//------------------------------//
// No Shelter 
// Story: Cleansed of Darkness 
// by SilverStar7 
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Starlight and Spike made their way down the stairs, arriving just as Twilight sat the last of her bags in the hall with magic. She smiled upon seeing her dragon and student. "Boy am I glad to see you two. You would not believe how hectic my trip was!"

Spike tilted his head. "What? I thought it was a vacation."

"Yeah, so did my family. But it turns out it was all being run by Iron Will and he made me spend the whole time catering to a bunch of Princess fans! It was so stressful that I ended up snapping at a pony out of frustration."

"Ouch," said Spike. "That doesn't sound good."

Twilight shook her head. "Well, it's over now." She looked between the two of them. "I hope your week wasn't full of unexpected stress."

"None here," said Spike.

Starlight forced herself to respond. "Oh, not much."

Twilight sighed. "After a trip like that, I think I need a bit of meditation." Perhaps it was Starlight's imagination, but she thought there was something strange about the way Twilight said that last word. Against her will, Starlight gulped.

"Got it," said Spike. "I'll go get started on dinner."

"And I'll, uh, go get washed up," Starlight said, putting on a small smile, which Twilight returned as she walked away. Starlight then began to walk off in the opposite direction. And as soon as she was out of sight, she quickly dove into a spare room. 

The unicorn considered igniting her horn to teleport up to the third floor ahead of Twilight, but she knew it would be futile. While she obviously wanted to know what Twilight was up to, there was no place in the meditation room for Starlight to hide. The whole chamber was simple; there were no closets or even furniture to speak of. Just torches and chains and... Starlight remembered something. The puddle of tears on the floor. 

She was familiar with the concept of scrying, looking into a medium like water to remotely view other places, and the fact that it was possible to do the reverse. Reverse scrying was obviously less useful, as it pretty much limited where one could observe to places with standing water, but it had the advantage of not needing a medium for a pony to look into. It was worth a shot.

But if the whole thing was just in my head, then that puddle didn't really exist. However, even a negative result was still a result. If there was no longer any water in the room, that would at least tell Starlight that what she had seen wasn't physical. 

Starlight closed her eyes and focused her attention. Her horn lit up with magic and, after a few seconds, she opened her eyes. When she did, she was no longer looking at the inside of the small room, but instead was looking up at the ceiling of Twilight's meditation chamber. 

And the other Twilight was still there, just visible off to the right, laid on the floor. Starlight's breathing halted and her pulse increased. Her experience was not an illusion.

How can she be real? What is Twilight doing?

Outside of Starlight's field of view, the door clicked. The Twilight in the room immediately stood up. "Twilight? Is that you?" she called. There was silence until the door shut.

Hoofsteps could be heard approaching the puddle. They seemed to make it about halfway across the room, before stopping abruptly. "Why did you ask if it was me?"

The Twilight gave a sigh. "I hallucinated again. Another pony came into the room. It felt even more real this time."

The hoofsteps resumed.

"I thought you said you wouldn't need to do this for a while."

Princess Twilight came into view and then sat down in front of the other Twilight, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She simply sat for a moment. Her mood appeared calm and the only visible movement was the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest. 

Starlight was taken aback. Is she actually meditating? How could seeing this possibly help her meditate?!

"Could... could we please wait? Just a day or two? If I just had a bit more time between sessions, maybe--"

"Shut up," Twilight hissed, her eyes still closed. "I have to concentrate."

The other Twilight's head fell. She stared, mouth wide, eyes fully open, into the pool of tears. Her head slowly swayed back and forth.

To Starlight, she was looking right at her. She could feel the hopelessness and her own chest grew tight watching this Twilight attempt to prepare for some inevitable fate that she seemed unable to handle.

For several minutes, there was silence. Princess Twilight did not move. The other Twilight moved little. The only significant change was that, as time went on, Princess Twilight's horn began to glow dimly and, bit by bit, a ball of magenta light grew at the end of her horn. When the ball was about the size of a filly's hoof, the Princess opened her eyes and stood up, the light still resting on her horn's tip. Seeing this, the other Twilight stopped looking into the puddle and looked right into her counterpart's eyes. She gulped.

"Please don't."

Princess Twilight raised a hoof and gently lifted the black ring from the base of the other Twilight's horn. When it was a little more than half-way removed, Princess Twilight moved closer.

"I'm getting worse."

She brought her horn's tip into contact with that of the other Twilight.

"Wai--!"

The magenta magic cascaded from the Princess's horn and engulfed the horn of the second Twilight, eliciting a gasp from the latter. Her eyes had opened wide. Her lips quivered as her jaw flapped wordlessly. The Princess's eyes sat closed. She wore no clear expression. After several seconds, the magic faded and Princess Twilight let go of the ring, allowing it to drop back onto the base of the other's horn.

Tears returned again to the other Twilight's eyes as she collapsed to the floor, her head in her hooves. "I missed them? I missed the Northern Stars?"

The Princess turned and left, going out of view. 

The other Twilight continued. "No, it's okay. I can't disappoint my family. But... but what about me? Why does nopony care about me being happy?! I would never have agreed to this if I knew I was going to have to do work all week!"

She lifted up her head, looking up at the ceiling. "Wait. That's not right. These ponies matter. I can't let them down. I won't let them down! No matter what I have to put up with."

This Twilight's nostrils suddenly flared and anger rose in her voice. "No matter how unbearably annoying they are. It isn't their fault. This is all Iron Will's fault!"

With a gasp, Twilight froze. Then she let out a manic laugh. "No! It's my parent's fault! They should have read that contract before signing it. If they hadn't been negligent, none of this would have happened!"

Then a frown returned. "But they just wanted to be happy. Was it so wrong of them to think that maybe the cruise was being done in good faith?"

And on and on she went. Weeping and yelling and harsh laughter interspersed the ramblings, but they continued until Starlight could not watch any longer. She dimmed her horn, allowing the scene to fade away, wiping tears from her eyes. Starlight found it was still difficult for her to breathe, as if she feared sucking in too much air would draw in whatever it was she had just witnessed.