Sanctum

by InoPony

Aflame

The lavender mare ran as a pony possessed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and flecks of gleaming spittle frothed from her muzzle from the exertion. Deep into the trees she bolted, not worrying about the monsters that resided therein; no beast that lived in these woods was as terrifying as the unicorn was to herself. Onward she ran, barely giving thought to the branches that scraped her coat and snagged at her mane, or to the dangers that lurked within the Everfree Forest that waited for little ponies such as her to wander their lands alone.

Just as Twilight Sparkle felt that she could run no further, she entered a small clearing at the top of a small hill. Exhausted, both physically and emotionally, she collapsed onto the soft grass. As her crying subsided, and her breathing slowed, she felt a small sense of peace and safety come over her at last. There was a strange calmative effect radiating from this glen. She wiped away the remainder of her tears carelessly with a fetlock, and looked around in awe. She knew Everfree forest was dangerous, but as she grew more calm, she rose to her hooves to get a better view of her surroundings.

The glade had a quiet beauty, and Twilight did not feel the usual sense of danger that had come on the few previous trips to the forest. The air was hushed and cool, and smelled fragrantly of fertile soil. And while the rest of the forest was dark and foreboding, this spot was lit with a soft, warm glow of sunlight that diffused from the leaves overhead. From her slightly elevated position upon the hill, Twilight could see a short distance into the surrounding valley.

Outside of her little glen, the forest was indeed dark and mysterious. While she could usually hear a cacophony of malicious life, now she could only hear the nearby lapping of water on an unseen bank. Although Twilight was hopelessly lost, here she felt safe and secure. Heaving a weary sigh, she returned to her previous sprawled position on the grass. Her thoughts turned to the events that led her to this place, and tears rose once more unbidden to her eyes.

For weeks Twilight had cloistered herself in the library's basement, where her she kept all her research and experiments with magic. She had been trying, unsuccessfully, to perform the spell ever since reading about it in one of her more arcane scrolls. No matter what tact she took, it just would not work. She had thoroughly researched every facet of the spell; had taken every precaution that she knew. Time after time, her horn would glow as she began the incantation, only to fizzle and pop with often disastrous consequences. She had broken more furniture, and had started more magical fires, than she had in any of her previous experiments.

On her first failed attempt, every piece of glassware had shattered at once, making her assistant Spike come running. Twilight knew that he was only trying to help, that he was worried about her, but she couldn't face the young dragon while in the midst of yet another failure. She knew that Spike looked up to her, that all her friends were there for her, but she couldn't face the looks of concern that she received whenever she was wrapped up in an experiment. It was a distraction, and she certainly didn't need anything else to hinder her progress.

The final straw had come during her last attempt to complete the incantation. Twilight could feel the magic humming in the air, imbuing everything the lab with a slight static charge. She was closer to finishing the spell than ever! All she needed to do was concentrate her focus on the task at hoof. Her horn flared brightly, as if lit from within by a purple fire. Her mane and tail were standing on end from the charge of magic in the air. Just at the peak of the magical intensity, the door to the laboratory was flung open.

As Twilight's concentration wavered, she felt the intense magic threatening to release its destructive power into the room. Straining every muscle, working every neuron and synapse in her brain, the unicorn managed to release the magical energy away from her equipment, and into the wall. The entire library shook with the concussive force, and purple lightning crackled throughout the room.

Twilight, although thoroughly drained from the effort, could feel the rage build quickly within her. Something in her mind cracked like ice on a pond. Without thinking, she spun to face the intruder. As the rage transformed her mind into blind hostility, strange changes also began to take place in her body. Her normally soft purple coat started to glow white-hot, as if it were the sun that shone on Equestria itself. Her mane and tail licked up from her body, as if aflame. An expression of pure, mindless anger took over her normally calm expression.

"Why did you dare to interrupt my work?" she bellowed, in fair imitation of a certain princess.

