sense.
"Am I still drunk or is your cutie mark on upside down?" muttered Twilight.
"Probably both,” she replied absently. “You're seriously just now noticing it?"
Twilight ignored the question. "How do you get an upside down cutie mark? I've never heard of that."
"I don't know," shrugged Totality. "I was just happy it came at all. I’ll just um, finish the sweeping downstairs. That’s quiet."
“Okay,” whispered Twilight. She melted into the mattress and tried to clear her mind of the fresh crop of bad feelings she'd churned up in the last few hours. Moments later, she rolled over and groaned at the sunlight coming through the window. Twilight squinted, trying to pull closed the shade with her magic, but instead dislodged several books from the shelf which thudded on the floor. She tried again but ended up smashing a vase against the wall, unable to focus through her hangover.
"Damnit!" she shouted, slapping a pillow over her face.
"You rang?" droned Totality, appearing at the stairs again.
"Could you block that window, please?" Twilight gestured feebly at the glass.
Totality just walked over to move the shade and couldn’t help glancing out the window. "Uh-oh."
"Yeah, I know I broke it," grumbled Twilight.
"No. Guess who's here for his midmorning booty call."
"What?" shrieked Twilight.
"He's the big red guy, right? He's coming up the walk."
Twilight pulled up the covers over her head. "I'm not here! Whatever he wants to talk about, I can't handle it right now."
"Fine." Totality groaned, heading back down the stairs.
Twilight shut her eyes and rested until she heard the stairs creak softly again. "Is he gone?" She breathed.
"Eeyup." replied Totality.
Twilight opened one eye. "Hey, don't make fun of him."
Totality pawed at the floorboards. "I'm not. It's just fun to say. I asked if he wanted me to give you a message. He said no, he should tell you himself."
Twilight cringed. "Sounds potentially hazardous."
Totality cleared her throat. "So, don't forget you have a wedding rehearsal tomorrow and, not right now obviously, but maybe later today if you're feeling better, you could help me with my thesis?"
"Yeah, yeah,” muttered Twilight dismissively. "That works."
"Okay, great," nodded Totality hopefully as she left her once more.
Twilight spent the rest of the day sleeping.

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                        2 Spiraling                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
2 Spiraling
Having weathered the hangover, Twilight left her house the next morning and found herself alone in a bar before noon. It would probably be a good idea to not touch Applejack’s stash again, she thought, since it put her out of commission for an entire day.
Twilight preferred not to drink in front of anypony. After Spike died, she had been drinking to get drunk at home daily but since Totality moved in, she didn't feel comfortable doing it in front of her, so she began going to the bar and just not telling her.
In the beginning, she tried to hide her drinking, but her desire to be constantly inebriated made it impossible to keep up appearances. Everypony knew. Her life had begun to unravel in short order and her self-destructive behavior was putting a strain on her relationships right when she needed them the most.
She felt estranged and unwanted. Even Cadence and Shining Armor were embarrassed of her, at least that's how she interpreted it. She hated feeling like an out of control mess and a pariah every time she sobered up just to find herself deeper in the pit, but she also hated feeling at all, so she kept doing it.
Twilight downed a floating glass in one go and gasped, calling for more. It was good to get the buzz going quickly. Then she’d pace herself after that, if only to spare her bank account.
She covered her eyes and sighed as the warmth began to take her away. Living with this kind of heaviness was inconceivable just a short time ago, but all that seemed like a beautiful dream vanished with the rising of the morning sun. Losing Spike was like losing a sibling, a child, and a best friend all in one. Everything just felt empty. Every task felt insurmountable.
"Wait," giggled Rainbow Dash. "We're not even inside yet." She scrunched up her shoulders as Soarin licked the back of her neck.
The two laughed as they pushed inside the door to Rainbow’s house and raced to the bedroom. Soarin tackled her and pinned her to the already messy bed.
“Oh, no,” she gasped, looking up at him. “You caught me. Now what are you gonna do?”
Soarin’s playful smirk suddenly vanished as his eyes flicked to the side. “What was that?” he wondered aloud.
“What was what?” asked Rainbow.
“That sound,” he continued.
“I didn’t hear any-” Rainbow frowned as she heard the distinct sound of distant retching emanating from somewhere in the house.
She gritted her teeth in dismay. "Uh, hang on just a sec'." She bolted out of the bedroom door and down the hall, wanting to resolve the mysterious issue as quickly as possible. The first place she checked was the hallway bathroom. She pushed the door open to find Twilight Sparkle hunched over and panting with her face over the toilet bowl.
"Twilight?" she whispered in shock. "What the hell? Why are you in my house? How are you in my house?"
Twilight grimaced, looking up from the bowl. "I aparated here. I started feeling sick on my way back from the bar. Your house was the closest and I knew you wouldn't mind."
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. "Well, you knew wrong. You need to either aparate out of here now or puke so quietly that I can’t tell you're here. I'm about to get some much needed-"
"Oh, I didn't know you had a roommate," said Soarin flatly, poking his head around the door frame.
Rainbow clenched her eyes shut and mouthed the word 'shit.' "She's not a roommate. She's just a visitor who was just about to leave. Weren't you, Twilight?" she added through clenched teeth, tilting her head vaguely toward the front door.
Twilight responded by upchucking the rest of her breakfast into the toilet rather loudly.
Soarin's face turned green as he quickly looked away. "Uh, you know I just remembered I really need to get back to Cloudsdale. I’ll see you later, Rainbow Dash… maybe."
"May- maybe?" blathered Rainbow in alarm.
Soarin hurried to the door, desperately needing fresh air.
Twilight looked up from the toilet again and wiped her mouth with her hoof, stretching a string of amber bile between the two. "Oh, you two were… I'm sorry. This is very awkward."
Rainbow crossed her forearms angrily. "Oh, don't even worry about it, Twilight, because you know how easy it is for me get a dude in my bed what with all the sexy hetero vibes I give off.”
Twilight looked confused for a moment. “Are you being sarcastic?”
Rainbow facehooved. ”Why can't you just puke in the ally like a grown ass mare?"
"Because... what if somepony sees me?" she replied pitifully.
"Somepony did see you," scoffed Rainbow. "You know what you look like when you throw up in an alley? Somepony who made a bad decision. You know what you look like when you sneak into somepony's house to throw up? A lunatic."
"Okay, maybe you have a point and I shouldn't have done it, but I don't think you're being entirely understanding of my situation."
Not in the mood, Rainbow cut her off. "Get out of my house and go get your shit together." And with that, she stormed away.
“I can’t believe I just received a lecture on responsibility from Rainbow Dash, of all ponies,” muttered Twilight angrily. She kicked the dust. “This must be what rock bottom looks like.”
It was late afternoon by the time Twilight came back home.
"I finished putting away the upstairs books," began Totality in a monotone. "And I made boxed pasta. It's still on the stove, cold."
"Thanks," sighed Twilight. Having expelled the contents of her stomach and essentially starting from square one for the day, she now felt quite hungry, but unfortunately the thought of food made her sick.
Twilight tried to flee to her bedroom. She got about half way up the stairs before Totality called out to her.
"Umm, so my… thesis."
Twilight rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Oh, yeah. Listen, today turned out to not be a good day."
Totality's expression deflated and her eyes went to the floor. "Well, after the wedding, maybe then?"
Twilight looked back at her confusedly until she finally remembered. "Oh, the wedding. Right. There should be time after that."
"And also," added Totality, "I'm out of money and you haven't paid me."
"Yeah, I'll do that too," she replied quickly before disappearing up the stairs.
Author's Note
A version of this scene very nearly took place with Fluttershy at her cottage instead. The idea was that she'd gotten some burly fix-it guy to come over under the pretext of fixing something that wasn't even broken. Twilight is there and ruins things in a similar fashion. Fluttershy is then simultaneously trying to lovingly care for Twilight's alcohol poisoning while being passive aggressively livid that she scuttled her potential sexual conquest.

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                       3 Rock Bottom                       
//-------------------------------------------------------//
3 Rock Bottom
Today was a responsibility day, unfortunately, which meant Twilight had to schedule her bar time earlier to get it in before the wedding rehearsal.
She was there before they unlocked the doors. As she sat down, she resolved to go easy on the alcohol, at least until after the rehearsal.
When Twilight did finally get to the site, it was more bustling with activity than she expected. She spotted Rarity standing by a table at the back of the seating.
“Uhkay, Raridy. Um here.”
Rarity turned with a start. “Oh, Twilight. What are you doing here… now?” Her eyes grew wide as they gave her a frantic once over. “Looking like that?”
“Wudder you toggin about? ’M here for the rehearsal.”
Rarity blinked. “Darling, that was yesterday and you missed it. This is the wedding.”
Twilight felt an awful pang of panic in her chest. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “When do we start?”
“We already started,” Rarity whispered angrily. “Everyone is seated. The ceremony has begun.” She gestured mockingly at the crowded chairs before them.
“Well waddu I do? I ken help wiv zomething,” she cried.
Rarity had anticipated the reasonable likelihood that Twilight would flake out and abdicate any or all of her duties which is why she'd tapped Lyra as a backup usher. When Twilight didn't show for rehearsal, she just went with plan B and didn't think much about it. She had no idea something like this might happen.
Now beginning to panic, Rarity pleaded with her. “We made do without you. Please just go home, Twilight; it’s fine.”
“Is not fine,” she yelped defensively. “I’ll tell you when iss fine, little miss prissy face.”
A few heads from the seated crowd turned to look back, annoyed at the outburst. Rarity cackled nervously and then turned back to Twilight.
