I'd always been a good pony. A quiet pony, a studious pony. A bookworm. Princess Celestia's prize pupil. The pony with a kind word for everypony. The bearer of the Element of Magic. Twilight Sparkle.
Until I found the book.
It had been forgotten, kicked behind the farthest shelf in the library, when I stumbled across it. Dust smeared across its front cover. I'd been aghast of course. How could anypony treat a book this way? I'd carefully picked it up and cleaned it off and read the words stamped across the front. It was a diary. Just a simple little diary of a simple little pony named Amber Light.
Amber Light had once been the student of Princess Celestia, too, you see. She'd been even more of a bookworm than me when the Princess sent her to tend the Ponyville library. There was a picture of her in the diary. A butterscotch-colored mare with a cutie mark made up of interlocking stars. Her magic was tied up with the moon and the stars, she could perform it best only at night.
In Canterlot, this was no big deal. She was, after all, the student of the Princess. Nopony would go against Celestia, and once they got to know Amber Light, they realized that just because her magic worked best at night didn't make her bad. Or like Nightmare Moon.
In Ponyville, however, the ponies were more superstitious. Amber Light was a shy pony, and she didn't make friends easily. (She didn't have an emergency thrust into her hooves like I did, nor such a rambunctious party mare like Pinkie Pie around.) Rumors started up that no pony's hooves could squash. That Amber Light was bad. Evil. The reincarnation of Nightmare Moon herself.
They were ridiculous, of course, but the simple and closed-minded ponies stuck to them until Amber Light barely left the library. When she did, it was only under cover of darkness to gather more supplies from the few ponies who had chosen to disregard the rumors and tall tales. They encouraged Amber Light to come out more, to stray from the library in daylight.
One day, she did, and tragedy struck. A group of bullies barely out of school ganged up on her, pummeling her with rocks and sticks. Her magic tried to protect her, but it was noontime and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. All it could do, in the end, was teleport her back to the library. Battered and bloody, bruised and broken, Amber Light knew that the ponies of Ponyville would never accept her. And so, as her diary recorded, she decided eventually to prove the rumors true.
At first, I was horrified. How could any pony turn to dark magic like that, no matter the provocation? Surely something else could have helped. She could have gone to the Princess. Or simply left Ponyville. Couldn't she?
But the diary went on. Amber Light had tried to tell Princess Celestia of the horrors happening to her. And the alicorn ignored her. Told her coldly to stop coming to her with such petty problems. It seemed unfathomable. How could the warm and loving Princess react in such a way? Tell her to stay in Ponyville, when she was being treated so badly?
Slowly, however, I began to understand. After all, how many times had the Princess brushed off my own concerns? Even what had led me to stay in Ponyville in the first place! Nightmare Moon had returned and she had chided me like an errant foal, telling me to "make some friends?" Yes, it worked out all right in the end, but if she had simply explained herself in the first place...
And look how badly she had treated Discord. Turned him to stone? How many other enemies had she turned to stone? How kind and loving was the Princess of Day anyway? Everypony had always focused on the terrifying tales of Nightmare Moon (although they were slightly awkward now with the return of Princess Luna). But what of her sister?
It was impossible to ignore anymore. I went about my duties with a pleasant mask. Wrote my daily letters on the magic of friendship to the Princess. Had Spike deliver them, as was customary. Planned adventures and fun with my friends--parties, apple bucking, and the like. But the darkness grew in my heart, mote by mote, as I continued to read Amber Light's diary.
She'd found power in the darkness. So much power. Her magic had changed from a pleasant peach to a dark, dusty indigo. Nopony noticed, of course. They thought they'd broken her. Rid the town of her "darkness" when the truth was that they had revealed it in her. Her few friends still reached out, but she performed as little magic as possible around them. She would never hurt them. They had done nothing to her. But the rest of Ponyville...
And bit by bit, her darkness became mine. How could I not have seen the same growing blight that lay in the hearts of almost every pony around me? Oh, I supposed my friends were all right. They tried, at least, although they were unwittingly hampered by the selfish deeds of the other ponies. It was part of growing up there, in that blasted town. Their hearts were choked and barren. I could fix that, though. I could make them see. I could show them how damnably cruel the world was, how little they cared for those ponies who were "different." I may not have been Amber Light, but I was different, as well. Nopony besides the Princesses could perform magic half as well as I could. It made them look at me in a different light. The tinge of fear in their eyes cut me to the core. When had I ever shown evil? When had I ever performed a dark deed? I saved them from Nightmare Moon. From Discord. I did everything possible in my hooves to keep the ponies safe, and what was my reward? Whispers and uncertain glances, a careful edging away, as if they didn't want to sully their hooves with my "power."
It was time they learned what fear truly was.
