//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: What Lies Dormant // by goodbyecruelworld //------------------------------// Celestia's sun was just rising over Ponyville and while many ponies were just now getting up, one in particular had been up for a while now. Twilight Sparkle looked out the window at the rising sun with fatigued eyes. She had not been sleeping well ever since her problems started occurring. Spike on the other hoof had no problem sleeping all through the night and would probably sleep through most of the day if Twilight did not wake him. She rolled out of bed and walked over to where Spike was sleeping in his basket with all of his limbs sprawled, most hanging out of the basket. Twilight noticed how Spike had been growing and even doubted he would fit into the suit he wore to Shining Armor's wedding just a few months ago. It wasn't anything drastic but even the tiniest of details or changes never escaped Twilight's eye. She went in to nudge him while forcing herself to sound as cheery as possible, “Come on Spike wake up. It's a brand new day!” This was met with Spike's usual groan and detest for having to leave his comfy, albeit small, basket. Twilight considered putting more effort into waking him but decided on spending the effort on figuring out what she would do today. For you see, Twilight had been having some troubles with her studies recently, especially in her use of magic. It had been three months since the wedding of her brother and the defeat of Queen Chrysalis and while life had returned to normal in Ponyville and her friends, the story was not so much the same with Princess Celestia and Canterlot. The city had been dealt a major blow by the invasion of the changelings and Celestia had decided that her knowledge on the enemies of Equestria was not up to par. Twilight guessed that sometimes even near immortal beings had to brush up on their studies. While she felt reassured that Princess Celestia was ensuring the safety of Equestria, she couldn't help but feel a little left out. She had not seen or heard from the Princess personally in some time and even though she continued sending letters about her lessons in friendship she had been learning in Ponyville, they were normally met with little or no response. The last she had seen or heard from her was weeks ago when Celestia made the announcement that she would be doing her best to protect Equestria from any threat including the changelings, whom Celestia admitted could be returning any day now from the defeat at Canterlot. Twilight never paid much attention to that notice though, she was letting the lack of attention from the Princess get to her. She knew better than to feel so jealous of Celestia's attention directed elsewhere. Twilight had seemingly been losing focus recently on her magical studies and wondered if that was to blame. Though she still flew through books and studied like no other pony in Equestria, it was in the physical use of her studies that she was having issues with. For unicorns practicing even the most simple of spells, there must be focus in the unicorn's mind. To get an item to levitate the unicorn must be able to focus and see the item clearly in their mind and envision it moving the way they want the item to move. Twilight however was having trouble focusing on items. Her vision seemed to get foggy every time she tried to envision something. As Twilight walked into the library she felt downtrodden. Magic had been so easy for her after becoming the pupil of Celestia's. Ever since the incident at the entrance exam, she felt great comfort in Celestia's teachings and words of wisdom. Now was not the time to reminisce though. Twilight looked back towards her bedroom and at the sun and decided that today was a new day and that she would re-attain her focus! She glanced over at a book lying on the table from last night's reading. It would have to be put away anyway and with Spike still laying lackadaisically in his basket, it was up to her. The room was silent and it was the perfect time for Twilight to try to focus on the book to put it back on the shelves. She took deep breaths and envisioned the book in her mind. There it was! She could see it clear as could be! She thought to herself with a smile on her face, Well Twilight! Looks like it was all in your head after all! But her good mood did not last. As she tried to lift the book the fog had swarmed into her mind and obscured the book as soon as she had tried to lift it over to the bookshelf. She could barely manage to get it a few inches into the air and the book returned to the ground with a resounding thud. The feeling of panic was returning to her. If she wasn't able to perform even the simplest magic would her friends still be interested in her company or ask her for help? Would she become a pony with no use?! Her negative thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when Spike appeared behind her. “Are you okay Twilight? You're sweating like Applejack in the middle of apple-bucking season!” Twilight tried to put on her most non-panicked face possible before turning around, “Yes I am fine Spike, just had a bad night's sleep.” Twilight could see the look of doubt on Spike's face. Of course Spike would be able to see through any visage that Twilight put on, he had been around her his whole life. Twilight used this thought to change topics. “You've been growing Spike! You hardly fit into your bed anymore! I'll have to talk to Rarity to see about getting you a new one.” At the mere mention of Rarity's name, Spike loosened up and forgot all about Twilight's condition. “You really think she would do something like that for me!? Sleeping in a bed made by Rarity would be the best thing ever.” As Spike's eyes turned into beating pink hearts Twilight thought this would be the best time to try to get out of the house and do some reading. She even had a good cover for herself now. “Hey Spike I'm going to go to Fluttershy's to try and see if there is any information on aging dragons so we can find out when you turn into a large monster and burn down the entire town with a simple sneeze.” Spike turned around and let out a simple and very sarcastic “ha-ha very