Darkest Before Dawn

by Sessalisk

Chapter 6

Caveat, this chapter contains foul-as-shit language and fancy mathematics (okay... not that fancy. It’s just algebra.).

“He was not strong in body or magic, but without knowing of the concept, he had always been the most rational of all his peers. He looked at things with logic, before logic had a name, seeing how the world worked, knowing that things followed objective rules of their own and that they could be discovered with enough experimentation. This does not sound very impressive now, but this is a very difficult leap of imagination when one does not have language.        

“What did it look like?” Twilight said. She and the Princess stood on the rooftop under a cloudy night sky.  “I mean... What was it?” She had read this story before, in A History of Magic, as a summarisation of events. It was very sparse on the details.

 “The oral accounts are unreliable and there are many interpretations of what the creature may have looked like. Some insist that it must have been a simple water goblin, one that had somehow learned magic; others say it was a flaming wheel covered in eyes; and more still say that it was a shifting mass made of thousands of insects, speaking with the wind of their wings. Still, its appearance is not important in the grand scheme of things.

“Looking at the creature, the stallion somehow knew that his journey was drawing to a close. The creature beckoned him towards the lake and motioned at its surface. The stallion saw his own reflection and thought that he was being shown that he had the ability all along.”

Without warning, the Princess fired a beam of energy at Twilight.

Caught off-guard, her heart began to beat at a frantic pace. The glow of her eyes threatened to blind her. She held on to herself and in a practiced, almost reflexive response, she pushed the magic through her horn into a white corona of light.

“This was the wrong answer and the creature knew so,” Princess Celestia said. She spoke with the dramatic oration of a storyteller, ignoring her pupil, who shook with the effort of channeling her own power. “It wrapped the stallion up in its magics and there was nothing but pure thought. With guidance, the stallion thought the world. The stallion thought himself. A thousand things and more, he thought, but the most important was that he was in the eye of the storm as the universe changed around him, like a dream. The power was not within, but where he stood in relation to everything else.”

The blazing white sphere of Twilight’s spell fizzled and became a golden beam. It painted the rooftop in yellows and oranges and lit up the sky as bright as day. She clenched her eyelids shut and struggled to stay focused on both the Princess and her spell.

Princess Celestia cleared her throat, the meaning being, keep your eyes open.

Twilight obeyed. It felt like staring into the sun.

“He had once thought himself a grain of sand in a vast desert, insignificant and ignorant of the sky or the ocean, of these things that shaped the world. In the creature’s embrace, he knew now, how his own self tainted what he saw. More importantly, he saw how this was essential.”

The story had been difficult to visualise from the start, but in addition to listening, she now had to force herself to try to understand whatever ideological point the Princess was trying to convey. Twilight’s mind felt like a pretzel, twisting and turning over itself, and she felt her spell take the shape of sparks, spraying from her horn and fizzling to their death on the roof shingles. This was a perilously distracting form of the basic light spell, but the shift was so automatic that it wasn’t even a conscious choice

Princess Celestia carried on, despite the blisteringly-hot sparks that danced around her hooves. “The stallion said ‘I,’ and the creature said ‘yes.’”

Twilight waited for the Princess to continue, but nothing else was said. She felt the magic weakening, and formed the rudiments of a glow, the same spell she’d used right at the start. It felt right to finish where she’d began.

The Princess watched in silence for this last part, not bothering to provide any sort of distraction.

Twilight breathed heavily as the last of the magic left her body. Her eyes dimmed. The night around her looked very, very dark. “Aren’t you skipping the part where he discovers many of the fundamental theories of magic and some of the first language and storytelling traditions?” she said, trying to make it sound like what she’d just done had been as simple as stretching, warming up before a run.

Princess Celestia gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Those are important too.”

Twilight waited for a compliment that never came, before giving up and saying, “I don’t get it.”

Sometimes when Twilight asked the Princess a question, she would get a story in response. It was usually obvious what the story meant. It would have a clear-cut moral, even if Princess Celestia didn’t say it. This was the first time all the significant events were missing.

“Twilight Sparkle, you have noticed the nexus of your spells, haven’t you?”