“You sound like you’re day drunk,” she hissed. “This is why they asked me to plan and not you. You’re an unreliable deadbeat. I gave you one task because I felt sorry for you, and this is how you repay me?
Twilight sniffed as tears began to well in her eyes.
Rarity scowled. Don’t you dare. Not here.
Unable to stop, Twilight began to sob and then wail loudly. She turned to gallop away but immediately ran into the drink table, flipping it over along with three full coolers before sprawling out on top of it. The ceremony came to a dead stop and the entire gathering turned in their seats to look back at the source of the racket.
Rarity buried her face in her hooves and froze in horror. "I wish to die. Please merciful Celestia, strike me dead."
Absolutely mortified, Twilight hid in the bar for the rest of the day. Well, that's it, she thought. There went the last vestiges of my reputation. I'm just some out of control drunk to be mocked now.
It was late at night by the time Twilight wobbled home. Pushing open the door, she was surprised to find Totality still awake. She usually went to bed before this so it seemed odd, especially since she didn’t appear to be doing anything but sitting slumped over next to a stack of books.
"How was the wedding?" sighed Totality, listlessly staring at the floor.
"Oh, uhh. It was fine," replied Twilight with a weak grin.
"Really? Because you forgot your dress."
Twilight gritted her teeth. "Um, yeah, I…"
"Well whatever it is that you did, I guess it took longer than you thought it would."
Suddenly Twilight remembered that she'd said she would try to help Totality after the wedding, the wedding which she thought was tomorrow but was actually today. She was supposed to help her today. She’d been at home all day waiting for her.
Totality looked utterly defeated. "It's fine," she muttered. "I can just… do it by myself, I guess. Good theses probably don't matter as much if you get a letter from an upstanding, high profile Celestia protege. You'll be able to do that at least... right?” Her golden eyes met with Twilight’s for the first time and she found herself unable to run away from her again.
Twilight bit her lip. "Umm, well… about that. Princess Celestia and I sort of had a big fight and a falling out after Spike died, and I'm not really in the inner circle of Canterlot academics anymore… or at all."
Totality's jaw dropped in shock. "So you lied to me?"
"No," Twilight shook her head in alarm. "I mean, I never told you that, but you never asked."
Totality shot up from her seat. "That's disingenuous garbage and you know it! Ugh! You knew the whole reason I was here was to get into the academy, and you said you'd help me do it. I was banking on your reputation and a slam dunk letter of recommendation."
Twilight swallowed. "I can still write you a letter. It just… won't improve your chances."
Totality’s face fell in devastation. She hung her head and clutched at her mane. "Unbelievable," she sighed. "I… I can't stay here. I'm wasting my time." She floated her notebook into her saddle bag and then put it on.
"Wait, you're leaving?" gasped Twilight.
Totality brushed past her. "Yes, Twilight. Some of us still have aspirations in life. You know how prestigious that school is. I have to be ahead of the game here. If this isn't helping me get into the academy, I have to find a real apprenticeship or something else that will and I've already lost so much time thanks to you stringing me along."
Twilight flailed for the right thing to say but came up empty. She had no counter argument or excuse for her actions.
Totality stopped in the doorway and looked back, trying and failing to keep tears from her eyes. “Ugh! You’ll never even know how badly this hurt me.” And with that she stepped out with her head hung low and closed the door with her magic.
“Jeeze,” breathed Twilight. She knew she screwed up and it was bad, but this seemed like an overreaction. Teenagers…
Twilight slumped down on the couch and rubbed her face with her hooves in despair.
"Hey, you can drink at home again now," she said to herself in mock excitement, floating a bottle out of a cupboard. "That's all you really wanted, right, you stupid bitch? It's convenient because it's literally the only thing in your life now. Just you and a bottle… forever."
She took a big swig and slammed the bottle down hard on the table. You're doing this completely to yourself, she thought. And no one will stop you. You’ve been screaming into the void for months now and the only response you’ve gotten is a resounding request to turn down the screaming. Everything you touch gets destroyed. It's all an endless positive feedback loop and there's no way to break the cycle. She took another messy chug, letting the drink run down her muzzle and soak into the upholstery. She panted to replenish her air. No, she thought, there's always a way out. There's always a way out.
Twilight went upstairs and popped open the window next to Owlowiscious' perch.
"Okay Owlowiscious, you have to go." She pointed at the open window.
The owl looked at her quizzically. "Who?"
"You. You're free now. I release you. Go on."
"Who."
Twilight waited a few more moments, but it quickly became clear that he either didn't get it or didn't want to go. She tossed him out with her magic and latched the window shut.
Should I write a note or something, she wondered. No. To whom? Nopony would read it. Just do it and get it over with.
Twilight opened a bottle of pain meds and began stuffing pills in her mouth, swallowing mouthfuls aided by interspersed floods of booze. Her eyes began to water as she took on more than she could handle, struggling to choke it all down.
Twilight finished off the last of the pills and coughed, letting the still full bottle of ale clink on the floor. She collapsed on the bed and stared into the photo of her and Spike on the nightstand. "See you soon, little guy."

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                       4 Back Again                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
4 Back Again
Twilight opened her eyes to a bland hospital ceiling. “Well, that didn’t work,” she sighed, rolling off of her aching back. As she faced the window, she became aware of Totality sitting right beside her in a chair.
“Ugh,” groaned Twilight.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” scoffed Totality, crossing her forelegs, one of which had a bandage
“Why did you come back?” murmured Twilight.
“I got to the train station and was planning on buying a ticket and sleeping on a bench when I realized you never paid me and I’m still out of money."
Twilight laughed weakly. "So I survived trying to kill myself by being a deadbeat. You should have just taken my money and let me shuffle off this mortal coil. Then we’d both be where we want to be."
Totality frowned. "I’m kind of disgusted that you would say that." She pulled a journal out of her saddle bag and cracked it open to remove a couple of pictures from the pages. She floated them in front of Twilight's face until she grabbed them.
Twilight squinted at the image, first recognizing herself in the group photo. "What the," she muttered. "Why do you have…" Her eyes scanned the faces of a dozen fillies surrounding her. The one closest to her was a dark gray unicorn with a fiery mane, glasses, bad acne and a big smile full of braces. She looked up from the photo at Totality in surprise.
"I wouldn't expect you to remember-"
Twilight's eyes widened. "No, I remember. I did maybe twenty of these but I remember. You asked more questions than any student on any castle tour. You almost fell in the fountain, you were so excited about everything.” She flipped to the second picture and gasped. It was another group photo of her class for some school project. Students were dressed up, presumably as their research subjects. Totality had done her mane and tail to look like Twilight.
Totality exhaled. "You know when I kept bothering you for help with my thesis? I could have figured it out on my own. I'd probably already have a solid direction by now if I had, but just getting it done wasn't the point. I really just wanted to do academia stuff with Twilight Sparkle."
"W-why didn't you tell me any of this before?"
"Because A: I didn't want to weird you out and B: I didn't want to get preferential treatment for being your little fan."
"I wouldn't have been weirded out… I can’t believe someone would dress up like me.” Her lips quivered as she realized what she’d done. A tear fell on the image. She’d been able to deal with disappointing her friends and family but somehow, disappointing this filly in the photo who saw her as a hero was insufferably gut wrenching. “I failed you,” she sniffed.
"No,” replied Totality. “I get it now. This is clearly a really bad time for you. You have so many big problems, it would be stupid to think you'd have time to help me with mine, especially one that's by comparison so insignificant."
Twilight shook her head. "It's not stupid or insignificant. It's the most important thing in your life right now. I took advantage of you and then pushed you aside. There's no excuse for doing that. I’m so sorry.”
She rubbed her own face as some sort of comforting mechanism. “It wasn’t even that long ago that I was organized and on task and… cared. On day one, if I’d heard the word ‘thesis’ I would have put everything on hold. We’d stay up all night, going through my books. You wouldn’t be able to stop me. You’d already be writing page ten before your school year even started and I’d be thinking up projects to test your acuity so I could draft your letter.”
Totality almost smiled. “I completely believe you. That’s why this was so… profoundly disappointing. But if everything was still like it was, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
Twilight shook her head. “No.” Having never spoken to Totality up close for so long, she suddenly noticed a lightness on her dark horn, a subtle blotch on the tip.
"Will you please let me make this up to you? I feel terrible."
“Are you sure you feel like you can commit to something like that, the way things are right now?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I can’t really write you a letter, but I will help you with your thesis. I promise I won’t leave the house until we nail it down.”
“Okay,” nodded Totality, still unsure.
“Thank you,” Twilight exhaled in relief. “So on another topic, how did you know I ODed and wasn't just passed out drunk like usual?"
"You left the empty pill bottle next to you; same rookie mistake I made."
"Oh," That didn't sound like a good story, thought Twilight. “What happened to your leg?” She pointed at the bandage midway up her foreleg.
Totality shrugged. “I cut it last night, tripping on the stairs, running to the hospital."
Twilight frowned in concern but didn't say anything. It didn't really look like a place where an accidental cut would be.
“I suppose I’ve decided that I’m appreciative that you saved my life.”
“Oh, good,” replied Totality, dryly, pushing up her glasses. “Otherwise that would have put an awkward damper on things, wouldn’t it?”

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                       5 The Basics                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
5 The Basics
“I noticed you picked out a stack of books already,” began Twilight, heading up the stairs. “I’ll find you some more good general ones, but most of my potion stuff is up here near my dresser if that’s the direction you’re wanting.”
"Okay,” replied Totality, following her up.
Twilight began yanking select books from her library shelves of some of the more intriguing topics while Totality browsed through the potion section. Twilight stacked the books one by one in a tower on the floor until she noticed something odd.
