Chapter 1: A Lesson To Learn
The morning sun crept through the treehouse window and towards the sleeping Twilight Sparkle's face. The bright light shone through the thin skin of her eyelids and the waking mare's vision flooded pink and red. Twilight opened one eye just a crack to allow the morning to enter her world of dreams, a choice which was met with instant regret. The bright and vibrant colors, the shatteringly loud birdsong, even the smell of the dewy autumn grass brought about a painful throbbing in her head. Twilight screwed her eyes tightly shut, blocking out the pain and rolled over, away from the window and towards the still dark library.
Unfortunately the universe was ready to get a start on the day, despite the grumbling refusals of the young unicorn. The sunlight continued to stretch into the room, warming Twilight's flank with its amber glow as it fell upon her. She did her best to block everything out but the world was ready to awaken and made itself heard. The straw that broke the pony's back was the loud, reverberating slam that occurred as a fall breeze flung open the windows, sending the wooden panels thundering against the wall
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Practically fuming Twilight crawled slowly from bed, making sure to avert her eyes from the bright sunlight in front of her. She shut the windows harshly, wincing at the resulting sound, and flipped the latch locking the window tightly. Using simple magic she pulled the curtains across the window and the room was shrouded in a muted darkness. In place of the natural light Twilight opted to light a small candle.
Down below the rapping of Twilight's hooves upon the hard wood floors awoke Spike from his restless sleep. He only stirred slightly from his unconscious state at first, but his weary eyes soon shot wide open. Scrambling from the couch where he had fallen asleep he made his way as quickly as possible to up the stairs to where he could hear Twilight going through her morning routine.
When he reached the top of the stairs he spotted the Twilight pulling taught the rumpled blankets on her bed and tucking the corners in neatly with her magic. "Twilight!" Spike cried rushing forward, he stopped short before he reached her, his awoken anger bubbling up inside him. "Where have you been?" he demanded his draconic tongue flicking in fury.
"What's wrong Spike?" asked Twilight in a groggily peering over her shoulder.
"What's wrong? What's wrong?!" Spike repeated his voice growing louder by the moment. "What's wrong is that you disappeared yesterday! We couldn't find you anywhere! All of us have been searching nonstop, I waited at the front door all night for you!"
"I'm a grown pony Spike. I don't need to let everypony know where I am going and what I am doing," she grumbled. She didn't remember much from the night before, she only knew that whatever had happened had left her with stinging eyes and a throbbing head.
Turning sharply she headed into the bathroom where her reflection gazed back at her disapprovingly from the mirror. Her mane stuck out in all directions, there were dark circles beneath her eyes, and she had a cut on her left ear. Turning on the faucet she splashed the icy cold water upon her face.
"Don't walk away!" Spike shouted. "I'm yelling at you!"
"I'm aware you're yelling at me," she snapped, slamming the bathroom door shut on Spike.
"Fine! Be like that, I'm going to go and let our friends know that you're alright!" and with that he stormed away, smoke practically spilling from his ears.
Twilight sighed with relief, glad to have the young dragon off her case. She went to the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of coffee, black. It tasted horrible, but it did the trick.
Sitting at the table with her mug in hoof she thought back to the previous day. She remembered going to visit the brothers, she remembered speaking to one of them over a cup of cider, but after the second cup her thoughts began to blur together and nothing more came to mind. The cider she had with the stallion had been a lot stronger than anything she had occasionally sipped in Canterlot.
She slammed down the rest of her coffee, shuddering at the taste, and headed back to the bathroom to prepare for the day. Feeling horrible was no excuse for slacking off. Seeing her reflection once again made Twilight thank Celestia for Rarity's lessons on beautifying spells. Rarity had insisted on teaching them to her for those late nights of studying and especially bad mane days. They came in great use this morning.
As the violet magic finished straightening the mess of a mane upon her head, Twilight felt a wave of guilt wash over her. She hadn't meant to be so mean to Spike, she had been so tired and the throbbing in her head had been near unbearable. She decided that she had better go and apologize to him before starting on her studies
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Before walking out the door Twilight turned to the drowsy owl on his perch, "I'll be back shortly Owlicious. If you could get my supplies together before you go to bed that would be great." Owlicious' large unblinking eyes stared back at her, and if she didn't know better she would say that the wise bird looked angry at her.
With a soft sigh and a shake of the head, Twilight straightened her posture and headed out into the unforgiving light of day. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the radiant sunlight shining down on the cool morning in Ponyville. She turned to the right and headed towards Sugar Cube Corner, where she would most likely find her friends and be able to make things right.
She only made it a few houses down before she heard her name called. Twilight turned around expecting to see somepony, but nopony was in sight, until she looked up into the sky. Above her hovered a pale grey pegasus mare with a yellow mane and an array of bubbles for a cutie mark.
"Ditzy? What are you doing here?" asked Twilight.
Ditzy Doo landed next to Twilight. "I was dropping Dinky off at school and I saw you walking. And you're my friend Twilight, you can call me Derpy."
"Oh," she replied, "Well good to see you Derpy."
The two mares continued walking through town side by side. "You know your friends were worried sick when you disappeared yesterday," said Derpy glancing towards Twilight with her one good eye.
"I....I know. I didn't mean to of course," said Twilight slowing her pace. "I just needed to be alone for a while and I didn't think I needed to let anypony know, especially with everypony so busy with the cider. I guess I had a little too much cider before I left and got lost. By the time I got home it was just so late and I was so tired and I didn't mean to...." Twilight rambled before Derpy cut her short.
"I know," she said softly. "But you still should have let somepony know. Your friends care for you a great deal and they only want you to be safe. You are lucky to have such great friends Twilight, always remember that."
Twilight could only nod in reply, the two had come to a near crawl.
"Well I have to get going," said Derpy. "Lots of deliveries today!" She nodded towards Twilight as a goodbye and took flight, nearly missing the roof of a nearby house before disappearing out of sight.
Twilight looked at her hooves. Derpy was right, she had the greatest friends in all of Equestria and they had every right to worry about their friend, just as she worried about them. A lump formed in her throat and tears formed in the corner of her eyes. She had screwed up, she needed to make this right. As she lifted a hoof to continue onward, another voice from behind stopped her in her tracks.