//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Recollection and Looking Glasses // Story: Twilight's Dawn: Future Imperfect // by Baryski //------------------------------// The darkness was almost suffocating in its entirety.  Aside from the splotches of red that dotted her field of vision, the darkness was everything and all consuming.  In a sense it was almost comforting.  She had made so many mistakes, so many things had fallen apart, and she couldn’t have brought them back.  After that, the darkness and peace felt almost comforting.  Most of her regrets fell slowly by the wayside as the darkness closed in tighter until the sole blip of colour was the one spot of red right in front of her. “Every piece of magic has a price,” The voice boomed all around her.  At that volume it was hard to tell any specific characteristics of the voice, it simply just seemed to be.  For a second it seemed blatantly obvious this was the voice of her final guide.  She’d always wondered what came after death.  The scientist in her had refused to believe anything could come after, but here she was listening to a voice at the end of her life. “The more drastic the spell, the more dangerous the consequences.  Do you understand that now, Twilight Sparkle?” The voice was getting softer now, little bits of inflection could be made out.  Was it actually trying to comfort her?  She was certain that, for all she had done, she deserved the harshest punishment of all the after life could offer her.  Still, the voice was awaiting an answer and she did her best to give it that, “Yes.  I did a horrible thing.  I used magic selfishly and ruined many lives.  I understand that now.” “Good,” The voice had died down considerably now.  It hit a level where many things were painfully obvious.  It was a mare’s voice, softer with a touch of tenderness that bordered on some of the nicer teachers she had ever had.  It failed to seem angry or hating, instead it sounded confident beyond possibility.  Was this really her final judge, “You are starting to understand.  You used magic foolishly and attempted to toy with the basic forces of the world.  Such a thing should not be done without great experience, but the lesson will be of great use to you.” “Use?” The confusion hit her like a ton of bricks.  Nothing about this voice made sense.  It refused to be judgmental and settled just a notch above condescending, “What possible use could it be?  I’m dead, aren’t I?  All the others are dead too.” “Silly Twilight Sparkle.  This was just your first lesson.” “Now, it’s time to wake up Twilight.”  The voice slowly morphed into the higher pitch associated with younger age.  The inflection changed from condescension to annoyance, and it repeated itself several times as the darkness faded from Twilight’s vision. ********* “Come on Twilight, it’s time to get up.”  The words of her little dragon assistant finally broke through the reverie of the dream world.  Parts of her memory instantly becoming foggy through the early morning light.  There was still the faint feeling, like she hadn’t heard her little friend’s voice in weeks, but she couldn’t entirely remember why. “I’m up Spike.” Seconds passed as she blinked the remaining darkness away and her own bed came back into full view.  At the same time countless events from her dream world slowly faded into the background.  She tried to keep parts of them; the blood remained along with the general feeling of failing somehow, but the exact events of her dream world were starting to blur together.  To be honest with herself, Twilight had never had such a disturbing dream, and part of her desperately wanted to figure out exactly what had transpired to cause it.  Though, it was one of those events that, the longer you try to grasp it, the more it falls through your hooves.  All that can ever be left is that vague feeling. It was a few more seconds before another knocking fit from her precious dragon assistant distracted her enough for the remainder to slip through her hooves.  In a perfectly analytical fashion Twilight finally realized how distorted her vision was.  She let her eyes close in several ceremoniously long blinks as tears streamed down her eyes.  Honestly, she couldn’t imagine the reason for the tears, but they felt proper somehow.  They were quickly chalked up to the dream she could no longer remember and she left it at that as the sombre climb out of bed dried the remainder of her tears. “Geez, I thought you were going to spend the entire day in bed,” Spike, as wonderful as he was, could be quite a handful when he was hungry, or worried, or tired, or in any kind of emotional state.  This time, Twilight was thankful to be reminded she always had a friend she could count on, “That’s totally not like you...Wait, you look horrible.  Have you been crying?” “No.  Well, yes.  But, it’s not...” Before Twilight could let an explanation loose, the dragon’s fertile young imagination took more than enough root in the concept. “Did you, did you tell Rainbow Dash about, you know?”  Curse Spike for jumping right there.  Of course he was going to jump right there, it was where any sane pony, or dragon as it might be, would jump.  That didn’t make it any less easy, though, “She turned you down.  No, she probably laughed in your face and you spent the entire night crying into your pillow.  