“You mean, how when I move things, I move them from where I’m standing?” I did well, didn’t I?... This wasn’t the first time she’d managed to hold on to herself, but it was the first time she’d managed to work her way through a story as well - an extremely obtuse story to boot.

“Yes. It may seem obvious, but this rule is often taken for granted. You are the center of your spells. Everything that they do must be in relation to yourself.”

This was one of the laws of magic, all of which Twilight already knew. “Ohh... so the story is about how he discovered the principle of essence.”

“In a fashion,” said the Princess.

Twilight wanted to cry out in frustration. “What was the point of the story, then?”

“Rote learning will only take you so far. To truly understand, you must find the answers yourself.”

All Twilight had wanted to know was why her classmates were still all cagey around her, and she got this long and irrelevant story.

“Perhaps a different approach might be of more use,” the Princess said, using what must have been some sort of freaky mindreading ability. “Have you read much about theoretical particles, Twilight?”

“Oh yes indeed!” 

“Then you must be aware of Hoofenburg’s experiments a few years ago, where he attempted to view an infinitesimally small particle and predict its movements.”

Twilight nodded. Her mother had told her about this one.

“What do you remember, was the result of this experiment?”

“Well, from what my mom said, every time he tried to use his spell to look at the electron, the electron would move because he was using a spell on it. Even though the magic was just a looking spell, it somehow moved the particle as well.” Twilight thought for a moment, then added, “I think some ponies are working on making a super powerful microscope to try to view particle movement without using magic. They want to make sure there’s no interference, so they can look at it properly.”

“Yes. That is correct,” the Princess said. “Now what conclusion can you draw from Hoofenburg’s experiment.”

“Uh... That you shouldn’t use magic to look at really small things?”

Princess Celestia had an expression that said ‘go on’.

“... Because... you move them around with your magic when you try it?”

“Correct,” said the Princess. “Now what does this say about the act of observing things?”

“That... by... That by looking at something... you can change it!”

Princess Celestia smiled. “Excellent reasoning.”

“But wait, what about when they make the microscope to look at the electron without magic? It won’t change then, right?”

“Have you ever taken a plate and cut either one slit, or two parallel slits into it-”

“Oh! And then you shine a light through the slits onto magic light-sensitive paper? My mom showed me that one too! It was cool!”

The Princess nodded. “The results of that experiment, along with Hoofenburg’s improvised study will lead to some interesting interpretations of the phenomenon. I’m not going to go into details, but let’s just say for now, your conclusion still stands.”

“And what does this have to do with my classmates?” Twilight said, trying to force the conversation back on topic.

“Well, what I would suggest is that you put each of them into a box and then leave them there for a number of days, then when the odds of your classmates being alive is roughly fifty-fifty-”

“What!? That’s horrible!” Twilight’s mane bristled. When she saw the proud look on Princess Celestia’s face, she knew this last statement had been some sort of test.

“The last pony I proposed that to thought it was a brilliant idea and immediately went out to try it... I believe he was most likely a sociopath.” Moroseness briefly flashed across the Princess’ face. “And that poor cat was never the same afterwards.”

“So what would the serious answer be?”

“Whether you are aware of it or not, watching and waiting is still a conscious choice, and the world around you will treat it as such. Life does not halt for observers any more than it does for participants.” The Princess used a wing to gesture at the sky above them them. “Spend more time with your classmates, Twilight Sparkle. Hiding in your room and studying them from afar is not conducive to making friends.”

First Mom and Dad, and now the Princess... “I see.”

“Do not be offended, my faithful student. My intention was not to patronise you with stories and analogies,” the Princess said. “One day I hope these lessons will hold more food for thought than the single answer you seek.”

Twilight knew that finding enlightenment and inner peace wasn’t her forté. All the books she’d ever found on the subject just read as insipid nonsense to her. “So if I see you on the road I’m supposed to kill you?”

Princess Celestia laughed harder than Twilight felt that line merited. “Mu!”, she said as she fired another spell towards her pupil.

Despite every instinct screaming at her not to, Twilight decided to take the Princess’ advice.

