Learning By Example

Dear Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle began for the third time, having twice before failed to start her letter due to her need for near perfect penmanship; it was late, she was without rest for the fifth night in a row, and she was attempting to write quickly through tired eyes. Since returning from the Crystal Empire I have been in a strange mood. While I am glad to have passed my test; I fear, for whatever reason, that a depression has taken hold of me after the downfall of King Sombra. He was evil and needed to be stopped, and I was not in fact directly involved in his destruction; the fact remains that he is no more because of my actions. I have taken the life of one lab rat by mistake, and it is something that I shant ever repeat. Even more so I have been plagued by dreams of a dark void filled with a green haze; how I can distinguish the color of anything in such a place is beyond my guessing save for the fact that it is a dream. I can feel my limbs, and am fully in control of myself in this dark place, but I don't know what I am to do; I am alone with my thoughts. I started practicing magic, to try and eat up time until morning; and was jarred awake but Spike grumpily telling me to "turn out the lights." The spells I had been practicing in my dreams were actually taking shape in the waking world, but were very much subdued. I know this, because had I been performing the spell while touching my bed, my library would've been on fire when I awoke. It is primarily because of this dark, reoccurring dream realm that I write this letter to you. I hope that the information or knowledge of whether or not these things are all related (The fall of Sombra, dream realm, etc...)"

Twilight slumped from her writing desk and slowly walked over to her worried assistant dragon. She floated the letter to him, or rather near him; her lack of adequate sleep the past few nights had frayed both her ability to rationalize and aim with spells. Levitation was all she dared to attempt in such a state, bringing all her projects and research to a grinding halt.

Spike closed the five feet to the letter and tugged it out of Twilight's telekinetic grip and offered her the umpteenbillionth cup of relaxing herbal tea retrieved from the zebra witchdoctor that lived in the Everfree forest outside of Ponyville. Zecora had a thousand-and-one remedies for insomnia. This particular brew was, according to zebra, just short of being a sleep poison, with the side effect being she might not wake up for a few days.

Spike had explained all of this to Twilight earlier; she'd simply smiled and mumbled something about not letting her friends draw on her face while she was unconscious, especially Rainbow Dash.

Spike inhaled deeply and, with a practiced ease, blew a short jet of emerald flame burning away the letter in a magic that would send it to it's one and only intended recipient without fail.

Twilight thanked her number one assistant and brought the cup of tea closer to inhale its scent. By the earthy smell alone she knew it would be bitter. Upon reflection, her favorite tea had been eight tries ago; that brew incorporated a liquid that most certainly wasn't fermented fruits, it was sweet. As Twilight lost herself in her delirium, Spike pushed the floating cup of tea closer to Twilight's pursed lips, before she could empty all it held onto the floor.

Twilight yelped as the concoction finally made contact with her lips and taste buds. It was piping hot, and not just by temperature; some sort of spice quickly filled the weary unicorn's mouth. The brew had the opposite of its intended effect as Twilight's eyes widened in shock; having quickly been put on edge from the surprise.

"Spike!" Twilight shouted hysterically.

When the dragon responded to the call he found that Twilight had sudden gone placid, with a strange smile on her face.

"Yes Twilight, I'm here."

Now Twilight was lucid, or lucid dreaming; she couldn't tell which as the room began to distort around her. Crystals began to appear in her part study part bedroom. Sitting on desk, taking the place of books, and for the time being, even her baby dragon roommate.

Twilight couldn't help but laugh at the thought of her number one assistant being some frat colt, lazing around on the couch as he sometimes did talking with his other roommates about the latest hoofball game. He was a crystal for now, and that is what Twilight found most important in her stupor.

The crystals around her began to glow faintly, before releasing a blinding light all at once. The crystal that had once been Spike continued to talk while Twilight tried to recover from the daze the flash of light brought on. When she could distinguish shapes again, she was back in the throne room of the Crystal Palace. Before her floated a large, cut diamond in the shape of a six point star.

Twilight gazed upon the object with growing familiarity it flashed a brilliant light, blinding her yet again. Her vision cleared much more quickly; this time she hesitantly peered over a raised arm at the star, hoping against hope that it would protect her from being blinded again. She found that her reflexes were not that of the speed of light and was once again blinded.

She was doubly confused by the purpose of the massive gem resembling in no small way her cutie mark; or at least the core of it. She tried to turn from it before lowering her guard again; finding that she couldn't, Twilight muttered some hurtful comment at the seemingly hostile crystal. Her fervent hope was that words enough would cause it to literally fall to pieces over having its feelings hurt. No such luck.

Curiously to her, it hadn't flashed in some time as far as she could tell. It was either waiting for her to look, or had only two flashes in it, either of those options or it was on an erratic timer; which Twilight chose to rule out. To test her theory she peaked over her her shielding arm. It was waiting for her.

Twilight, was granted with this knowledge fractions of a second before the flash came, but this time she found herself unwittingly prepared. With a certain amount of animosity towards the seemingly malevolent object she shot a stream of pure magic at it. Twilight backpedaled in horror at what she did as soon as she was aware of it. The stream of deep purple, dark magic cut through the stars flash striking the crystal and filling it with a blackness of its own. It was far from over, as the dark magic continued to pour from Twilight's horn seeming to feed the crystal. Her vision began to grow hazy as if a black fog suddenly rolled into what she was now convinced was a dreamscape throneroom.

The darkness slowly surrounded her, leaving her to channel more magic into the six point star diamond. She'd returned to the void, and what little company she had this time was slowly fading into the background of the darkness. The star now showed to have a soft glow all its own against the enclosing solitude of Twilight's dream, a glow she was slowly erasing.

Panic now set in as she realized that were this like the time before, then she was truly funneling dark energy at something in her room; she could only pray Spike had the sense to leave the room before he was hurt.

The star vanished from view as the last of it's light was consumed by Twilight's hatefilled magic, and like that the dream ended; with the sound of shattering crystal, and a deep feeling of loss.