//------------------------------//
// Dawn 
// Story: Wings 
// by timidfantasist 
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	Hours later, the first peek of sunlight came through Twilight’s one little basement window.
Twilight herself was curled up on her bed. Her wings were wrapped around her; it turned out that they made a cozy warm blanket, and they were so huge that there was room for her and Spike, who had barely left her side all night. He was snuggled in a little cave she’d made by curving her left wing outward slightly, just enough for a little dog to lie down in.
She’d drifted off a few times, always catching herself and shaking back awake. The scientist in her simply refused to let go of this strange new world she’d discovered, even as the rational part of her argued that she would get much better observations after a good night’s sleep. The scientist part won, as always, and despite Twilight’s eyes feeling like sand, she’d stayed up all night. Now the clouds were turning a delicate pink, and Twilight smiled at her accomplishment. She took Spike in her arms, her smile widening as he whined in his sleep and snuggled up to her chest, and uncurled her wings, wincing and making a mental note to add “wings can fall asleep” to her list of notes. Originating in magic or not, they’re clearly as mortal and physical as any other part of me once manifested.
The sun was nearly clear of the horizon now, and Twilight’s wings were glowing. The brushed-silver tips of the feathers brightened until they were shining white, and then simply began to dissolve away. The process was painless, but it was unsettling all the same to see them just coming apart into floating specks of sparkling light that flew out the window as they separated from her rapidly shrinking wings. As Twilight watched, her wings simply faded away, as did her armor and her sword, leaving her in her normal turtleneck shirt and lab coat. Her sword changed to her recorder, still tucked into her belt, and as her helmet faded, her hair fell down and then arranged itself into her usual messy bun. Her glasses shimmered back onto her face (Twilight hadn’t even noticed their absence).
Two minutes after sunrise, the only indication that anything unusual had occurred in the bedroom of the scientific prodigy Twilight Sparkle was the stunned look on her face and the scribbled pad of notes on her bed. She reached back and tentatively touched her back, running her hand over her shoulder blades to check that the wings were definitely gone (her analytical half noted distantly that she’d been attaching to the wings despite trying to treat them as a separate entity), but only encountered the fabric of her lab coat.
A burning sense of loss hit her, and she gasped and staggered sideways. It felt like she’d always had those wings, like something precious had been taken from her. She felt too heavy, earthbound again, and without the weight of the armor, simultaneously too light and unprotected.. More than anything in the world at that moment, she wanted those wings back.
She fell onto her bed, not even bothering with pajamas. The strange alertness that had sustained her through the night had abandoned her, and she barely stayed awake long enough to close her notebook and take off her glasses. Thank goodness that it’s a weekend…
Sunset Shimmer sighed as the sun came up, glaring at her smashed alarm clock. Better get outside...
She barely had time to pull shoes on and dash outside before her back sprouted twin plumes of flame, and her pajamas changed into a set of armor complete with a beautifully carved bow slung over her back. Sunset took a deep breath and waited—the fire didn’t hurt, but that didn’t mean she exactly enjoyed being exposed in the open with ten-foot flaming wings sprouting behind her. As her armor finished forming, the fire coalesced into a huge pair of wings, the same color as Sunset herself, fading into the bright red of her mane at the feather-tips.
As the Bearer of Friendship fades, the Bearer of Magic takes up the mantle. Sunset stopped abruptly at that—she always heard that voice, and was currently trying to decide if it was some sort of harmonic force or an agent of Chaos attempting to trick her, but it had never mentioned a Bearer of Friendship before. Twilight?
Without so much as taking the time to stretch out her wings, Sunset raced inside for her journal and flipped it open, scanning for any communication from Princess Twilight. Seeing nothing, she grabbed a pen off her desk and clicked it open.


	Dear Princess Twilight,
I hope things in Equestria are better than here, and that you are seeing my letters to you. Something is wrong with the magic in this world. Rarity, Dash, Pinkie, Applejack, and Fluttershy have not been able to Pony Up in days, and I seem to have lost control over it as well.  Every time the sun rises, I transform, but not into the Pony form we are familiar with. You see, as the sun rises, I grow a set of wings, and my clothing changes to armor. I cannot control this, and I’ve barely seen the girls in the last week. Of course they’re doing their best to come visit me, but I have found myself completely unable to attend school, and time away from it is highly limited. I have theorized that someone else is transforming at nighttime, as I always turn back to my ‘usual’ human form as the sun goes down, but oddly enough, they don’t seem eager to do an interview with CNN, whoever they may be, and I have no leads. Dash tells me no one else has been absent as much as me in the last week. I am afraid I need your advice desperately, Princess; I am out of places to turn.
Your Friend
Sunset Shimmer


Sunset closed the journal to send the letter and sighed, looking back at her newly grown wings. Why wings? I was never a pegasus, even as Celestia’s student, and certainly never an alicorn. She shook them gently, and they responded, rustling as they moved. She searched for her magic and found it, concentrating on her pen. Move, come on…But, born and trained a unicorn, she found herself once more trying to channel her magic through an outlet that no longer existed, and the spell fizzled again. She scowled and collected herself, determined to try until it worked.
Two hours later, as Sunset’s telekinesis spell fizzled yet again, there was a knock at her apartment door, and she froze, watching a note slide under and cautiously picking it up.
She unfolded it carefully. It looked like it had been written in a hurry, and simply read ‘CAN I TALK WITH YOU’.
Another note rustled its way under the door. The thought of calling the police did cross Sunset’s mind, but she unfolded it anyway, and nearly gasped out loud.
The note read ‘MY NAME IS TWILIGHT SPARKLE’ with an arrow indicating that she should flip over the little scrap of Post-It Note. Turning it over, Sunset saw that the writer had added ‘I WAS TOLD TO TELL YOu’ before running out of space, and she crouched down, waiting for the next note.
She wasn’t kept waiting long; the next note was poked through after a lot of furious scribbling sounds on the other side of the door. Half-smiling, Sunset picked it up and unfolded it—and then dropped it.
The note read ‘SOMETHING WRONG W/THE ELEMENTS’.
Sunset stood abruptly and yanked her door open, revealing a lavender-skinned girl with her hair up in a mess of a bun. She had huge bags under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept, and huge glasses perched on her nose, but otherwise was identical to Princess Twilight.
The girl looked up and murmured “She promised you’d help…” before attempting to stand up and falling over at Sunset Shimmer’s feet.