Twilight went with the expectation that her classmates would have ulterior motives of some sort; there would inevitably be some kind of double cross. Perhaps she would be coerced into some sort of embarrassing and unnecessary hazing ritual so she could be humiliated in front of everypony else. It was the kind of thing she saw in books all the time.

At the very least she could bear it all stoically and go back to Princess Celestia at the end of the week and tell her what an unmitigated disaster socialising had been. Then they would talk it out and the Princess would hopefully drop the matter for good.

Instead of going straight down to the kitchens after Math and Science and heading back to her room like she usually did, Twilight loitered around the halls like the rest of her classmates. She felt very out of place. Everypony was talking to everypony else, and she just stood there trying to look as friendly and approachable as possible. She knew what would happen next.

“Hey, Twilight,” said Echelle. Elsie stood beside her, looking impatient. “Wanna sit with us at dinner later?”

Echelle would occasionally ask to have meals together, but Twilight would always make the excuse of having assignments to do. Technically that was never a lie. It always felt like the grey filly knew that Twilight would always say no, and only offered because she thought she was being charitable and magnanimous.

“Today...” Twilight said. I have an eight page paper due tomorrow and I haven’t triple-checked it for mistakes yet. “Yeah, actually. That sounds great.” She gave what she hoped was a warm and amiable smile.

Echelle seemed a little surprised, but smiled back politely. “We’re going to study until then. If it’s not too much trouble, you can join us if you’d like.”

Twilight shrugged. “Sure,” she said, surprising Echelle a second time. Maybe I’ll get to triple-check that essay after all.

The three of them made their way up the stairs to the first year dorm. It was the first time Twilight had been inside since the very beginning of the year. It looked a lot more lived in now. There were books lying around haphazardly, and there were non-uniform sweaters and boots, hung up on racks or pushed against the sides of the room. A few of the moon emblems on the wall were burnt out and blackened, and some of the bolted-down furniture had scorch marks on it.

“Did Sky do that?” Twilight asked, pointing at the singed-looking sofa with a hoof.

Elsie laughed. “Oh no. That was Pebbly Crunch,” she said. “Ace farts a lot in his sleep or something, so Pebbly came out to sleep on the couch last week, and then had a nightmare and burned everything. It was so loud!” Elsie started laughing again. “I came out to see what was happening and Ms. Warmaid was running around like crazy trying to put out the fire.”

“That sounds... really dangerous,” Twilight said, not sure how the blue filly could find something like that funny.

“Eh, stone building with spells on it. Not like it was gonna spread,” she said with a shrug.

“You had to be there,” said Echelle. “Besides, stuff like that happens all the time, am I right?” She winked at Elsie.

“Oh come on.” Elsie glanced at the blank stretch of fur on her flanks. Her dark coat made it hard to tell, but it looked like she was blushing. “Are you ever gonna let that go?”

Twilight looked up at her, curiosity piqued. “What happened?”

“None of your beeswax,” Elsie said, turning an interesting shade of purple.

Echelle winked again and made a crossing motion over her chest with a hoof. “My lips are sealed.”

The three of them parked themselves on the smoky-smelling sofa and started on their math homework. Their classmates would mill back and forth occasionally. When Tambourine walked by and saw Twilight casually studying with Echelle and Elsie, the bewildered look on her face was almost comical.

“No, Echelle,” Elsie said, much to Twilight’s relief. “If x is 5, then you’re dividing by zero.”

Twilight thought she might be overstepping her bounds by correcting Echelle’s abysmal algebra and was glad that Elsie had been the one to bring it up. She cringed a little every time she looked over at the grey filly’s work.

“But when I divide by zero, the answer is right. See?”

Elsie put a hoof over her face. “Twilight, for the love of sheets and all that is holey, help me out here, please...”

At the start of the first semester, Twilight had learned that Echelle’s parents paid an exorbitant amount of money each year to ensure that their daughter had a spot in the school. She was shocked to find that nearly half of the colts were doing the same thing. Still, it explained a lot.