Well, forget her.  You said it once, I can be the new Rainbow Dash, you don’t have to deal with her...” He never did get to finish that sentence, but was rewarded with both a menacing scowl, and a compassionate hug.  Twilight wanted to be angry at him for bringing up that sore topic, but how could she stay angry at the young dragon who cared that much about her, “No Spike, it’s not that.  I just had a rather bad dream.  I hadn’t actually realized it hit me that hard.  Do I really look that bad?” Backing away from the hug Twilight was met with a concerned nod from her precious assistant.  Perhaps the dream had hit her harder than she, herself, was even aware.  But, there was little point in obsessing over something she couldn’t even properly remember.  Instead, she simply smiled and walked back inside her room towards the mirror. Celestia, Spike was right about how bad she looked.  Her eyes were bloodshot, like she had been crying for hours, her mane was a frizzy mess befitting of Pinkie, and there were darkened streaks of fur under her eyes from where the tears had streamed down her muzzle.  All in all, it was a pretty horrible sight first thing in the morning, but nothing Twilight couldn’t fix. She let her concentration engulf her mind, the uneasiness from the dream slowly faded until Spike wasn’t even in the room any more.  With the distractions gone, Twilight was able to feel the magic flowing more freely and easily.  It was a trick Celestia had taught her to control spells as a filly and she had never broken the tradition even to this day, despite the fact that she was easily skilled enough to handle such simple spells without it. The lavender glow quickly engulfed her horn as the flow of magic was manipulated within her.  The tingling sensation was first, her mane easily straightening itself with no care as to how stuck in place a bed mane like that should have been and then slowly being massaged into the fuller look she decidedly wanted.  Twilight had never been one for the finer magic of manedressing, but when it came to magical power and finesse there were few unicorns who could hold a candle to her.  Second came the eyes, this one was more delicate and most wouldn’t bother doing it this way, opting for a cheap illusion to last till the look faded.  For Twilight, though, who refused to do anything half way, it was a matter of pride to actually remove the redness all together. Slowly, as the flow and form of magic shifted, the blood was slowly coaxed from the membranes of her eyes back into their proper home and the vessels themselves mended with tremendous care.  Had this effort been even the slightest bit off, of course, it was entirely possible that Twilight would have rendered herself unable to see ever again.  A testament to the studious unicorn’s concentration, if nothing else. Having cleared up the more delicate bits of her appearance, only one task remained.  Drying out the darkened streaks of her fur.  In truth, this would right itself rather quickly as the day wore on, but Twilight was hardly in the mood to face the possible questions should anypony notice the obvious tear streaks.  She was barely in the mood to deal with her own questions regarding them.  What exactly had transpired in the fog of her dream world that had made her appearance seem so...fitting was the only word that seemed, well fitting. She was partially through the last darkened area of her fur, exposing it to a bit of magic induced heat to evaporate the moisture, when a loud knock finally cut through her slightly waning concentration and ignited her little heat spell into a full on fire singing a small area of her side.  Okay, maybe contemplating the finer aspects of the dream plane had weakened her mental barrier to paper thin levels, but that knock was still herculean to have caused such a loud noise. “Don’t worry, I got it Twilight,” Spike, bless his little heart.  Twilight had certainly missed him.  Wait, how could she have possibly missed him when she had tucked him into bed just last night?  The feeling quickly added to the growing sense of discontent this morning was giving her.  Twilight was earnestly beginning to contemplate crawling back into bed and sleeping till tomorrow.  It seemed like today was in no mood to play fair with her, anyway. “Hey, Twilight, it’s a package for you.  She says she can’t hand it over without a signature, though,” Nope, today was certainly not going to play fair.  The curiosity over the early morning...correction, early afternoon, package dwarfed her mounting uneasiness and general plethora of out of sort feelings, if only for a few fleeting moments.  Those moments, though, were just enough to allow her to feel awkward in front of a very, very familiar beige pegasus standing in the doorway with the package. Okay, Twilight was very sure they had never actually met before, but there was something about her visage that was two steps beyond familiar and just shy of an acquaintance.  A brief image of a hoofstand and bright crimson mane flying around danced into Twilight’s mind momentarily before she could banish it away with the equally disconcerting thought that she had been staring for going on twenty seconds. Focus, Twilight.  It was another couple seconds and, to the new mare’s credit, the held out clipboard before she was actually able to spark up conversation, “Are you new to the postal service?  