Near her bed were drops of what looked like dried, dark red blood on the floorboards and a partial bloody horseshoe print. She scratched the back of her neck, staring as it all began to coalesce in her brain.
"Can I ask you something blunt, Totality?" she began without looking up.
"Huh?"
"How good are you at necromancy?"
Totality's face tightened and her blood ran cold like somepony had just put a knife to her throat. "Wh- why would you just assume I know about necromancy?"
Twilight rubbed her face. "Well, there’s the discoloration on the tip of your horn from overuse of the life spark spell, the odd location of the cut on your foreleg which is more consistent with somepony cutting themselves purposefully, especially to get blood quickly, and the blood drops on my floor and your horseshoe print around the bed where I overdosed, not downstairs like you said. It's strange that you would just start bleeding that much around a dead pony unless you were trying to-"
Totality interjected. "No, I cut myself trying to… get you out of bed," she choked, struggling to come up with any explanation to free her from this accusation. She was on the verge of tears. "Please don't tell anypony!" she cried. " Everything will be ruined. I'll never get into Canterlot or anywhere! It'll be impossible for me to ever amount to anything in my cutie mark field." She began wheezing with short, shallow breaths.
Twilight's face softened in concern as she walked over to her. "Whoa. It's okay. You're not in trouble. I don't care. Maybe I would have, once upon a time, but I don't have any reason to tell anypony."
Totality sat on the floor, eyeing her saddle bag in the corner of the room. She dumped it out in a panic, levitating her inhaler to her mouth.
Twilight waited for her breathing to normalize, feeling guilty that she’d unintentionally startled her so badly.
"I haven't done anything like this in years," gasped Totality
"Well, I can see that's true. The blotchiness has almost grown off your horn."
Totality stroked the tip of her horn. "I didn't even know that's what that was," she murmured.
"Is that how you saved me?" asked Twilight.
Totality took a deep breath as if testing her lungs. "I didn't bring you back to life, if that's what you're asking. The paramedics did. When I found you, you had no pulse. With all those meds still in you, there wasn't much I could do that wouldn't be immediately undone. I'm not powerful enough to carry you by magic all the way to the ER. I knew that by the time I got to the hospital and then they got to you, you'd probably be toast. All I did was buy you some time with the quickest, easiest thing I could do to increase the likelihood that they'd be able to resuscitate you." She pointed at the potted tree by the window. Yesterday it had been perfectly happy but now it was withered and brown, sucked dry of its life.
Twilight put a comforting hoof over her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you through all this. You did something risky and selfless for me, even though I treated you like garbage. I don't deserve you as an assistant... Forgive me if this sounds completely misinformed but when I figured that out, I couldn't help but wonder… Could you bring Spike back?
Totality's face tightened again. "How do you not know necromancy but you can identify a user?"
"Old anti necromancy PSA reels from school,” replied Twilight flippantly. “‘Spot the Signs.'"
Totality exhaled. "In answer to your question: theoretically, yes definitely."
Twilight's eyes bulged. "You're serious?"
"Yes. That is totally a doable thing, but you can't just… Listen, I can but I shouldn't. You know why. You've heard the stories."
"I've heard one-sided propaganda," corrected Twilight. "What do the necromancers have to say?"
Totality stared up at her, thinking and fretting. "Fine. But it's not exactly a quick explanation. She stood up slowly and walked over to the big blank chalkboard.
"Uh, where to start," she muttered to herself. "Well, there are several degrees of quote unquote back that somepony can be. The end result of a resurrection is contingent on a hoofful of factors including length of death, completeness of the remains and… we'll say 'resources sacrificed.' The basic rule of hoof is that what you lack in one variable, you have to make up for in the others to balance the equation."
Twilight, who was now sitting on the floor, raised a hoof. "Umm, Ms. Totality?"
Totality waited awkwardly for her to ask a question until she realized Twilight was actually waiting to be called on. She pointed. "Uh… yes, Twilight Sparkle?"
"Can you explain the 'degrees' of backness somepony can be?"
"Uh, yeah. Well it's a spectrum of things like their intelligence, their memories, behavior and the state of their body. They can look and act just as they did before they died, or they can be significantly less than that. I'm assuming you're wanting a one to one scale perfect revenant who's completely there physically and mentally, just as you remember him. Is that right?"
"Yes," nodded Twilight carefully.
Totality squinted at her. "And you're not willing to haggle on that?"
Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought. "Probably not."
"Okay," sighed Totality. She floated a piece of chalk up to the chalkboard and scratched lines for four columns, labeling them and writing a ten in the last one. "So you want a ten result. That means you need a ten in every column or the sum of the four columns should equal about forty. If you wanted a two, you'd need a score of eight. If you wanted a five, you'd need a twenty. This isn't absolute math, but it gives us a rough idea. So, you know where his body is, right?"
"Eeyup."
"And three months of decomposition aside, I assume he's all there, correct?"
Twilight screwed up her face. "Well, actually no. He's basically just a skeleton."
Totality blinked. "A skeleton? But how? What happened to him?"
"I told you he died in a lab accident. The accident was liquefication of the flesh."
Totality's lips curled. "Eew."
"Yeah, I came in and he was a skeleton laying in a pool of chunky soup. It is a really nice skeleton though," added Twilight thoughtfully.
"So you have a skeleton,” continued Totality. “I'd call that a three for completeness…” She paused to rub her chin in thought. “Actually, he's little, so maybe a four since this is based off of resurrecting an average sized pony." She wrote a four in the first column and floated the chalk over to the next one.
"Second column, which is length of death... unfortunately, anything over a day without intervention gets a zero." She wrote a zero in the second column. Then she wrote a question mark in the third. "Now since one and two are fixed variables we can't do anything about and four is non negotiable for you, that just leaves us with three, or 'sacrificed resources', to pick up the slack with a big fat twenty-six. It would be very costly. But hypothetically, if you put a 'two' as your goal Instead of a ten, then you'd only need a one or two in sacrifice and with minimal effort you could have a stupid, reanimated skeleton who probably doesn't recognize you and might even attack you. See how this works?"
Twilight squinted at the chalkboard, wondering why this methodology felt so modern when it concerned an archaic discipline that hadn't been touched by researchers or academics for hundreds of years. "What is this system that you're using?" she asked, pointing at the board.
"Uhh, well it's…" Totality suddenly seemed embarrassed. Her eyes went to the floor. "I- I invented it. I call it the Totality Scale." Her voice dropped off.
Twilight's mouth dropped open. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because this is amazing."
Totality began to blush. "Well, it's not like it's a solid math equation or anything. It's just a subjective analysis tool."
"But it quickly explains a somewhat ill defined concept with concrete values. This would be invaluable for say, teaching a class. And who's to say that with enough research and fine tuning it couldn't become a math equation? I can't believe a high schooler came up with it."
"I was actually in middle school at the time," she laughed nervously. "But anyway, there are many different spells and rituals out there that will get you what you want, but they’re all basically going to follow this rule. That’s why I'm doubtful that we can find one that we're both going to be comfortable performing."
Twilight bit her lip in worry. "Just so we're clear, a twenty-six in resources for a Spike resurrection would include a live… pony sacrifice?"
Totality set the chalk down and pushed up her glasses. "You can sometimes fudge these things with an equivalent substitution of lots of 'tiny payments', but a number that big, it's unavoidable, might even need multiple live sacrifices. Is that going to be a problem?"
"Yeah," sighed Twilight with conviction.
"Okay, good. That's what I wanted to hear. So… we're done here?"
Twilight buried her face in her hooves, struggling to find the light at the end of the tunnel. "Listen, I'm at wit's end here. I don't want to just close the door on this without actually seeing what's out there first. Will you please help me? We'll just do some research and if we don't find what we're looking for, I'll stop talking about it and we'll just knock out your thesis or go eat a gallon of ice cream or anything you want."
Totality's forehead creased in worry. Her thought was that Twilight was just desperately latching onto a false hope, setting herself up for an inevitable fresh bout of despair and so soon after her attempted suicide. It was horrible and unfair to herself as well. She suddenly felt as though she was shouldering the entire burden of keeping Twilight stable and alive all by herself. What would happen if she said no to the project or tried to leave again?
“Twilight,” she breathed. “I’m very uncomfortable even just talking about this stuff. I’ve lived almost half my life now with an irrational fear that somepony has a picture of me or will somehow find out and then my life will be over.”
Twilight shook her head dismissively. “It’s just research, Totality. That part isn’t as taboo as you think it is. It’s restricted, but technically a student could even write research papers under supervision. In the unlikely event that things go sideways, I would take a hundred percent of the responsibility. It’s only fair, right? What do I even have to lose?”
Totality’s eyes darted about the room as she thought. “Okay, but the other thing is that you need to temper your expectations. It might sound cruel, but you have to go in expecting this to not work out… because it won’t. You can’t try to kill yourself again when it doesn’t. Can you imagine being me in this situation and then living with that, especially if you succeeded?”
Twilight shook her head again. “I would never do that to you. I promise. But I also don’t want you to think that you have to do this for me.”
Totality sighed. “I’ll help you if only to shut down this avenue and force you to begin a genuine healing process.”
“You sound like a therapist. See? I don’t need a therapist, I have you.”
Totality rolled her eyes. “If you’re looking for a live-in self help guru, you’ve come to the wrong place. But I will pass along something that my therapist told me. Only you can save you from you.”
Twilight made a mental list of all the best leads for tracking down viable necromantic materials and put them in order of most desirable to least desirable. At the top was asking Zecora. Next was raiding the Canterlot archives in some sort of daring heist. Then came several blank spaces, finally ending with asking Dischord.