Twilight drew out a funny little equation her dad had shown her over the break that proved you could get any answer you wanted to if you divided by zero, giggling around the quill in her mouth as she wrote it. Weirdly, Echelle didn’t seem to find it funny at all. She just stared at the equation for a long time, looking utterly perplexed.

When the time came to go down for dinner, Twilight had no idea if she was being mocked or not. Echelle held the paper in front of her, and she looked at it intensely like it held the secret meaning to all of life.

“Dude,” said Elsie. “You’re gonna like fall and die if you keep reading that when you’re going up the stairs.”

There was good sense in this, but Twilight did not say anything.

“Stop being such a mom,” Echelle said. “I think I’m finally getting somewhere!”

“What the flip are you talking about?” Elsie stopped walking up the staircase and snatched the paper from her friend and shook it in the air. “The point is that this makes no sense.”

“Hey! Give that back!”

“What do you mean by getting somewhere?” Twilight asked, finally finding the nerve to speak.

“You know,” said Echelle. “Remember last week when we did that test and half the class’ answers were all just a bunch of random ones and twos, but Mr. Benoit marked them right anyway?”

“Oh that?” Twilight said, remembering some of the tests she’d seen. “It wasn’t wrong. They just answered in ternary.” She wished that they’d let her in on it too. That was actually pretty cool.

The three of them bantered about classes on the way to the dining hall. They sat down at a table, and chatted as they waited for the food to arrive. Twilight was surprised when Rune joined them, seating herself quietly next to Echelle. The four of them took up half a table by themselves, but after Rune arrived, nopony else sat down with them.

“So what’s your deal, Twilight?” Elsie asked, as she and Echelle made their saltshakers joust each other. “Why are you all up in the teacher’s lounge with no magic?”

“Elsie!” said Echelle. “You can’t just go up to somepony and ask them that. It’s too forward!”

The dark blue filly rolled her eyes. “Now who’s being the mom.” There was a clink and her saltshaker’s lid flew off after a particularly hard ram from Echelle’s. “Nice!”

“You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to,” Echelle said to Twilight, apologetically.

“It’s okay,” she said. This was actually the first time anypony here other than a teacher had asked her about it. “I had an incident during my exam when I hatched my egg. I turned both my parents into plants and I broke part of the school. Then in the summer, I accidentally turned some ponies into bugs.” Rune had been looking down at the table, but Twilight saw her look up at this, listening. “The Princess didn’t think it was safe for me to be downstairs with you guys and she put a binding spell on my magic so I wouldn’t do anything like that again.”

“Oh wow.” The lid of Elsie’s saltshaker glowed as she screwed it back on. “So are you gonna be like an earth pony forever?”

“No,” Twilight said. “Just till I learn how to control my magic. I’m getting a lot better.”

“Hey,” said Echelle. “I don’t mean to presume or anything, but shouldn’t you be safe to live downstairs if you don’t have your magic anyway?”

“Yeah.” The Princess had actually suggested this before, but Twilight had begged to keep her private room. She predicted that all her things would get vandalised if she had to share a dormitory with all her classmates. “I have to keep the room until the lease runs out, though. Those are the rules.”

A server walked by then, and lowered a tureen of potato salad down on the table. There was no serving spoon, and Twilight looked at it not knowing what to do. Without saying anything, the grey filly took Rune, Twilight and Elsie’s bowls and filled them with salad, seeming to barely pay attention to what she was doing. She nodded. “Ah.”

Twilight felt a deep and wordless gratitude.

“Thanks,” Rune said in her raspy voice.

Twilight watched as the bowls floated back towards Rune, Elsie and herself. Echelle filled her bowl last, piling the salad on high.

“What about you, Rune?” Twilight said. “Why don’t you have magic?” She had asked this on more than one occasion, but she’d never gotten any sort of answer. Hopefully, telling her own story would put Rune enough at ease to share hers. “Did you have a bad exam too?”

Rune said nothing. She looked back down at her potatoes and lowered her head into the bowl, eating like a pegasus or an earth pony.

“She’s a scholarship student,” Echelle said, putting an odd sort of emphasis on the word “scholarship”. “Oh look, they have turnips today. Do you like turnips?”

