In Reflection, The Same

by Faedelaide


Sleeping

"Twilight! Twilight! Come on, get up! Hurry!"

Twilight shot up from her bed and nearly toppled over Spike, who had been nudging her in attempt to wake her up.

"What is it spike? What's the matter?" she asked with panic in her voice. This was partly because she was only starting to fully wake up, but as far as she knew, Canterlot was under attack, or some other nefarious villain had kidnapped everyone in Ponyville.

"It's the map, I think it's glitched! Come look."

Twilight stood motionless. Spike ran out of her bedroom and into the hall that led to the map room. She could hear the quiet pattering of his scaley feet echo throughout the castle, even when he was nearly on the other end of the hall from her. That was one of the things that she had yet to get used to with this castle, any sound louder than a whisper was likely to be heard across the entire castle.

She sluggishly looked down at her cutie mark. the spattering of stars that adorned her flank were the same as they had always been; notably unilluminated. She sighed and rubbed the itchiness of sleep from her eyes. Spike was probably overreacting, it was probably nothing to worry about.

She began to trot down the long, spacious hall that led to the map room. Of course the map had to break in the wee hours of the morning. She took a quick glance out of one of the castle's many windows. The sun had yet to be raised, and the moon was obscured by heavy clouds filled to the brim with snow. Due to this, the only thing Twilight could see besides pitch blackness was the occasional snowflake that was close enough to the window to be illuminated by the glow of the castle lights.

It looked positively frigid out there. Sometimes, Twilight wondered how Rainbow Dash managed to live in her cloudominium when it was this cold. There was no way that those clouds were anywhere near insulating enough to keep out a cold like this. But Dash never complained, so Twilight supposed that it couldn't be that bad.

The doors to the map room were already wide open. Spike was pacing on top of the map, his gaze constantly switching between scanning the map of Equestria and staring at one particular spot near Canterlot.

He noticed Twilight walk in and dashed to the edge of the table to meet her. "What took you so long? C'mon, come look at this."

Twilight merely yawned in response. she walked around the map and took a seat at her respective chair, nearly nodding off as soon as she sat down. "Alright, Spike... Where's this glitch you were talking about?"

Spike scampered past the city of Canterlot, over the small village that Twilight and her friends had visited not too long ago, and onto the sea that divided Equestria and the kingdom of Griffonstone. He pointed up north, towards the large ice banks that marked the edge of the great icy land that surrounded the Crystal Kingdom.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but when she looked back down at Griffonstone, she noticed what Spike was pointing at.

In front of Griffonstone, in the middle of the sea that separated the two kingdoms, was an odd cube. It wasn't big by an means, in fact, Twilight nearly had to stand up on the table and squint hard to see it, but it was there. She had sworn it hadn't been there before, she would've known if it was, or somepony else would have seen it earlier. As tiny as it was, once she saw it, it was hard to miss. Unlike the soft crystalline blue and purple of the map, this small, insignificant little square was completely black.

"Huh," she let out as she leaned back into her chair. "It doesn't seem to be anything substantial. Maybe it is just a glitch."

"Can we fix it?" Spike asked, hopping down from the table.

"I'm not sure. I might have some spellbooks from the Crystal Kingdom. Does this even fall under crystal magic? Maybe one of Starswirl's old books might have information on enchantments like this..."

Spike grabbed his duster and began to walk out of the room to do his daily chores, but he stopped before he could reach the doorway. Then, he let out a loud, fiery burp. A single scroll burst from from plume of emerald flames and dropped lightly onto the floor. Spike picked up the scroll, then looked back at his now scorched feather duster.

"Well, guess I'll add that to the shopping list." he grumbled.

He brought Twilight the scroll, looking visibly upset. She would have to buy him another duster later, once she figured out what was wrong with her map. But first, why would Princess Celestia send her a letter at this time of day?

Twilight unrolled the scroll and began to silently read it's contents to herself. After a short moment, Spike cleared his throat.

"Oh, sorry Spike," she apologized. She cleared her throat and began again.

"Dear Twilight, My most faithful student, As you must have noticed, the pegasi have done a fantastic job for this year's winter. However, I believe their work may be too good. I recently received a letter from one of our neighboring kingdoms of whom your friends have already spoken to quite recently..." Twilight's eyes sparkled and she let out a small delighted gasp.

"She doesn't mean...?" Spiked asked, though he already knew the answer.

"She does mean! Oh I finally get to go to Griffonstone!" Twilight leaped out of her seat, hovering above the table in excitement. "So many hours spent poring over griffon history, and now I get to experience it firsthand!"

With a squee of delight, Twilight zoomed out of the map room and down the hall back to her bedroom.

Spike let out another sigh. "Guess I better pack her bags before she fills them with books... again..." He grumbled, the pattering of his feet resounding through the hall once more as he followed behind her.