Twilight and Totality approached the open door of the lonely hut in the Everfree Forest. “Hello, Zecora?” called Twilight. “It’s Twilight Sparkle.” The two stopped in the doorway to find the zebra stirring a big boiling pot.
She looked up in surprise. "Oh, Twilight! Congratulations on the bed you rock, with the red stallion with the giant c-"
"OKAYTHANKSALOTZECORA!REALLYAPPRECIATEIT!" blurted Twilight loudly, her face crimson in embarrassment. How the hell did she know about that, thought Twilight. She lived alone in the middle of nowhere.
The unicorns stepped inside and Totality’s eyes began to dart around the room in wonder at all the mysterious sights. She sniffed a hanging bushel on the wall that smelled of sage and stared into the eyes of a strange mask.
Zecora placed a big wet spoon on the table. “Just finishing a brand new pot. Who is the friend that you have brought?”
Twilight gestured to Totality. “This is my assistant, Totality. She’s a student. Totality, this is Zecora.”
The two greeted each other.
“What are you making?” asked Twilight.
“Powerful contraceptive, guaranteed to stop even the most virile seed. Take all you need.” Zecora gestured, cheerily to a wooden box of full, neatly regimented vials.
“I think I'm good,” laughed Twilight, suddenly somewhat fearful that Zecora had made an enormous batch of birth control potions specifically for her.
Totality surreptitiously tried to float a vial out of the box until Twilight shot her a dirty look.
Zecora brought the bubbling pot off of the fire to let it cool. “You look like you’re in a rut. What brings you to my little hut?”
“Well,” began Twilight, trying to sound as casual as possible. “I had a project I was working on and was just wondering if you had, or knew where I could find... instructional necromancy literature.”
Zecora laughed. “For that you came all the way out here? I have no books on this, I fear. But I can say somewhere they would be. Turn around and go to the Ponyville Library.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped “Our library has necromancy literature?”
“Why, yes, indeed it does… uh…” The Zebra scratched her head and frowned as she struggled to come up with words for her prose. “For this you must… Ugh. Just ask a librarian about it,” she shrugged.
“Okay, thanks,” nodded Twilight excitedly. Then she furrowed her brow. “Hey, wait. How come that didn’t rhyme?”
Zecora sighed listlessly. “I don’t have to rhyme every time I speak. It's not like it's a rule. Sometimes I'm just tired and want to say what I want to say, y’know?” She stared vacantly into the settling pot.
It was late by the time the two got back to Ponyville.
“Let’s just go straight to the library,” proposed Twilight.
“No library’s going to be open at this hour,” countered Totality
“Ours is, and it’s the perfect time to go. It’ll be a ghost town.”
Totality was surprised to find that the library was indeed open. But as they entered, they found the place completely vacant without a pony in sight.
“It’s such a ‘ghost town’ that there’s not even any staff,” droned Totality.
“Hello?” called Twilight. They waited, but there was no response. “It’s open and the lights are on,” she reasoned to herself. “There has to be somepony here.” Her eyes fell on the ‘staff only’ door behind the empty counter. “C’mon,” she breathed.
The two walked up to the door and Twilight pushed it open. They stuck their heads in carefully to see Pinkie Pie, sitting alone on the break room couch, smoking a cigarette.
Pinkie Pie’s eyes shot open at seeing their faces and she quickly flicked the cigarette haphazardly across the room.
"Pinkie Pie? You smoke?"
"In the library?" added Totality.
"What?" she exploded defensively. "Who would say such a thing about me?" She crossed her forelegs. “Ridiculous!”
Twilight and Totality exchanged quizzical looks.
"Nopony said anything. I just saw you smoking and I smelled the smoke and then you tried to ditch the cigarette in a ficus planter."
Pinkie Pie threw up her hooves. "Ugh. Fine, mother, I've been smoking since I got fired from Sugar Cube Corner. Happy?"
Twilight's eyes widened. "You got fired?"
"Yeah," shrugged Pinkie. "That's why I work here now."
"Why'd you get fired?"
"For fucking Carrot Cake. Did you never hear about this?"
"No," gasped Twilight, suddenly realizing how distant and out of the loop she’d become. "Wait, do you mean Carrot Cake the baker or carrot cake the... cake?"
"The baker, obviously," scoffed Pinkie Pie. "Carrot cake the cake is one of the least fuckable cakes. It’s way too crumbly."
An unfortunately timed lull in the conversation forced everypony to gestate uncomfortably on this thought.
Finally Totality cleared her throat and nudged Twilight to begin talking before Pinkie could. "So anyway, the reason we're here is…"
"Oh yeah," remembered Twilight. “So, Pinkie, you’re a librarian now?”
Pinkie Pie screwed up her face and shrugged. “Probably.”
“Prob… ably?” blinked Twilight. “Well, can you get me anything you have on necromancy?”
“Sure,” replied Pinkie, rising to her hooves. “Follow me.” She grabbed a big ring of keys and the three exited the break room.
“As you know, it’s restricted material,” began Pinkie. “But somepony in high standing, affiliated with Canterlot academia such as yourself of course has privileged access to that stuff.”
Twilight and Totality cringed and side-eyed each other.
“Who’s your friend?” asked Pinkie cheerily.
“Oh, yeah,” laughed Twilight. “This is Totality, my assistant.” She turned to totality. “And this is Pinkie Pie... So how are the Cakes doing now?" she added warily.
"They're fine," muttered Pinkie Pie callously. "They're going to work it out, AKA: Mrs. Cake doesn't want to raise two kids and run a business alone. The real story here is how I’m now banned from Sugarcube Corner.” She scowled, thinking about being cut off from all that discounted candy and pastries.
They headed down some stairs and into a long hallway. Pinky finally stopped at a decrepit old door and fiddled with the keys. She muttered curses under her breath after failing with half a dozen of them. Then she shot a glare back at the two ponies. "I'm still new!" She shouted angrily. "Give me a break!"
Totality gave Twilight a what the hell shrug, confused by the unprovoked outburst.
Finally the door clicked open and everypony breathed a sigh of relief.
Pinkie Pie lit a lantern and turned up the wick for maximum brightness. "Just a heads up, if you hear any weeping, screaming or strange, almost imperceptible murmurs seemingly scratching at the darkest recesses of your brain like a long repressed memory of some unforgivable sin that you thought was dead and buried and then you’re hiding in the barn…” A faraway look came over Pinkie’s eyes. “Shh. He’s coming. He'll find us. No, father!" she shrieked. "Put it down! Run! Ahhh! No, please! Not the cellar again! I'll be a good filly just like you want! Not the cellar!"
Wide-eyed, Totality cautiously took a step back.
"Uh, Pinkie Pie," interrupted Twilight.
Pinkie’s eyes refocused as she snapped back to the topic in her previously cheery tone. "These are all perfectly normal and mostly harmless experiences you might have in the restricted literature section of the library. However, if you ever hear a tome, scroll or parchment speak directly to you, it's very important that you do not answer it." She tapped a dusty plaque on the wall which said 'Danger: Do not speak to the books.' and then placed a cheek against it, caressing it sensually with one hoof. "But most important of all, have fun!" She smiled, her face now smudged with dust. Then she bounced out the door.
"Wow,” breathed Twilight. “She's so much better now that she's medicated. I'm really proud of her."
Totality said nothing, mashing her lips together for fear that she might.
"I mean, homewrecking aside," clarified Twilight. "And losing her job… and the smoking."
"In the library," added Totality.
The two surveyed the dingy room which looked like it might not have been entered by anypony in years. There were a modest number of shelves which sat crammed full and disorganized. Some books and parchments were even strewn carelessly on the floor. It didn't look so much like a curated feature of the library but more a place to hide and forget about things.
Twilight illuminated her horn. "What exactly are we looking for?" she asked, entering a random aisle.
"This doesn't look organized at all," sighed Totality. “But I'd say, ignore everything with a modern binding. Only look at scrolls, papers and hoofstitched things." She let out a hoarse wheeze.
“Are you okay?” gasped Twilight.
“Fine,” muttered Totality. “Just taking a precautionary rip off my inhaler before the dust decides to kill me.”
They dove into the books and soon realized that it really wasn't organized. A few thousand documents in one room, completely scrambled.
"This is like looking for a diatom in a haystack," muttered Totality. "But these titles are great. Listen to these. On the Virtues of Cannibalism. Practical Trepanation. Phrenology of the Damned. Breeding with... Ghosts? I thought it said goats but it actually says 'ghosts.'"
Twilight wrinkled her forehead. "Can you do that?"
"We could find out, I guess?"
"Hard pass. Have you found anything at all on necromancy yet?"
Totality put a hoof over her nose to stop herself from sneezing. "A couple," she replied. "They weren't helpful."
"Some of these things I can't even read," muttered Twilight. "They look like they're written in-"
"Runic Arcana?" enquired Totality. "Pull those out and I'll look at them."
Twilight locked eyes with her through a gap in the books. "You can read that?"
"Eeyup. Only because of the hobby. But it's actually super easy. We can check out a primer. You could skim it and have a working vocabulary in an hour… if we ever need to, that is."
"If you say so," sighed Twilight. "I assume you're a self taught necromancer. When you were little, how did you get your contraband?"
“Library,” Totality replied absently. “Found an old book in a discard pile. Somepony must have screwed up. I just took it.”
The two continued digging and digging. By the time they'd gone through a third of the documents, they were both tired, dirty, and feeling pretty hopeless.
Totality had found nothing that would accomplish their goal, pony sacrifices or not. Twilight had amassed a modest pile of books to show her, but wasn't holding her breath.