“Huh? But I’m a scholarship student...” said Twilight. “Elsie’s a scholarship student.”

Elsie had pulled an enormous bottle of orange hot sauce out of her saddlebags and was drowning her salad in it. “Rune’s an orphan.”

Twilight saw Elsie wince as Echelle kicked her under the table, but the orange filly continued to eat, acting like she hadn’t heard anything at all. Echelle gave Elsie the dirtiest look imaginable.

“Well it’s the truth,” Elsie said, as she tucked into her food.

Echelle’s immediate response was to glare at her again. The only thing that kept the silence from being awkward was the background noise, dozens of other ponies eating and chattering at the same time. Twilight took this as a cue to start eating herself, and the four of them ate without talking until the meal was over.

“Come again tomorrow if you’d like, Twilight,” Echelle said as they all went back to their rooms.

The next day after Mrs. Lonsdaleite’s class, Twilight followed Echelle and Rune back to the second floor dorm. They were greeted by a blast of freezing air as Echelle opened the door.

“We usually have lunch in here, but the heating spells broke this morning,” Echelle said. The condensation from her breath crystallised into powdered ice around her mouth and nostrils.  

Twilight’s teeth chattered. “But it’s got to be colder than outside in here.”

“Yeah. This is the coldest setting, apparently. In our rooms it’s just off, so it’s not that bad.”

“Why are we here, then?”

“I always meet Elsie here before lunch,” Echelle said. “She won’t know where to find us otherwise.”

The three of them waited in the chilly lobby for Elsie to arrive. When she did, her bags were stuffed full of food. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Food was allowed in the library, but both Echelle and Elsie agreed that having lunch there was “cliché”. They went outside instead.

The fillies found a sunny spot near the track where the grass wasn’t too frozen or soggy, and set up a lazy kind of picnic. Azure Sky and Enigma sat on the other side of the field, having their lunch outside as well.

Twilight watched in horror as Elsie drank carrot soup that was about a third hot sauce.

“What?” she said. “It’s just made from tabasco peppers and vinegar.”

“Uh...”

Elsie used her magic to open up a compartment of her saddlebags. The pocket looked like it had a custom lining made of rubber. Slowly, and very carefully, she removed a black envelope. Twilight could see a toxicity warning on the back.

Although Elsie kept her distance, she lifted the flap with her magic and smiled lovingly at the white powder inside. It looked like there was nothing she would like to do more than cuddle the powder or caress it. “I’m legally not supposed to have this. It’s considered a weapon in a lot of places, and you can’t even buy it unless you’re an adult and sign a bunch of waivers.”

Twilight wisely took a few several steps back. “Are those anthrax spores?”

Elsie folded the black envelope and put it back in her saddlebags. There was a faint shimmer in the air, looking like a tiny will-o-wisp. It took Twilight a while to realise that there was a nearly-invisible fleck of the white dust inside. The glowing mote of powder landed right inside Elsie’s thermos of hot chocolate.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy?!”

The hint of a smile twitched at the corners of Echelle’s mouth as she watched them, but she didn’t say anything.

Elsie lifted her thermos up, slowly, dramatically, and then took a big sip. “Ahh...” she said. “Nothing beats pure capsaicin for that extra kick.”

“That’s lethal in high doses!”

“Explains the waivers,” Elsie said, breathing hard. “You want a sip?”

“You have a death wish!”

Echelle was snorting with laughter by then. Rune’s face was as still as a frozen lake, but there was a faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

“What’s so funny?” Twilight demanded.

After Echelle had calmed down enough to speak she said, “wait for it.”

“Wait for wh-”

Elsie yowled. She bolted over to one of the remaining patches of snow. It was absolutely filthy and was nothing more than a hard crust of ice. She licked it furiously as tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. “It burns! Oh Celestia, it burns...”

“Yeah,” said Echelle. “That never ends well. I honestly don’t know why she keeps doing that.”

Twilight could hear Sky and Enigma laughing from the other side of the field.

Elsie whimpered miserably for the next twenty minutes, not touching any of the food, especially not her “hot” chocolate.