Her five friends looked on her visage in horror, not knowing what to do or say. They had only come to make sure Twilight was still alive, as she had not come up from the basement in days, and had not left her house in weeks. They had known Twilight to fully immerse herself in her studies before, but never had she been out of contact this long. She had also never looked like this when they'd come to rescue her. Not receiving an answer, Twilight's anger seemed to glow even hotter.

"Not only did you cost me weeks of experimentation, you could have killed us all! And now you can’t even explain yourselves?”

Applejack started to carefully walk towards her friend, with a hoof outstretched in worry.

"Sug?" she asked tentatively. At the sound of her friend's voice, Twilight suddenly started to realize the sight playing out before her eyes. All of her friends were frozen in terror, their faces lined with worry. Twilight couldn't bear seeing them like this, nor could she have her friends looking at her like that. With a blinding flash and a smell of burnt ozone, the room grew suddenly darker.

Twilight sniffled, and rubbed her nose with her hoof. The looks on her friends faces were burned into her soul, as were her failures. Not only had she failed the spell, she had failed her friends as well. They were only concerned for her safety, she realized, too late. And she had done nothing to help that concern by locking herself into her laboratory and not coming out for days. If she had taken just a little step back, away from the problem at hand, she could have saved her friends from having to see her like that.

She also realized, much too late, that taking a step back was sometimes necessary when facing such a difficult challenge. But she had thrown herself completely into her work. She always took her studies seriously, even when Princess Celestia had to warn her about working too hard. She had also always had a temper, hidden beneath the calm, intelligent facade she wore as a mask. It was very slow to build, but that just made it all the more violent when it finally breached her defenses. She had tried to hide her unending worries from everypony before, and for the most part, it had worked. But that was when it was just herself and her understanding teachers. But now, she also had friends who cared about her.

This was all such a new experience for her, and one of the reasons Princess Celestia had sent her away to Ponyville. She had made friends more easily than she had expected, and she was still learning to adjust to looking out for other ponies' feelings. They had been patient and kind, and they did not deserve a friend who would treat them this way.

A dam of emotions broke free in Twilight's heart. Her friends had seen a side of her that very few had, and she was not sure that she could face them again. Nor was she even sure they would want to see her! She certainly didn't deserve to have friends like these, since, even now, she could not trust herself to not fall back into her old habits of ignoring outside influences when she was deeply engrossed in her studies. As her old feelings of doubt rose to the top of her mind, she passed out from the toll of the stresses of the day.

Author's Note:

First revision! Now with less Wall-o-Text! Thanks for all the nitpicks and help, especially Martian on IRC! Check out his stuff, I love it!

Comments

[anacreon]

Alright i have read both chapters. The second chapter the paragraphs are a bit too long and should be split up especially the first paragraph.
As for the story its self. So far i am liking the concept and execution.

[Ivo]

A nice conte you have there.
I like and enjoyed it.
Though, there had been some things that could have been better...

Let me start with the things I liked:
First and most of all there is your unique way to describe!
I really enjoyed every sentence. Your treasury of words is just amazing!
The feelings and surroundings you described with them just felt so...real, to say so.
Second I liked your characterization of Twilight´s dissappointment of herself and Luna´s part as comforter.
The plot itself may was a little bit short, but your portrayal of the scenes and the character´s feelings completely made this up to me.

All in one, this is just how a short story has to be for me!
You have great writing skills and I am truly astonished that this is your first story and you even had barriers of sharing it with the world!
I am sure, many peoples out there, including myself, would be envious about your descriptive skills!

Still, I have to point out some things that could have been better.
Most of them were small issues, first of them all the famous 'wall of text'.
Try to structure the long paragraphs a little bit more. In a book, it´s acceptable, but here it is very hard to read such endless paragraphs.
Also I think the whole story could have been one single chapter. Maybe it´s just me, but I see no need to split the story into three chapters. At least the Epilogue could have easily been part of chapter 2. It was just an unnecessary complicated splitting of the story in my eyes.
The last thing I noticed were only a few typos...
...and one thing you might want to change:
In the fourth paragraph of the first chapter:

All she needed to do was concentrate her focus on the task at hand.

You might want to change that 'hand' into a 'hoof'...

Otherwise...Lyra would approve it...