Totality began going through the documents in Runic Arcana with her magic. "Nope. nope… nope." Around the bottom of the pile, she picked one up and actually opened it. It was stitched by hoof and a little thin, only featuring a single ritual.
Totality squinted at the first page. "Well, this actually says it does what we're wanting to do, so there's that.” She began to skim through the book over detailed drawings and diagrams and messy ink splatters, all of it written in a strange code.
Totality's jaw went slack as she reached the end of the book. She closed it and flipped through all the pages again and then again in reverse. She shook her head slowly. "This can't be real," she breathed. "This is…" She turned to the inside cover and adjusted her glasses to scrutinize the page.
Her eyes bulged and she looked back up at Twilight. "It's inked by Grim Void. It's real. It only uses blood and non pony ingredients." She began shaking in excitement. "This is it. This is the unobtainium I used to dream about. Ethical big league necromancy."
Twilight laughed in disbelief. "Hey," she said. "You're really smiling." She pointed at Totality’s face.
"Am I?" asked Totality.
"Yeah, just like in the picture. It looks nice."
"Actually, now that you mention it, I'm kind of pissed off that this appears to fly in the face of my scale," she complained, still smiling.

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                      6 Preparations                       
//-------------------------------------------------------//
6 Preparations
At about six the next morning, Twilight decided that they had waited long enough. She yawned over her Runic Arcana primer, bags under her eyes. "I'm so excited, I couldn't sleep," she grumbled.
Totality took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Neither could I. I kept wanting to turn on the lights and read the book. I should have just done it."
She laid on her stomach on the floor, flipping slowly through the old book and jotting down notes. She used a sheet of paper instead of her notebook, as she planned to eventually destroy the information in the end.
"I should tell you now that while I'm familiar with most of the principles and processes in this particular ritual, I've never done anything this big before."
Twilight had forgotten to formally ask Totality if she'd agree to sign on to performing the ritual, but she appeared to be genuinely fanatical about it. "What kind of rituals did you do?" asked Twilight absently.
"Nothing with higher life forms. I worked in a very small scale with substitutions. Like I'd bring a dead beetle back by sacrificing a small tree. It was proof of concept level stuff. If we pull this off, it'll be my magnum opus by a wide margin."
The two of them studied their books in lazy silence until Totality finished her notes. She closed the book and her eyes and laid her head down on the floor.
"Mkay," she mumbled. "I got the shopping list. It requires a significant amount of blood, so my thought is that with only two donors, we should start harvesting blood ASAP so our bodies have time to recover sooner for more harvesting later. We have to make about a hoofsized blood crystal as a stand-in for Spike's heart. The blood seals are probably going to require the most blood though."
"Virgin?" enquired Twilight.
Totality squinted up at her in confusion at the seemingly arbitrary question. "Uh… no?" she shrugged.
"I'm talking about the blood," clarified Twilight flatly.
Totality's eyes widened. "Oh, yeah, I knew that," she laughed awkwardly. "It doesn't specify, so it probably doesn't matter."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Well, isn't that a blessing then?" She closed the primer and let it thud on the coffee table. “What else do we need?”
“The body. That’s another thing we should get sooner.”
“Why?" shrugged Twilight. "It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”
Totality rubbed her muzzle. “Because we have to grow cloud moss spores on his bones to facilitate his rapid new flesh growth, and that could take a few days.”
Twilight closed her eyes in exhaustion. “I bet I could speed that up with a spell but sure, we could dig him up tonight. Well, in the meantime let’s get bleeding.”
Twilight dug out her phlebotomy supplies and tossed them on a metal tray on the table. Then she got several empty flasks and lined them up at the ready.
"Wow. Needles," mused Totality. "Wish I'd had this stuff when I was little. Then maybe I wouldn't have a big scar on my foreleg."
Twilight cleaned her skin with disinfectant and unceremoniously stuck herself with a needle faceted at the end of a tube. She placed the open end in the mouth of a flask which sat on the table, braced in a little stand. She unkinked the tube and the dark red fluid began to race into the bottom of the flask.
"We could use electrolysis to speed up the crystallization," proposed Totality, lazily watching the blood level rise.
"Nope," yawned Twilight. "Spell."
"Oh, right. I keep thinking in terms of my own limitations. I forget I'm working with a walking grimoire. Maybe this whole thing won't even take that long."
Twilight filled the first flask completely with blood. She switched over to a new one while Totality corked the other.
Totality sat at the table with eyes closed, her head propped up on her hoof when suddenly she heard a thud. Her eyes shot open to see Twilight slumped motionless over the table. “Oh, shit,” she muttered, stumbling out of her seat. She yanked the needle out of Twilight’s leg with her magic and then applied pressure to the hole to get her to stop bleeding.
Twilight woke up on her bed in a puddle of drool. “Umph, Totality?” she mumbled, confusedly looking about the room.
“Oh, there you are,” said Totality, who was sitting at the table with both of their new books. “Drink that water.” She pointed to a big jug on her night stand.
Twilight floated the jug to herself. “How long was I out?”
“Almost two hours." Totality raised an eyebrow. "Guess who came by.”
Water began to spill down Twilight’s front before she took a break from it.
“It was Big Mac,” continued Totality. “I told him you were… out. He seemed distraught and then left.
“Damn it!” she slammed the water down. “He’s going to think I’m avoiding him.” She rubbed her face in her hooves, frustratedly trying to restart her brain. “Okay, c’mon.” She looked back at Totality and sighed, thinking. “Huh… I just got it.”
Totality blinked. ‘“Got what?”
“Your name.”
Totality’s eyes ping ponged around as if she were watching a fly buzzing over her head. “You didn’t know what a totality was?”
“No, of course I know what a totality is,” scoffed Twilight. “I meant that you look like a totality. Your dark body is like the eclipse and your bright mane and tail are like the corona.”
“Eeyup,” agreed Totality.
“That’s really interesting,” nodded Twilight. “What were we doing though?”
“Blood crystal. We have enough blood to start one. We got a flask and a half before you went down. We can still take more blood from you, we just shouldn’t do it while you’re so sleep deprived I guess.”
“Okay, okay,” agreed Twilight. “Let’s start on that crystal and then eat something.” Twilight got a bowl and emptied the entire first flask of blood into it. Then she focused on the center of the blood pool. A continuous purple laser shot from her horn into the bowl. She watched intently, waiting to see a crystal begin to rise from the surface of the liquid but all of a sudden, the blood caught fire. Twilight stopped abruptly and conjured an airtight dome over the bowl until the flames suffocated. Totality watched all the while with raised eyebrows.
Twilight grinned. “Well, that was an interesting reaction.”
“I’ll say,” droned Totality. “Your blood must be at least eighty proof by this point.”
Twilight levitated a pair of tweezers into the bowl and fished out a red crystal the size of a grain of rock salt. She floated it up in front of Totality’s face. “Let me know if this is too big. I can shave it down.”
Totality adjusted her glasses and squinted at the diminutive crystal. “No, it’s good… That is if we want to bring Spike back in a cockroach body. Let’s put your blood back in the flask and save it for painting the blood seals. Let’s try using mine for the crystal.”
“Sure,” agreed Twilight. “But how are you feeling right now?”
“Better since I ate breakfast. I should be fine.” She clopped her hooves together in anticipation.
Twilight got out a fresh needle and tube while Totality cleaned the vein on her uncut leg.
“You do it,” asked Totality, presenting her leg. She’d never used a needle before and was unsure of herself.
Twilight quickly found her vein and pushed the needle in. She let the blood flow and in a few minutes they had two more full flasks. She reset the bowl and filled it with Totality’s blood.
“Alright, let’s try this again,” whispered Twilight. She zapped the bowl with the same spell. Where the laser met the surface of the blood, a crystal began to rise. As it grew in size, the blood receded, absorbing into the mass. She stopped when almost all the liquid blood was gone.
Totality picked up the crystal with her magic to examine it. “Nice…” The mass was a little bigger than a golf ball, a knot of trigonal shaped points sticking out in all directions. She placed it back in the bowl and dumped the entirety of the second flask in with it. “Keep going.”
Twilight hit the crystal again until all the blood was gone from the bowl.
Totality peered down approvingly. “We’ll probably need at least one more flask’s worth from me to get it to the right size.”
Twilight nodded, “We’ll wait a while before getting more blood. I’m gonna eat.”
Twilight returned from town with a full saddle bag. “I got all the stuff,” she shouted, pushing the door closed.
“Upstairs,” called a faraway Totality.
Twilight brought her bounty up the spiral staircase to find Totality hunched over the table, manipulating a little paintbrush. She set the saddle bag down on the floor and looked over Totality’s shoulder. She was painting a triangular formation of three little overlapping circles of Runic Arcana text and other symbols she couldn’t identify. They were all meticulously scrawled in blood straight upon the wood.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m seeing if I still know how to make blood seals. Don’t worry, this’ll burn right off.” She placed three green leaves she’d picked outside, one into each circle. Then she put a cracked, brown skeltal leaf in the nexus where all the circles overlapped. Her horn began to glow and suddenly an arc of lightning snapped from the tip to the carefully painted seals. The blood melted away instantly in a flurry of tiny red embers. The green leaves began to wrinkle and brown while the leaf in the center appeared to regenerate, flourishing to the point of looking like it was freshly picked.
“Wow!” exclaimed Twilight, lifting up the resurrected leaf. “That’s amazing. It looks more like an art form than a discipline. It's so crazy that you can just reverse death like that.”
“Yeah,” breathed Totality. “But we killed three leaves to bring back one. So often unfortunately everything is contingent upon how much you like that one leaf.”