“Capsaicin is soluble in milk and alcohol,” Twilight said. “If you drink some normal hot chocolate or use some mouthwash, you’ll probably feel better after.”

“No thank you,” she rasped, then looked up, past Twilight.

Echelle and Rune did the same.

“Hey,” said a gruff voice from behind Twilight.

She turned and saw Belaq standing there, looking angry. Uh oh.

“I spent the whole holiday at the library fact-checking everything that could have possibly been an assassination,” Belaq said, “And well what d’you know? There wasn’t anything at all. All of Equestria’s political opponents were dealt with diplomatically. None of them have ever died mysterious and convenient deaths. None have even gone missing. Not one.”

“Uh,” Twilight said.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t do anything of the sort!” She glanced frantically at Echelle and Elsie, hoping that one of them would back her up.

“You and I have a score to settle.”

“But I’ve never done anything to you...”

“That’s a lie and you know it.” She shoved Twilight back with her magic.

Twilight’s legs gave out and she fell backwards onto the grass.

By now, Sky and Enigma had trotted over to see what the commotion was.

Sky looked at Twilight, sitting in a tumbled heap on the ground, then at Belaq. “What the fuck is going on?”

Twilight flinched. She knew that Sky had just used a horrible, horrible curse word, and had never heard it aloud before. She’d read it in a misshelved library book long ago and couldn’t find the word in the dictionary when she’d looked for it. When she asked Dad about it, he told her it was an awful word that she should never ever say. She couldn’t believe Sky had spoken it so flippantly.

“Princess know-it-all here, is a big fat liar who keeps trying to ruin my whole life, that’s what.”

Sky sneered, her upper lip curling back. “So what, are you gonna fucking fight her?”

“If that’s what you wanna call it.”

Echelle and Elsie didn’t say anything. It looked like the last thing they wanted to do was to get involved.

“All I fucking hear,” said Sky, “is some shitty-ass reason to beat up a pony who’s minding her own business.”

“I’m not making it up, unlike her,” Belaq said. “And stop swearing at me.”

“You gonna fucking make me?” Sky pawed the ground and lowered her head, looking like she was about to charge. “Cuz I will cut you like a bitch.”

Enigma stood off to the side and kicked at the turf nervously. “Whoa, Sky,” he said. “I think you might be getting a little carried away, and-”

“Can it. I can deal with the qybah myself.”

Although Twilight had no idea what it meant, she saw Belaq’s eyes narrow at the second-to-last word. “What the heck’s your problem?” she said. “My fight’s with Twilight, not you.”

“Yeah, you got it right there,” Sky said. “If you’re gonna pick on some sorry sei bat po, pick on one who can fucking use magic, you facecunt.”

 There was a light, happy sensation in Twilight’s chest when she heard these words, but at the same time, she was also pretty sure that she’d just been referred to with some sort of obscenity.

“What?” said Belaq “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“It does if you walk backwards and upside-down your whole life!”

Twilight’s ears were on fire and she felt a blush spreading to her cheeks.

“That makes even less sense!”

“Kohl Ikreh! Your face doesn’t make any sense!”

“You’re really starting to tick me off.”

Sky responded by tackling Belaq, yelling strange obscenities the whole time. Twilight felt her ears getting even hotter. They were probably bleeding too.

“Futete, you camel cunt! I bet your elbows are faces!” Sky brawled like an earth pony, biting, kicking and headbutting, not bothering with magic at all.

Belaq fought back defensively, dodging Sky’s wild and mostly-random attacks and occasionally knocking her aside with spells.

Twilight wondered if she should step in.

“Kire asbe abi too koonet!” Skye said, sounding like she was making the words up. “Yah pin noteph ziva!” She delivered a vicious bite straight to Belaq’s fetlocks, then bucked her right in the jaw.

… Nope, thought Twilight. 

Belaq shrieked in pain and her horn glowed vividly. It didn’t look like she had the raw power to throw or lift Sky, but she was pinning her to the ground with some sort of spell. She limped slightly. “Jeeze! What’s your problem?”

