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// Day 0 
// Story: The Weight of the Crown 
// by Non Uberis 
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After having spent years of study on the subject, Twilight Sparkle had plenty of reason to believe that she was well-versed in the nature of magic. She knew her way around cantrips and abjurations and invocations and enchantments and illusions. She had mastered teleportation and telekinesis and telepathy, pyrokinesis and cryokinesis and hydrokinesis and trichokinesis. Though she wasn’t necessarily one to brag about the subject, she was certainly proud of the knowledge and skill which she had managed to accrue throughout her years of hard work. She had come to understand the full extent of the applications of magic, the many situations which it could be used for, and the dangers which it presented if used improperly.

That changed when she experienced ascension.

In that brief moment in which she had felt the power of her dearest friends, channeled through the Elements of Harmony and into her, mingling with her deepest essences, Twilight Sparkle had felt more than she had ever known. The flood of sensation had surged through her, filling heart and lungs, igniting veins and nerves, exploding within her brain, mana in its rawest form, tinged with the colors that made up each pony, savory sweetness soothing her. It was a deluge, and for as short a time as it lasted she knew that she was a hair’s breadth away from tipping the balance and losing herself—maybe even more if the discharge were to be sufficiently disastrous. All she could do was continue to hold on, riding out the storm until it was over as she felt herself being eaten away.

The rest of it was hazy. Like walking through a dream. She remembered the mighty form of Celestia appearing to reassure her as the metamorphic process carried out to completion. The princess had embraced her, and Twilight Sparkle thought that she was aware of her in a way that she hadn’t been before, but in the moment she didn’t think much of it. The soft warmth was enough to distract her up until heat bloomed within her chest and the ethereal plane faded into light.

Then reality had reasserted itself, and she was faced with the reality that her unicorn horn had been joined by the wings of a pegasus and the strength of an earth pony. Her friends had all been there for her, and together they had cried joyously as their emotions bubbled over. Twilight Sparkle found herself faced with a new wealth of possibilities for her life, and as much as change terrified her, she couldn’t wait to see lay in wait for her.

However, there had been something else.

Amidst the spark of power which she had felt nestled within herself, waiting to be stoked into a fire, Twilight Sparkle had felt a peculiar sensation while she lay awake in bed. It was queasy and uncomfortable, steadily gnawing at her. For a while, she hadn’t been sure what it could be. She thought it was just her nerves, as to be expected of Princess Celestia telling her that the very next day there was going to be a coronation held for her in Canterlot. It might have been the fact that she couldn’t find a good way to sleep now that there were two feathered appendages projecting from her back.

Eventually, though, she realized the truth was far simpler: she was hungry.

More than that, she had a particular craving.

So, after accepting that she wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon, Twilight Sparkle left her library home to make a trip to the Hay Burger, silently thanking the princesses that it was open all hours of the day. The tired stallion behind the register went wide-eyed and slack-jawed when he took notice of her wings—not helped by how she still struggled to keep them folded against her back, fidgeting and twitching at random. They went through the transaction process and she could feel the eyes of everyone in the building (which, to be fair, wasn’t a lot at that hour) boring into her as she left with the hot paper bag in her hands. She wondered how long it would take ponies to get over this development, though the question of how long it would take her to get over it might have been more pertinent.

The mare walked aimlessly through Ponyville for a while before deciding to stop and sit on a park bench. She looked wistfully up at the moon and stars for a time—wondering what Luna’s perspective on this matter might be, having not yet had the chance to meet with her, to say nothing of Cadence, or the rest of her family, or so many others—before a growling from her stomach reminded her of her purpose in being away from home this late.

She opened up the bag and hastily sampled its contents, grabbing a few handfuls of fries and shoving them into her mouth one after another. Oily residue and crumbs quickly built up along her fingers as she relished in the delectable salty taste, humming contentedly to herself. Next she reached in to take out the burger, fingers gripping tightly around the bun, and her jaws opened wide to tear a bite out of it. The patty of condensed beans and grains and mushrooms, buried in toppings and sauces, prompted an explosion of greasy flavors upon contact with her tongue, and there was a low groan in her throat before she rapidly consumed the rest of the sandwich. She licked her fingers clean afterward, not wanting to waste a drop, even though she missed some crumbs and droplets of sauce that had tumbled over her front. It was everything she could have hoped for.

And then, without thinking, her hand plunged into the bag once more, only to be met with the discovery that it was empty.

Broken out of a trance that she hadn’t been aware of, Twilight Sparkle took stock of herself once more, really thought about what she had been doing. She had gone out in the middle of the night to get fast food, no doubt wreaking havoc on both her sleep schedule and her dietary routine. Worse still, she wasn’t entirely certain that she had been sufficiently sated—the hunger seemed to be gone, but the craving was still there, yearning for more. She placed a hand upon her stomach, feeling the faint softness of its convex surface, and the way it churned just underneath.

“If I’m not careful…” she said under her breath with a wry chuckle, “I really will end up just as big as Celestia.”

The thought tickled at her in a way she couldn’t have described.