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                        7 The Body                         
//-------------------------------------------------------//
7 The Body
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” asked Twilight, jamming a shovel through the loops of her saddle bag. “I mean, it’s not like you knew him or he’s your responsibility to be bothered with.”
“I’d dig up bodies for fun,” replied Totality. “As long as you don’t think this is some kind of desecration of your friend’s remains, it’s fine. Besides, it’ll go a lot faster with two ponies digging.”
"Or one pony digging and one lookout," smiled Twilight.
Totality pushed up her glasses. "Or that..."
The two unicorns set off after dark for the Ponyville Cemetery. As they approached the locked wrought iron gates, Twilight simply apparated the both of them inside the grounds with a flick of her horn.
A chilling breeze sliced through them, bringing an ensemble of dead leaves to rattle across the dirt path. An owl hooted loudly from up in one of the old gnarled oak trees which populated the cemetery. The waxing gibbous moon watched silently as it hung over the distant mountains.
“Ah,” sighed Totality. “It’s everything I could have hoped for.”
“Would you say this is your ideal date venue?” smirked Twilight.
“Uhh… No comment.”
They passed through the shadow of a mausoleum before leaving the beaten path to plod between a pair of grassy hills. There appeared to be no other presence on the property and conveniently there was nearly enough moonlight to read by.
Twilight paused, momentarily unsure of where they were, “Wait,” she whispered, looking about. “No, this is right,” she assured herself. She brought Totality to a new but modest sized headstone. It somehow felt so fitting for Spike. She bent down close to the inscription just to confirm. “Eeyup,” she breathed.
Totality gave her a moment as she seemed to be quietly lost in thought at seeing his grave again or maybe it was more like a sobering slap in the face.
“Aright, let’s do it,” commanded Twilight, backing away from the headstone.
The two levitated their shovels above the grave and began breaking earth.
“Wow,” mused Twilight, staring up at the moon. “I just realized how insane this all is. What the hell am I doing, exhuming a body under cover of night for use in a necromantic ritual?”
“Yeah, perhaps we could have hashed all those issues out at some earlier time,” droned Totality.
"It's fine," muttered Twilight dismissively.
The soil was looser than that of the older graves which made it easier to dig. Several chilly minutes later, there came a 'thunk' from the hole. The two paused to look in and saw the exposed lid of a simple wooden coffin. They both took another cautious scan of the cemetery for any signs of danger and then quickly scraped the rest of the dirt off of the little oblong box.
Twilight floated just the loose lid from the coffin and sighed in wonder at the miniature dragon bones within. They were still curated nicely in correct anatomical position. She stared into the skull’s two empty sockets and smiled weakly. “Nice to see you again, Spike.”
“You were right,” agreed Totality, scratching her chin. “That is a really nice skeleton.”
Twilight cut the heartwarming reunion short, jumbled up the bones quickly and floated them all with ease into a canvas bag. “Wow,” she laughed. “And I thought he was portable before.”
They hastily threw heaping globs of dirt back into the hole with their magic and fled the cemetery, riding an amazing high of irreverent delinquency.
“That went well,” declared Twilight, kicking the door shut behind her. “And it’s not even that late,” she added, looking at the clock. “We should set him up in the tub tonight.”
“The tub?” moaned Totality.
“Yeah, he needs to soak while the spores grow, right?”
“Yes, but in the tub? What if I want to take a shower?”
“Oh, he won’t be in there for that long,” argued Twilight. “We’ll stick him in the water, sprinkle him with moss spores and tomorrow morning I’ll hit him with a growth spell or something and the process will be done.”
"Fine," she sighed.
The two unicorns convened in the upstairs bathroom. Twilight stopped up the drain and let in just enough water to cover the bottom of the basin.
Totality arranged the bones nicely, almost as if they were ancient artifacts on display in a glass case in a museum. Most of them were only partially submerged, which was the ideal environment for growing cloud moss on something.
Twilight spread the spores directly on top of the bones from a little paper packet she got at the store. The spores were practically microscopic. It was like sprinkling sand. Totality misted them with a spray bottle and stood back.
"Is that it?" asked Twilight.
"That's it."
"I have to say, this is not what I picture when I think 'necromancy.' I think the most surprising thing about this so far is how little division there seems to be between plants and animals."
"It matters sometimes,” replied Totality. “But yeah, a lot of the time life is just life I guess."
"Have you ever thought of trying chlorophyll seals instead of blood ones?" asked Twilight, eyes large with epiphany.
"I did. It didn't work." She put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder and looked straight into her in a rare show of sincere excitement. "Wouldn't that be amazing though? You could potentially have a completely vegan ritual!"
The two of them laughed before splitting for bed.
Totality laid on her stomach on the couch, reading the book by the light of her horn until she heard the sound of tiny wooden creaks.
Twilight appeared at the top of the stairs, floating her pillow and comforter in the air. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” she grinned. “Since we probably won’t be sleeping much anyway from all the excitement, why don’t I sleep down here on the floor and we can have a slumber party… to a semi responsible degree?”
“This is mostly about not wanting to sleep near that skeleton, isn’t it?” asked Totality bluntly.
“Eeyup,” nodded Twilight, creeping down the stairs.
"It's your house. You can sleep wherever you want."
“I know but can’t you be excited about having a slumber party, please?”
Totality pumped her hoof halfheartedly. “Woooo,” she droned. “Slumber party for two.”
“Thank you,” muttered Twilight dryly. Then much quieter, “What a teenager response.” She tossed her blanket on the floor opposite Totality, on the other side of the coffee table and sprawled out on top of it.
Totality folded her glasses and floated them to the coffee table with the book, her eyes too tired to read anymore.
“I’d call that a really productive day,” sighed Twilight, melting into her comforter.
“We got most of the hard stuff done,” concurred Totality. If you get that moss growing tomorrow like you said, your magic’s going to cut our schedule down to a third of what I was expecting. I bet we can wrap this up, day after tomorrow. Then you have to teach me that crystal thing when we finish.”
“Sure. This is so exciting.” After seeing Totality’s test ritual, it had suddenly all become real to her, not just a hypothesis or a dream. She could feel every cell in her body vibrating with anticipation. “Have you thought at all about your thesis?”
“Absolutely not,” laughed Totality. “This is way too distracting.”
“That’s good to hear.” What a turnaround from just two days ago, Twilight thought. Everything was just surreal, like some sort of fever dream. She glanced over the top of the coffee table to see Totality without her glasses, staring off into space. Before she could even think to stop, the words were already leaving her mouth. “Why'd you try to kill yourself?"
Totality squinted at the ceiling. "What?"
Twilight looked away, nervous now. "Back at the hospital, you made it sound like you tried to overdose too."
"Oh yeah... Well, I did, but I wasn't trying to kill myself, at least not permanently. I was trying to share my life force with a dead pet. He hadn't been dead long, so I thought it would be easier to bring him back like that. I had something planned for bringing myself back afterward."
"Wait, I thought if you had toxins in your body or an overdose it would impede a resurrection."
Totality’s eyes flicked to the side. "It will. I was so little, I hadn't pieced that logic together yet. I was desperate and everything about my plan was really stupid. I'm lucky my parents found me or I wouldn't be here. When I came back, everypony needed to know why I quote unquote attempted suicide. I was terrified of telling them what was actually doing so instead of setting the record straight, I decided to make up some reasons for why I supposedly wanted to die and that of course landed me in therapy for many years.
Twilight burst into laughter. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny.”
“No, it is funny," she laughed weakly. "It’s the funniest joke I can’t tell anypony. Here I am ten years later, still living with the ramifications of a lie I told in grade school… And I didn't even get my cat back."
"Is that whole debacle why you quit necromancy?"
"No… Well… it was a lot of things. The double life. The constant fear of being found out and living as an outcast forever. It was really disheartening making discoveries that I thought were amazing and never being able to tell anypony. You know that life spark spell is the first spell I ever learned? Even before I could really levitate anything. I was so incredibly proud of myself. Guess how many ponies know I can do that? One. It's you."
Twilight remembered the scale Totality had shown her and immediately felt sick that she’d probably never get recognition for it. "That's really sad. Do you ever miss it?"
"All the time. If things were just different, I'd still be doing it, but they’re not and I just can’t live trapped like that forever. I got a respectable cutie mark, not some weird occult shit like I was afraid I'd get, and that seemed like a sign it was a good time to let go. It’s a lot of fun but it’s not the only thing out there. It’s not the end of everything… even though it kind of feels like it at first.”
Twilight rolled on her other side and stared at the ellipse of moonlight the window cast upon the floor, Totality's words weighed on her mind for a moment before she called to her.
“So what happened between you and Celestia?”
Twilight groaned. “Fine… I guess I owe you that. I already told you it had to do with Spike’s death, but the rest of the story is that Princess Celestia was actually right here when it happened. When we found him, she demanded to know what I had him working on in the lab. I was at a complete loss for words. I couldn’t even comprehend what had happened, let alone why. We were both shocked and highly emotional at that moment. She insinuated that I’d been negligent or done something wrong that led to his death, and everything after that was just an angry exchange in an airing of grievances. Then she expelled me. I guess she won that fight. We haven’t spoken since. I tried to send her two letters but I’m pretty sure they went straight in the trash.”
“Wow,” breathed Totality. "I don't know what you said to her, but getting expelled seems like a rash reprisal."