funny Twilight.” Twilight giggled to herself as she left the house and started walking towards Fluttershy's cottage. Although she truly was curious about Spike maturing, she also wanted to research her own problem. She wanted to see if maybe there was an illness related to her lack of focus or if this happened to other unicorns. She normally would ask Rarity or another unicorn about this problem but the thoughts of her friends finding her useless quickly scared her out of bringing it up to anypony. Her best hope would be to find a cause in one of Fluttershy's many books on sicknesses and cures for animals. Surely she would have some books on unicorns, right? She was so deep in thought she hardly noticed that she walked through all of Ponyville without so much as a word to anypony before she could see Fluttershy's cottage coming into view. She was hoping she didn't offend somepony with her blank stare. She walked up to Fluttershy's cottage and knocked on the door quietly. She was quickly greeted by the sight of her yellow pegasus friend. “Oh hi Twilight. How are you today?” Fluttershy asked. “I'm doing just fine Fluttershy!” Twilight lied. “What brings you all the way over here?” “Well you see, I noticed Spike had been growing a lot recently and I was wondering if you had any books on mythological creatures or magic to see what is going to be happening to Spike through adolescence?” “Well I just don't know. I might have something on dragons but surely you would have more books to choose from in your library wouldn't you? And why magic?” Fluttershy asked quietly. “Yeah I looked through some of my books but nothing came up so I figured I would check with the number one animals expert in all of Ponyville! I'm just trying to cover all the possibilities to find out some information and you never know what will turn up when one is researching magic.” “Well okay then, let's go see what I have.” Fluttershy's collection was just a single bookcase but the books in there were of high quality. Twilight could see a lot of the books she had seen before in the Canterlot Library but also some she had never seen before. Finally she saw a book titled Mythological Creatures Through The Ages, and thought that would be a good place to start for information on Spike, though her own issues were still on her mind. Fluttershy was quick to notice something. “Twilight is there any reason you went over and picked up that book instead of just bringing it over with magic?” She winced, “Unless of course you just felt like doing it, then that's fine too.” She let out in a low whisper. “Oh.” Twilight said, not even noticing her error. “I sometimes don't feel comfortable waving my magic around in somepony's house, wouldn't want to wreck anything, you know?” She glanced around to see if Fluttershy was right behind her and quickly also picked up The Common Ailments of Modern Unicorns when she was sure the coast was clear. Good timing too, Fluttershy walked in just moments later and said that her and Angel were going to head over to Applejack's to get some of the fresh carrots that had just been picked. Fluttershy was ready to go into more detail but Angel was quick to start pounding his paw to the ground in impatience. Fluttershy bid Twilight farewell and left. Not knowing if Fluttershy would burst in immediately after leaving, Twilight decided to start first with research on Spike. What she first thought she would be using as an excuse to study up on her condition, she found truly interesting. Dragons surely were very foreign creatures to most ponies. The fact that she has one in her home is probably the only case of such in all of Equestria she figured. The book was able to describe some things about adult dragons and baby dragons, but not a lot of information was available on the aging. Twilight was confused at first but then realized that dragons age over hundreds of years and that having a full study on one of them would be rather difficult. Fully aged dragons were capable of so many things. They were able to fly and breathe fire obviously but Twilight also learned that fully matured dragons were immune to almost all negative or harmful magic. That certainly was news to Twilight. Dragons also eventually were able to harness far more control over their fire breath than Spike could manage in the present. One sneeze and an entire book could be destroyed in a burst of flames at his current stage. Fire control is certainly not Spike's specialty, Twilight thought to herself. Twilight knew that Spike would eventually grow massive naturally and not by pure power of greed as they had experienced once in the past but she had no idea at which rate he would grow. Although the book was lacking on information about the transition into adult phase, Twilight just figured all of that stuff would come over time. Twilight was deep into study about dragons when she suddenly remembered her real reason for being here. She picked up the book on unicorns and dove straight into it. Trying to match up her symptom of foggy vision with anything in the book. She had flown through just about every page when suddenly she read something that described her condition. She was ecstatic and continued to read on only to be disappointed that this illness only affected elderly ponies and the first symptom was the inability to stop spontaneously dancing. She certainly wasn't an elder pony and definitely was not spontaneously dancing so she passed over that one just like the others. Finally she was greeted by the back cover of the book and no answers to be had. She was comforted by the fact she had gained knowledge on dragons but was still overall disappointed by the vacancy of answers in her head. She slowly walked out of Fluttershy's cottage after putting the books back in their proper place. She was not accustomed to the void of answers for a problem, it had been what she was known for all her life. She was upset at the missing knowledge that modern books had on the subject. The light bulb burned bright in her head, That's it! She thought to herself. She needed something, rather somepony, more varied than modern books. The name escaped her mouth in a cheer that she was unable to control. “Zecora!”