In response, Sky used her own magic to push Belaq off her feet. Without a stable fulcrum, the spell holding her down winked out. She charged towards Belaq, head lowered, horn aimed at the fallen filly’s side.

The air shimmered and Twilight briefly saw two long, tapered tines of light. There was a lightning-quick snap in the air, then a horrifying spray of blood. Sky was on her side, choking and gasping. It was all so fast, Twilight had no idea what had just happened.

“Oh my gosh...” Belaq put her hooves over her mouth, her now-red hooves.

Twilight barely kept her lunch from coming back up at the sight of her. She was dripping with Sky’s blood. The metallic stench was so thick in the air that Twilight could practically taste it.

Belaq moaned and curled up into a ball. “Oh my gosh...”

Enigma rushed over to his friend, getting her blood all over his white coat. “The fuck did you just do?”

“It’s just- just a pruning spell- just for gardening- I didn’t mean-”

He ignored her and knelt down close to Sky. “Hang in there, buddy,” he whispered. “Just hang on...”

Echelle was busy evacuating the contents of her stomach, and Rune was nowhere to be found, but Elsie walked up to Sky slowly. “Help me turn her over,” she said to Enigma, as light flickered weakly around her horn.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“She’s hurt. We have to do something or she’ll bleed out.”

With Enigma’s help, she used both her body and magic to roll Sky onto her other side.

Twilight gasped. There was a deep gash across the light-orange filly’s neck and face, splitting her right eyelid and Oh Celestia... Frightful amounts of blood poured from just above Sky’s shoulder.

Elsie pressed a hoof below the part of the wound that was bleeding the most. “Hold on, Sky,” she said. “Rune will be back with help any minute now. Everything will be okay.”

This is all my fault. If she hadn’t tricked Belaq, or if she hadn’t been here today... If she’d just been brave enough to fight her own battles... if she’d been brave enough to step in and stop the fight before it got this far...

Elsie and Enigma were the ones who were fixing thing. Rune wasn’t even here, and she was still being more useful. This is all my fault, she thought, all my fault and I’m doing nothing.

It felt like an eternity before she saw Rune and the school nurse galloping towards them.

“She’s hurt her eye,” Elsie said. “And she was bleeding a lot from her neck. I think she might be in shock.”

The school nurse nodded and wrapped Sky up in a very gentle levitation spell. Twilight watched him carry her back inside the school.

Belaq was still curled up into a ball, staring despondently at the dark spot on the grass. “I wasn’t trying to hurt her...”

“Yeah, well you did anyway,” Enigma said. The red staining his coat was darkening into a dingy brown.

Echelle looked queasy still. “How can you be so calm?” she said, looking at Elsie. “How did you know what to do?”

“My mum rescues animals,” she said. “It’s not the same, but sometimes they’re really hurt when you find them and...” Her voice broke. “If she’s not okay...”

“She’ll be fine,” Echelle said. “She’ll be back in class tomorrow, just you wait and see.”

“You don’t know that. If... if she’s not, then it’ll be...” Elsie wiped her eyes on her filthy foreleg and sniffled. “I’ll be the one who messed it up...”

“No.” There was steel in Enigma’s voice as he spoke. “I think we all know whose fault it is.”

Belaq stood up, trembling. She didn’t say anything as she limped her way back to the school. Twilight saw Rune follow her, walking slowly, close by her side.

Twilight helped Elsie and Echelle pack up their things, but none of them spoke a single word.

Notation, Reading and Casting was Twilight’s next class, but nearly half the students were absent. Enigma didn’t show up, nor did Elsie or Belaq. She knew that Jazz was talking, but none of the words seemed to make any sense.

Half an hour into the lesson, Mrs. Lonsdaleite’s voice boomed from the walls. “Twilight Sparkle, please report to the principal’s office.”

Twilight knew she was going to be in trouble for what had happened during lunch, and she also knew that she deserved whatever she got. Still, by the time she found her way to the seventh floor office, her stomach was doing flip-flops.

Everypony who was there that afternoon was already waiting in the office, sitting in uncomfortable-looking chairs. Everypony but Sky.  