“I know,” sighed Twilight. “So many dedicated years and a great track record just tossed in the fire like it was nothing. I don’t understand why it needed to be like this. As if losing Spike wasn’t devastating enough? I had to lose my career too and then… everything else?” She shook her head. “But anyway, it wasn’t until later when I had to mop him up alone that I realized that he’d been working on two different things at the same time and he got them mixed up. His mistake, by my reasoning, would have created a seriously caustic gas cloud with a short potency. That’s what killed him; it wasn't anything I did.”
“Well, at least you know that much.”
“Yeah,” scoffed Twilight. “If I thought that there was even a possibility that I’d killed him, I probably would have offed myself within a week. I can't imagine being able to live with that.”
Just then, there came a tapping at the window. Twilight sat up with a start and looked to see a feathered face peering in at them.
“Owlowiscious!” gasped Twilight, opening the window with her magic. “You came back! “I’m so glad.”
The owl fluttered in, alighting on Twilight’s lap. She hugged him.
“Whoo,” he said, flapping over to perch on the arm of the couch. He picked a loose strand of Totality’s mane up in his beak and began tugging on it.”
“Ow,” she said dryly.
“Uh, Owlowiscious? What are you-”
“Does he not do this to you?” asked Totality.
Twilight shook her head. “No. I guess he just likes harassing assistants.”

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                       8 The Ritual                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
8 The Ritual
When Twilight came back, Totality had moved the table from the center of the room and had created three perfect circles in chalk on the floorboards. She was sitting on the floor next to the open book, painting the inscription with blood around the chalk guidelines.
“Woah,” said Twilight, setting down the new tub. “This is big. How did you get the circles so round?”
“Chalk on a string tied to a push pin at the centers like a protractor,” yawned Totality. "That was the easy part. The rest, unfortunately, is going to take hours."
Twilight worked on the tub of water while Totality painted. Lunch came and Totality painted while eating. She painted until her back hurt and she had to stop for a while, but then she painted again later. She kept painting until Celestia's sun went down and she was an aching lump on the floor.
"Okay," she smirked, cheek pressed against the floor. "We're about ninety percent done with the seals and ninety-seven percent done with prepping for the ritual."
That night, they took sleeping potions.
In the morning, Totality awoke from Twilight shaking her.
"Totality!" she begged urgently. "Go do the rest of the circles! I'll make breakfast."
Totality flung off her blanket and snatched up her glasses before trotting to the stairs. Before long, Twilight brought up breakfast and she once again ate on the floor while painting.
In just about an hour's time, Totality squeezed the last drop of Twilight's blood from the brush and put it down. Then she looked up at Twilight. "That's it. We're ready."
Giddy with anticipation, the two of them moved about the room as if their manes were on fire. Twilight placed the basin of carbon infused water within the nexus of the three circles. Then she tossed in the mossy bones and Spike’s favorite bowtie as a personal effect. Then she picked up the blood crystal.
"Wait, I can't put the crystal in here. It'll dissolve."
"Just put it inside any one of the circles," ordered Totality, frantically.
Twilight levitated the heart construct into the center of the nearest circle and dashed over to Totality. She covered her mouth with her hooves, wild eyed. "Is that everything?"
"That's everything! Here we go." Without any further thought or discourse, Totality's horn began to glow. There came a loud snap as an electrical arc struck the blood seal from the tip of her horn. The bloody inscription was seemingly set ablaze and the two unicorns held their breath.
The seal rapidly burned off of the floor, dispersing into the air as a flurry of red sparks. There came a sustained ringing, increasing in pitch as the blood crystal vanished and brilliant light rays shot from the basin.
Just as the two raised their hooves to guard their eyes, it was all over. A light sizzle could be heading as a thin wisp of steam escaped the basin.
Totality and Twilight exchanged slack jawed expressions before hurrying to the basin. Breathlessly, they looked down.
Curled up in the bottom of the now waterless tub was the unfinished body of Spike. His bones had reassembled in correct anatomical order. The moss had been replaced with an uneven distribution of flesh and sinew. The pose instantly reminded Twilight of the way he used to sleep in his little bed.
Totality stamped her hoof in frustration. "It didn't work!"
"But it started to," replied Twilight, pointing into the tub. "What happened?"
Totality grabbed the ritual book and began flipping through it angrily, “Ugh, so much time and blood.” She abruptly stopped and took a deep breath to talk herself down. “You know what? We’re closer than we were before. Let’s just… retrace our steps.”
Totality went over the book with a fine tooth comb but couldn’t find any omission or misstep in the process. She set the book down and gave an exacerbated sigh. “I don’t understand. We followed the instructions. We did everything it said.”
Twilight picked up the book and began flipping through lazily. “Maybe the ritual is faulty,” she wondered aloud. “Maybe-” She stopped mid sentence as her eyes fell upon the tiniest rough paper edge poking out from the crease between the pages. Carefully she teased the crease wider to look deeper inside. Her heart stopped. “Totality… the book’s missing a page.”
“I don’t remember where I pulled that specific book from,” sighed Twilight. “But I know I got it from one of these three aisles.”
Totality nodded, “Okay. I’ll start here. You start at that end. Remember to check the floor too. It could have fallen out when you picked it up.” Then she muttered to herself, “It could have fallen out anywhere.”
Both of them felt an intense sense of dread about searching the restricted books section again; neither of which wanted to express it to the other. If they couldn’t find the lost page, it would drive them insane. If they did find it, they feared what it would say. Somehow Totality was even more doubtful than she was during their first visit.
Twilight worked through the first aisle without finding anything. When she started in the second aisle, she almost immediately noticed a suspicious piece of paper sitting conspicuously atop the bottom row of books. Her heart skipped a beat. That wasn't there last time. She levitated the page in front of her. It was an unmistakable match to the book.
Her Runic Arcana skills were remedial, but she could understand enough and she could see the diagrams. She lost her breath. Three live ponies. That was what they were missing from their ritual. Twilight bit her lip as she flipped the page over. On the other side was a possible substitution sacrifice, one live pony with an upside down cutie mark. Then there were instructions detailing how to create one by killing and resuscitating a filly before their mark appeared.
Totality, having finished searching the first aisle, came to the second and found Twilight reading. “Did you find it?” she gasped.
Twilight turned to her slowly, a devastated look in her eyes. “It’s over. This project is cancelled.” She passed the lost page to her.
Totality skimmed both sides, her face contorting in horror. “This is... the worst thing ever.”
Twilight clenched her eyes shut, lips tight and quivering. She braced her head against a dusty shelf as she began to sob in solitude. It felt so close, but it was just a cruel mirage.
“Twilight?” This was a bad idea after all, thought Totality.
Twilight began to heave, her short, stuttering breaths almost sounding like laughter.
Totality put a hoof on her shoulder in concern. “Are you… okay?"
"Yes," choked Twilight, smiling with tears rolling down her cheeks.
Totality was shocked by her reaction. "Then why the hell are you laughing?" she asked confusedly.
"Because it just occurred to me that if we'd brought him back, I have no viable explanation for anypony why he'd be back."
Totality facehooved. "I didn't think of that either," she grumbled. "How stupid."
"We would have done it anyway," continued Twilight. "I think we were just so excited about this that we didn't stop for a minute and look and think."
"This was a giant waste of time," sighed Totality.
"No, it wasn't," sniffed Twilight. "I'm offended that you said that. I thought you wanted to do academia stuff with Twilight Sparkle. Are you saying that you didn't have any fun?"
Totality looked down at the floor. "Well, I did but… I just wanted it to build toward something."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Ugh, Totality, are you serious?" She floated the loose page up in front of her face again. "We just figured out why your cutie mark is upside down. That's your thesis project, right there. This phenomenon should be common knowledge, but it's been lost to time and stigma. You can get credit for rediscovering it. It might get you scholarships or even put you on the map as a researcher."
"Holy shit," she breathed. "You're right."
"If we'd succeeded, you'd have realized your old dream, but you wouldn't be able to tell a soul about it and you wouldn't have this. And, and, you know what else? Your scale held up!"
"Yeah… but what about you?" asked Totality.
"I haven't touched the bottle since we started this project because for the first time since Spike died, I felt hopeful about the future and I wanted to be there to experience it."
"But you felt hopeful because you thought he was coming back… and now you know he's not."
"That's what I thought at first too, but I just realized that I actually enjoyed the journey of getting here with you just for the sake of the journey, which is how I used to feel about life. I mean it still hurts a lot, but it doesn't feel insurmountable because I'm able to feel this spark of normalcy without Spike here." She frowned suddenly. "Well, he's still sort of here. His decaying skeleton is in my bedroom and we need to bury him again, and that's also inexplicably funny to me right now, but it feels like life again. I can’t define it. I can’t explain it. I want this so bad and I know I could have it, but I choose not to because the price is too high, and if the price is too high then that must mean that what I still have to lose is more valuable than that pain is hurtful."
“Maybe if we sat down and made a scale for you, we could explain it,” suggested Totality facetiously.
"Maybe,” laughed Twilight. “But let's put the research away today and go do something easy and fun. I know the Apples are decorating their farm for Nightmare Night. They always want help. You like spooky stuff; you can help with the haunted corn maze."
“Yeah… That sounds fun… and normal and not illegal.”

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                       9 Loose Ends                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
9 Loose Ends
Big Macintosh stood precariously on the top rung of the picking ladder. He stretched and strained against the side of the barn to loop the end of the big banner to a bent nail. Finally he got it on and exhaled a sigh of relief. "That's one," he huffed.
Suddenly the other end of the banner floated up and hung itself easily on the second nail.  
Big Mac glanced over his shoulder and laughed. "Welp, don't even need this here latter no more now that yer here." He slid down to the ground. "I'm glad ya came back. How've ya been?"
