"What is the meaning of a dream, objective, mission, or goal?" The noise from the crickets outside was drowned by a torrent of invasive thoughts, it took time to evolve these feelings into words, her room filled with potions neatly categorized on the shelf and artifacts of esoteric yet relatively useless use. Twilight blankets felt too hot at times but the night was also too cold for her fur.

Shining sure did a number on Twilight, both in the game and in her mind, just by being himself. They differed but were also similar. The one who opened his eyes was the one he hated the most. "I'm falling." Twilight covered her eyes with her hooves.

"I'm falling to that same path again." Twilight lifted her hooves and stared past the fur that covered her skin, it was more rough, less refined and more sturdy completely betraying her soft tulip coat. Too sturdy for a pony of Twilight's age. "What do ponies my age even do-" Those words made Twilight almost smell the terrible perfume that her friend uses. "..."

Twilight got up from bed, her eyes adapted to the darkness making trotting to her bookshelf a little easier - the potion shelf was right by it with the door of her room in the middle. Twilight ran her hoof through the books before setting into one. Starswirl's supposedly autobiography, Twilight didn't believe it was his as the stallion preferred much more putting complex spells on paper rather than life occurrences, but it was undeniable that the knowledge about creation magic within was useful. The unicorn lit her horn to cast a small spell to illuminate the room, imagining the spherical shape and possible mass of the orb was an elementary action for Twilight. As the light flooded the room Twilight blinked until her stinging eyes could somewhat take on the light.

Double casting a basic telekinesis Twilight moved the book from the shelf to her study table, pulling on the stool and then taking a sit, for a moment all she did was stare at the book, lifting her hoof to caress the cover. "I'll... I'll figure something out." The book opened.

Pages upon pages were turned, eventually, the crickets got tired and stopped screaming and the cold night grew comfortably chill until the first bird sang outside followed by the first set of hooves clip-clopping through the sidewalk, Twilight's ear flicked but she flipped the page again and again, until she heard the distinct sound of creaking coming from the room right in front of her study table, her parents room.

A sigh escaped Twilight's mouth as she closed the book and magicked it back to the shelf, shut off the ever-glowing ball, and fell on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Maybe I could try to talk with somepony today."

More time passed and eventually, a soft knock resounded through the door three times. Twilight brought herself up and trotted to the door, gently pulling it open revealing a dragon on the other side. "Hey Uraume, how do you feel today?" Twilight said, the dragon promptly latched onto one of her forelegs, Twilight suppressed a sigh and carried on, she walked outside and moved towards the chairs, a bit more experienced and confident Twilight took, trotted down the stairs and further moved into the kitchen. More creaks resounded from upstairs as Twilight took both a pan from one of the cabinets and a cold milk bottle, then poured the milk on the pan while turning the stove on to heat some milk... With a free foreleg Twilight gently rubbed Spike's forehead, "Without that cursed technique, you'll finally be able to make some friends, Isn't that nice?"

Soon enough Twilight heard the sound of wood creaking and clip-clops. "I finally can put that into practice." Twilight's horn lit and she closed her eyes as her magic covered her eyelids, within a few moments the dark circles Twilight had disappeared. A pang of disgust rang in her heart at the thought of hiding something but was quickly snuffed out, Twilight had to abandon old habits- She needed to.

It didn't take long for Twilight's mother to arrive at the grandeur show that is a six-year-old messing with the stove. The second strongest emotion Twilight could experience always came from her mother speaking her full name. "Twilight Sparkle!" Velvet trot reverberated within Twilight, maybe due to panic. "What are you doing?!"

Velvet trotted towards Twilight and levitated her daughter away from the dangerous stove, bringing the young unicorn and dragon right in front of her. If Twilight felt panic before now she felt dread as Velvet's expression looked like she had just sucked on a lemon, making it even harder to look into Velvet's eyes.

