The entrance exam for the school for gifted unicorns is one of the most feared tests in December - studies show many young unicorns being unable to sleep weeks before the test. But not Twilight. Today was the last day of preparations before the exam, she had a full two years long preparation, memorized over seven hundred unique advanced spells, half exothurgy, and half endothurgy, over three hundred unique alchemy recipes plus being able to safely make one hundred of those, complex creation magic runes were learned after months of sweat and tears, and now equally complex magical artifacts stood at the side of her study table, and finally, four hundred chanting spells with fifty that she practiced to actually being able to cast. Twilight wasn't simply planning on passing the test, she wanted to absolutely crush the competition, and show her potential as a future archmage! No, not just an archmage, Twilight wants to give Star Swirl a run for his bits - and she is fully confident that she can do so. At last, the last page of the Advanced Examination of Endothurgy on the Pony Body is done for the ninth time. "I'm so gonna crush that test."

Twilight sighed and picked one of her earliest artifacts, the chaotic cube! Sadly, it was impossible to control which direction it would shoot at, "Of course it was." Anypony with basic magical knowledge would be able to make such a weapon, then why there weren't any cubes on the royal guard? Her hoof slid on her desk to something more interesting, the eternal ice cube! No matter the temperature, this cube is deemed to stay frozen forever by a loop of complex runes - as long as she keeps feeding it enough mana once a week. Another interesting experiment would be the eternal glass of water! Of course, as eternal as her mana lasts, but as long as the runes take their fair share it is nigh impossible for the cup to run out of water! Oh! And the spatial knif-

The sudden knock on the door nearly sent Twilight's heart out of her chest, "Hey Twilight, watchya doin'?" The pink cotton candy-like pony said, slightly peeking through the door. Twilight herself still wasn't quite used to the number of colored horses, but she would take that over curses anytime. As if taking her small scare as an invite, the pink pegasi mare entered Twilight's sanctuary, much to her annoyance.

"Oooh~ Are you making toys for somepony?" Cadence said, her hoof slowly coming forward to a black glowing cube, to which Twilight hurriedly slapped her hoof away.

"Careful! You almost touched the weird cube." Twilight said. She would have gotten rid of that thing if it didn't keep appearing back at her table each time she tossed it in the trash.

Cadance tilted her head, "Weird cube..?"

Twilight sighed, "It uses six complex runes to interact with the fourth and possible fifth dimension, completely subduing itself from possible future and past, only existing in the present." Twilight said, sighing midway. She still didn't quite get how this cube hadn't run out of mana yet. Cadence looked lost. "It burns to the touch." Cadence immediately retracted her hoof and just kept staring at the huge amount of trinkets Twilight table.

Until Cadence found a transparent bottle holding some sort of pink liquid, "What's that?"

"Sapience potion." Twilight said, "Give it to a non-aware critter, and boom, it is now aware of itself and having existential dread." Twilight tapped her chin, "Lasts about five minutes or so. Tastes like strawberry though." Twilight lifted the bottle with telekinesis, "Want some?"

"...I'm good actually, had my filling of... Ehe- strawberry juice downstairs." Cadence said, her eyes staring at the many other trinkets with newfound concern, "Are all of them... Magical?"

"Well, duh! There are the cube-like artifacts, the spatial pouch is under my bed, this here-!" Twilight said while picking up the knife on her table, just the slight movement of bringing it up briefly cut the very space it traveled, leaving a trail of nothingness before it quickly disappeared, "Is the spatial knife! Took a few months to get it right..." Twilight carefully put it back.

Suddenly, Cadence noticed why every other babysitter quit after the very first day. Nonetheless, she won't give up! But, just to be sure... "None of them are really dangerous, right?"

"Oh, definitely!" Twilight chirped, "Once a bird sat on the strange cube for a few seconds and it popped!" Cadence's eyes widened, Twilight noticing the rising anxiousness of her caretaker chuckled and waved a hoof to dismiss her worry, "Not like exploding, more like, uhm. Erased from the time-space continuum. Or it just teleported, that's also a possibility." Twilight lifted the strange cube to her face with telekinesis, "Because let me tell you, getting a complex rune to gather entropy from past and future was a hassle to make it work with the other four stationary runes- Wait, that is why because it keeps coming back!" Twilight snatched the nearby ink pot and threw the strange cube with telekinesis inside, and sure enough, it appeared right back at the table, completely dry. "Ha! I know how to get rid of you now..." Twilight grabbed another cube and began scribbling.

Cadence wiped her brows with her wing, little fillies at her age usually went out with their friends and ate ice cream together or something! They weren't supposed to build dangerous magical trinkets... Unless it was normal for unicorns? Maybe that was it. Yeah, that was it. "Do you mind if I stay and watch?" Cadence said.

"Sure! Make yourself comfortable!" Twilight replied, ever so happy to have an audience, it was almost like the stage fights, and oh, how many had come to challenge her back then.

Twilight's low cackling brought a chill on Cadence's feathers, this couldn't be healthy, could it? A filly alone in her room all day long... Cadence slowly trotted towards the window and slightly pulled the curtains, outside she could see a group of fillies playing with a ball and colts going around... Tackling each other? Colt business... Twilight should have been out there, the day was bright with no clouds, the sun was comfortably warm but all the filly had interest was in her cubes and magical trinkets. "Do you not have any friends to play with?" Cadence muttered.

"No." Twilight replied.

"Eep-" Cadence mentally noted that Twilight's hearing was incredibly good. But as the surprise went all that was left was a weird feeling in Cadence's stomach, "Uhm. Why you don't have any?"

The future archmage stopped scribbling and sighed, "Because I don't currently have time." Twilight said, turning from her stool to face Cadence. Surprisingly, the cube was still being inscribed without her looking.

But not having 'the time' didn't ring well to Cadence, "...Why not?"

"I have the exam next week, tons of unread books and research that I want to and will do, and even after I'm done with the school I'll need to challenge an archmage for a duel... No, I could do that later, hmm." Twilight got up from her stool and took a stroll around her room, "I'll still need a house for myself and a stable income... Plus not to say that I do want to take a look around equestria too and... There's a lot of stuff to do."

Cadence tilted her head, "But you could make friends along the way."

"Maybe, but then they'll take time," Twilight replied, then stared back at Cadence then began to trot back to her stool, "time better spent on experiments and research."

"But what about when you get tired?" Cadence said, there was no way-

Twilight giggled, "Tired? I have kept this for two years straight, I don't see myself tired."

The pink pegasi bit her lip and looked to her hooves, it still didn't feel right for a filly to be like this. A deep feeling in her guts was pinching her to do something. "Well," Cadence looked back at Twilight, now back at her table with a glowing white floating cube, "how about we become friends?"

It was right then, that the cube dropped with a faint 'tud' on the table, "What?" Twilight had heard something similar before, not exactly but with the same meaning. She turned to face Cadence, "Do you... Pity me?"

Cadence's wings suddenly fluttered open, ready to take flight. She felt like... She was staring at something from the depths of Tartarus. "I-" But she did, Cadence did pity her. She couldn't imagine herself without her friends, they were, in a way, what made her become what she is. "Yes, I do."

Twilight groaned, "Fine. FINE. Let's be friends then." She walked toward her bed and reached for something under it, a pouch. She stuffed her hoof inside and pulled out a deck of cards, "Do you know how to play canasta?"

Author's Note

And so, they became beeeeest frieeends!

As always, if you think this chapter isn't so great and can do better, do tell how in the comments. Do you have an exclusive, top-notch idea of how to improve the story? Also, feel free to comment in the comments B)