"Oh, you know me,” shrugged Twilight. “Always busy with something… So, heh." She kicked a dirt clod absently and then swallowed. "I heard you wanted to talk to me about… something."
Big Mac's eyes fell to the ground as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, yeah… Um, so ya probably heard a lotta talk goin' 'round 'bout… us. I just had to set ya straight on somethin’."
Twilight could feel her face beginning to heat up as her eyes shifted around nervously. I knew it, she thought. I ruined this.
Big Mac began to blush. "This is real awkward to say but I just wanted to make sure you knew that we never actually… did it."
Twilight blinked, mystified by his claim to the point of thinking she must have heard him wrong. "Eh… We didn't?"
"Nope," he shook his head.
She thought back to all she could remember about the night and morning in question. "What exactly did we do if not… it?"
"We drank. Ya drank a lot, ‘specially fer moonshine. Then you, um, prepositioned me rather… vigorously. I said we shouldn't. Ya didn't seem ta be okay with that ‘cuz ya went in my room and done passed out on my bed."
Twilight covered her face in shame.
Big Mac looked down at the ground in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I shoulda just slept on the couch downstairs. Woulda saved us a whole lotta trouble. I don't know what I was thinkin'"
"No, Big Mac," she flailed. "Don't apologize for me stealing your bed. You didn't do anything wrong. It was just a bad situation. But… just out of, you know, curiosity, did you say no because I was drunk or because it was me?"
"'Cuz you were drunk,” he replied. “Did you say yes 'cuz you were drunk or 'cuz it was me?
Twilight laughed nervously, "Well 'cuz, because it was you."
“Oh,” he said, surprised,
Totality and Apple Bloom peered down on the two from the open hayloft window. They laid low with their muzzles at the edge.
“What’s “it?”” whispered Apple Bloom.
That night, Twilight and Totality returned to Ponyville Cemetery to lay Spike to rest one last time. They both laughed when they realized that the earth over Spike’s grave was still so loose that Twilight could just levitate it all out at once and they didn’t even need shovels. She placed the little dragon carefully in the coffin and included his favorite bowtie, which they’d used in the ritual.
“I wish I had something to add to thank him for being an unwitting guinea pig for me,” muttered Totality.
“You gave him a heart made out of around three pints of your own crystalized blood,” offered Twilight.
“Oh yeah,”nodded Totality. “I guess that’s something.”
“It's been a real rollercoaster,” sighed Twilight. "Goodbye, Spike." She set the lid back on the coffin.
Out of reverence, they buried him slower than they had the empty coffin on their previous trip, even though there remained a risk of being caught trespassing after dark.
“So you didn’t want to sacrifice me even a little?” asked Totality as they departed from the big metal gates.
“No,” groaned Twilight. “Now stop asking.”
“That’s good. A lot of things didn’t go like we wanted, and I’m not just talking about the project, but if we were doing teacher evaluations, I’d say you met or exceeded expectations.”
“Thanks,” nodded Twilight. “That means a lot, since I know your expectations were pretty high.”
“You put a lot of faith in me and basically let me drive that whole project by myself,” Totality elaborated. “I’ve never gotten to do something like that before.”
“It did give me a really good picture of your overall abilities. I have to say I’m very impressed with you as well.”
“Thanks… too bad you can’t put that in a letter though. Whatever. If I execute my thesis well enough, it’ll be fine if I don’t get a letter from you. I can always get a recommendation from a lesser name at my school anyway.”
“Yeah,” sighed Twilight. “I still can’t write you that letter, exactly, but… I can do something more to help you.”
Totality screwed up her face. “What?”
“You’ll see… Maybe,” she added with a hint of worry.
Princess Celestia walked slowly down the great hall, admiring each stained glass window as she went. She gazed into the enchanted window and became lost in thought until she heard the sound of approaching hooffalls. She turned to see a lone Shining Armor striding toward her.
Celestia squinted in confusion "Shining Armor? I thought you were posted at the south gate."
Shining stopped before her. “Yes, well, you see-” The visage of Shining Armor dispersed in an instant to reveal Twilight Sparkle. “I’m not really Shining Armor.”
Celestia’s eyes widened in surprise. “Twilight Sparkle?” she stamped her hoof with rage and thundered, “Guards!”
Twilight collapsed on the floor in submissive fear and covered her head. “Please, Princess Celestia,” she pleaded. “Just hear what I have to say and then I’ll leave. I-it’s not even about me or you.”
The doors burst open and a hoofful of royal guards filed in.
"Wait," commanded Celestia. "Very well, Twilight. Arise and state your business," she spat coldly.
Twilight tried not to shake as she got up on four hooves again and looked Celestia in the eyes. "I wanted to tell you about a student applying for Canterlot Academy."
Celestia's face softened. "You came to Canterlot, disguised yourself as the captain of the guard, infiltrated the castle, and risked coming here to speak with me directly about a potential student?"
Twilight gritted her teeth "Yes? You're no longer responding to my letters, and she's such an incredible self motivated student. I’d be remiss if I didn’t do everything in my power to help her succeed. She's been studying under me during the break between her junior and senior year. In just the short amount of time I've spent with her thus far, I've been utterly shocked by her well rounded knowledge, multifaceted problem solving abilities, and scientific acumen. She'd make a more than worthy addition to the academy's enrollment.” She took a deep breath, fearing she might scuttle Totality’s chances instead of help them. “I know my words don't carry the same weight that they used to, but-"
Celestia interjected. "Actions speak louder than words, Twilight. If you would do all this for a student, then I have no choice but to believe she is as remarkable as you say."
"Thank you," breathed Twilight, in relief. She produced a rolled parchment and levitated it to Celestia. "This is her name and information."
Celestia took the paper and scanned it.
Twilight started to say something more, but realized that her 'business' was concluded and she should leave while she was still ahead of the game.
"Well, that's- that's all. See you… never, I guess." Twilight sighed and then turned away, walking slowly toward the awaiting guards.
Celestia glanced up from the paper with a defeated expression. That was really it, she thought in amazement. Twilight came all the way here merely to help one student. "How infuriating," she muttered under her breath.
"Wait," called Celestia.
Twilight froze and glanced back over her shoulder.
"Twilight Sparkle, I concede you've made it all but impossible for me to hold the high ground in this squabble. I can't in good conscience maintain this meritless grudge against you. The fact of the matter is that your absence has been an unwarranted loss for you, I, and the school. I can't let pettiness get in the way any longer. Will you accept my apology... and your old position?"
Twilight lost her breath as tears came to her eyes. "Really?" she sniffed.
"Yes, Twilight," she nodded. "I'm sorry. This should never have happened."
"Yes," cried Twilight,” spinning around. "Thank you!" She dropped to her knees with head bowed.
Celestia placed a hoof under Twilight's chin to lift her up. "Don't thank me, Twilight. I'm simply righting a wrong."

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                        10 Epilogue                        
//-------------------------------------------------------//
10 Epilogue
Sadly, the rest of the break flew by in a blur of spell practice, book hunting, and Totality meeting new ponies as Twilight tried to assimilate back into society and reconnect with her friends. Then, one sunny but cold morning, the two unicorns found themselves saying goodbye on the Ponyville Station platform.
Totality's horn was now a solid dark grey color under a coat of matching horn polish to hide the discoloration until she grew out of it in perhaps a couple of years.
"I can't believe I have to get another assistant so soon," sighed Twilight. “I seriously have no clue what to do.”
“The position will be better filled by somepony with less of an ulterior motive,” posed Totality.
“Maybe,” groaned Twilight, “but things won’t be nearly as interesting.” She drifted away momentarily in a cloud of worry. “Oh.” she suddenly snapped back. “I got you a little going away present." Twilight levitated a silver chain with a multicolored gemstone from her saddlebag.
Totality gasped. "You're spoiling me now."
"I am not. You did a lot for me too, even if it was immaterial and you weren’t aware of it." Twilight covered a weird smile with one hoof. "It's one of a kind. I got Rarity to help me with it. Hold it up to the light."
Totality floated the gem up in the sunlight. The gemstone was actually dozens of tiny gemstones cast in polished translucent resin. They sparkled like iridescent confetti.
"Wow, this is so- Wait a minute," she snorted. "Is that your dinky-ass blood crystal in the middle?"
"Eeyup," smiled Twilight. "Now you have two hilarious jokes you can't tell anypony."
"That's so great," laughed Totality, latching the chain around her neck.
Twilight placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Maybe it's just me wanting to vicariously claim your potential accomplishments, but you're like the bratty daughter from out of wedlock I never had."
"Aww," smiled Totality. "There's still time."
"Of course you said that," sighed Twilight flatly. "And maybe someday she'll dress up like you for a school report."
Totality wrapped her forelegs around Twilight but immediately had to begin wiping her own tears away. "You're making this really difficult," she quivered.
"Express to Manehatten," shouted a station attendant. "All aboard!"
The two parted, both trying not to cry as Totality ascended the stairs alone. She opened the window next to her seat for one final goodbye.
"Write me if you need more sources," called Twilight as the engine blasted its initial chug. "I have access to the Canterlot Archives again."
"I will," shouted Totality.
"But you have to come here to read them!" added Twilight.
The train pulled out of the station, thundering up to speed and the two continued waving to one another until they were just specks in the distance.
Author's Note
There is now a sequel to this story called Dead Week (https://www.fimfiction.net/story/507729/dead-week).
I made a Twilight's Scale Playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4jZcBrcZ3Zu0uC3qS3WD7B?si=1qDEZLqbQc6SUjA_7FiwDg&utm_source=copy-link) too.
Thanks for reading!   
Ignore the date on the last post and don't be afraid to leave a comment if you have a thought.