I can’t say I’ve ever actually seen anypony but Derpy delivering the mail before.” Confident in the signature Twilight presented the strange mare happily presented her with the small brown package she had, no more than two hooves across and less than half deep, “This is actually my first day on the job, Ms. Sparkle.  I just moved to Ponyville yesterday.  My name is Scarlet Blast.” “Scar...” Twilight muttered, almost in a daze, repeating words she didn’t even understand or care to explain. “Funny, most of my friends like to call me that.  Maybe it’s a sign.  I hope we can be great friends Ms. Sparkle.” The pegasus waved and took off before Twilight could regain enough facilities to chide her over the use of her name.  Honestly, she hated being called Ms. Sparkle, almost as much as she hated the public image that she was some sort of perfect pony that could solve any problem.  Right now, she couldn’t even solve the weird feeling in the back of her mind, let alone anypony’s problem. Still, the contents of the mysterious package offered at least a small respite from those worries.  So much so that even her preciously little assistant was practically salivating over it, “What do you think is in it Twilight?  Could it be gems?” “Probably not Spike,” He noticeably deflated when the possibility of gems was taken away, but a moderate degree of curiosity still remained for both parties.  The package itself was nothing special, generic brown wrapping paper covered every nook and cranny marred only by the writing of Twilight’s name and address.  Perhaps a book or piece of equipment she had ordered?  Wait, something was very off about the package.  At first glance, missing it was easy, but on the second inspection it was quite obvious.  There was no return address, nor was there any form of postage.  There was honestly no hint or clue as to how this package had made its journey or where it had come from.  Curiosity mounted alongside a trepidatious worry. The worry was enough for Twilight to levitate the package several feet in the air as she removed the brown paper.  As the paper was hastily discarded it revealed...a plain white box.  Because removing the wrapping paper was going to reveal something magnificent.  Twilight mentally chastised herself for not realizing the possibility of the box and jumping to conclusions.  The thought was still there, that the box could still contain something dangerous inside it.  Curse top lidded boxes, though, as holding it that high in the air meant she would simply be staring at the bottom of the box should she open it like that. A short round of mental chiding later, mostly over a completely unfounded worry, she was letting Spike open the box on their large work table.  Really, she still wanted to be careful, but his begging had been so cute.  He still honestly held out hope the box was full of delicious gems that Rarity had secretly chosen for him.  The obvious flaw in his argument, that the box was actually addressed to Twilight, would never be brought up.  Of course, there were no gems inside the box. There were actually two lone occupants to the average package.  One, a letter to be dealt with later, and the second, a rather ornate mirror.  The mirror itself was not very large, maybe a hoof and a quarter in diameter, but it was surrounded with beautiful metal work that seemed almost like a living night sky.  It was a gorgeous mirror, but still just a mirror.  After a few minutes of admiring the intricate detailing it was set aside in favour of looking at the letter that had accompanied it. The letter too had an envelope to encase it.  On the envelope a few words were elegantly scrawled out: For a strong lesson, some perspective is needed. ~LtW That was it, that was all Twilight needed.  Whatever little worries had been piling up in Twilight’s mind were now screaming at her in full force.  You do not open this letter!  No matter what, you do not!  This is one mystery you don’t need to solve.   For once in her life, Twilight was inclined to agree with the voices, too.  She was far too out of sorts this morning to try and understand any of this.  Maybe later, but certainly not now,  “I think I need to go for a walk, Spike.  Clean up the library for me and then you can have the rest of the day off to visit Rarity if you want.” “Please tell me you are not going to see her.  You don’t need...” Sploink!  Twilight was entirely aware that the door shouldn’t have made that kind of a sound as she telekinetically slammed it closed, but she hardly cared enough to check if she had actually closed it in the dragon’s face.  She really didn’t need him worrying about something that was further from the truth.  Okay, it was really more like diagonal and slightly down from the truth. A/N:Honestly, I was a bit apprehensive to build a continuation for Wish Upon a Card. First and foremost, that story remains a one shot. Without anything of what I'm writing now, I still remain happy with how it turned out. I'm doing this because I wanted to delve more into the why's. Answering all the questions that might have built up during the first story is one of the best goals I can think of. Aside from that, I wanted to write something with a bit more over arch. I hope you enjoy this one, even if it does end up a bit of a departure from the last one.