Yet, the disgust grew empowered with a pinch of spite - Twilight hated how Velvet was staring at her, how she could even come close to judging Twilight by being lesser than her, magically, intellectually, and in the near future physically too. It just boiled Twilight's blood.

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep slow breath, in that short space she felt... Hugged? "You got no burns, sweetie? Oh Celestia, we've got some ointment for sunburns but I don't know-" It was strange. Spite and disgust vanished without something to direct at thus leaving Twilight empty.

"Mhhf- Mom!" Both ponies turned to the dragon half crushed between the equine hug, Velvet's worry slowly melted as a smile took place. Twilight's ears swiveled at the sound of the milk boiling and promptly turned off the stove with magic. Those were little Uraume's first words.

"I'm fine." Twilight said reminding Velvet of her previous worry.

Undoing the daughter-mother embrace Velvet focused on Twilight. "Just don't do it again sweetie, stoves can hurt really badly if you don't have the help of a grown pony." Velvet trotted to the pan with boiling milk and if the milk could reflect as well as water it would have shown a smiling mother.

"Twilight, what are those under your eyes?" School had been boring as always, just retelling things Twilight studied years ago made it hard not to just trot out of the classroom towards the library... That actually sounded like a solid plan, ask to go to the bathroom and spend the rest of school time reading up, it's not like the teacher would care. "Equus to Twilight, anypony there?" Today Twilight decided to be a normal foal and use the break time to make friends. Thankfully she didn't need to approach anypony as the green blob made out of sheer extrovert enthusiasm in pony form called Lyra and her cahoots, Moon Dancer and the mare that reminded her of toothpaste, Minuette was it?

For all possible conversational starting lines Twilight had prepared, she decided to go with one that used to work pretty well on the heian days. "Hey, scum." Twilight said, she does remember quite well that this line always generated a lot of conversation and that is what friendship is all about, right?

Lyra tilted her head towards her toothpaste friend, whispering as low as she could. "What is a 'scum' Minuette?" Which wasn't exactly effective with Twilight right in front of her.

"Dunno." Minuetter replied, her eyes gradually brightening, "But it should be a compliment!"

"Pfheh, doesn't matter!" Lyra turned towards Twilight and in a swift move pulled the purple unicorn into a forced hug, "We got the smartest kid as a friend! Anyway, you still didn't tell me why your eyes look so red..." The green unicorn suddenly gasped and looked at both sides before lifting her head and speaking directly into Twilight's ear. "Did somepony bucked you?"

"No." Twilight said reeling her inner instinct from bucking the Lyra who was so... So adamant to not let her go. "I'm perfectly fine." The frogs on Twilight's hooves were itching from the grass and her horn was definitely just cosplaying dysfunctional welder. "Peachy." What was she doing with these annoying ponies again?

Moon Dancer smiled before looking at higher grades talking with each other while carrying odd trinkets of metal, it oddly reminded her of the slides magical kindergarten had. "I wish we had the playground back..."

"Me too." Minuetter replied following Moon Dancer's sight and at the sight of the grown-ups a bulb lit her mind, "Hey let's go-"

Twilight grabbed the whole of Lyra with a tight magical grip lifting her away from the ground and dropping her by Lyra's minions, the green unicorn let out a yelp of pain while her friends stared at Lyra worried but instead of a pained expression that lift seemed to ignite a fire on the green unicorn eye's "Again!"

"..I will go to the bathroom berightback!" Twilight broke into a gallop towards the halls, avoiding each grown-up on the way until she found the bathroom, entered an empty stall, and looked at her reflection in the toilet water. "I can't do this."

A few minutes before break's over back into the class Lyra turned around to chat with her friend in the class behind, "Do you think she ate rotten lettuce?" Lyra asked.

"Huh?" Moon Dancer gave the only plausible reply to the sudden question.

"When I ate rotten lettuce once I..."

Author's Note

Its near 2 am and I did this in a rush and aagghh! I just hope someone finds this chap enjoyable.