She looked around at all her grim-looking classmates. Belaq and Elsie looked like they had washed since lunchtime. Enigma’s skin still looked a little pinkish underneath his white coat and it took her a while to figure out that it wasn’t because he was still dirty, but because he had scrubbed himself so hard to get clean.

The silence was deafening.

After a while she couldn’t take it anymore. “What are we waiting for?” She was very aware of the sound of her own voice, echoing off the stone walls of the waiting room.

Echelle was the one to answer. “The principal isn’t here yet.”

They were all quiet after that.

Twilight jumped when the door swung open and Marching Dawn stepped in.

“I want to see you all individually in my office.” The principal’s voice was stern. “Starting with you,” she said, looking at Enigma.

The colt got out of his chair and followed her. After twenty minutes, he left her office and walked out of the room. Over the course of an hour, Echelle, Elsie and Rune went in too, before Twilight was asked to come in herself. Only Belaq remained.

“Please take a seat,” Marching Dawn said, as Twilight entered her office. “I would like to hear your version of the events.”

The chair was too large for her, but Twilight sat down in it to the best of her ability. “Before the break, Belaq and her friends were picking on me.” She put her whole visual attention at the corner of Marching Dawn’s desk, not wanting to make eye contact with the principal. “I talked two of them into leaving me alone, but I couldn’t get Belaq to listen. I told her... I convinced her that I could have her assassinated.”

Marching Dawn nodded. “Continue.”

“She found out that it wasn’t true, and then came to confront me about it when I was having lunch with some of the other girls.”

“From what I have heard, you have always eaten your meals alone until recently. Was there a specific reason you having lunch with the other fillies?”

Twilight realised what the principal must be implying. “I-I wouldn’t... I didn’t plan for any of this to happen. The Princess just told me I should make some friends.”

“I see. What else happened this afternoon?”

“Well... after Belaq pushed me, Sky came over... and...” Twilight was finding it hard to continue. The memory was still frighteningly vivid.

“They fought.”

“Yeah...” She tried not to think about it too much. “Sky was winning, I think. But then Belaq...”

After it was obvious she wasn’t going to continue, Marching Dawn pressed on. “What is your interpretation of the events?”

“I shouldn’t have given up so soon when I was trying to talk to Belaq before. It all happened because... because it was my fault.”

“I should have been more clear,” the principal said. “From what you witnessed, did it seem that Sky’s injuries were caused purposefully?

“I don’t know. It all happened so fast. Belaq seemed really sorry, though. I don’t know.”

“Very well. Please tell her she may come in as you leave. You are dismissed from lessons for today, and I will tell your teachers to send your homework.”

Even though she didn’t have to attend that day’s classes, it still felt like she was doing something horribly wrong by not being there while they were in session. Maybe she should show up anyway. If I did that, she thought, would everypony think I was being horribly insensitive?

After two hours of sitting in her room and unsuccessfully trying to lose herself in a reading assignment, she decided to go down to visit Sky.

Enigma was already there.

Sky lay on her side in a cot, surrounded by thermoses. She had a bandage over her neck and another over her right eye. “And then did you see me give her that kick?” She pumped a hoof in front of her. “Pow!”

Enigma smiled. “Yeah, you were awesome.”

“Uh... Hi guys,” Twilight said.

Sky craned her neck to look past Enigma, then winced and lay back down. “I totally saved you back there. Was that amazingly freak-tastically cool or what?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, feeling awkward. “Uh... thanks.”

“That salope got in one good hit, but I was owning her.”

“What’s a saw lop?” Twilight asked.

“Something bad,” Enigma said. “It’s always something bad.”

Sky laughed. “It’s a-”

“The nurse is in the next room!” he said, cutting her off before she could explain.

“Fine, be a pansy.” She stuck out her tongue.

Twilight tried not to stare at the bandage over her eye. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been through worse,” she said. “One time when I was little, my sis took me flying, and I slipped and, well, if you can name a bone, I prob’ly broke it. It f- It was really painful.” She laughed as if something like that was actually funny. “One of my legs was starting to set by the time they got a doctor, and they had to break it again or it’d heal all jacked up. This little scrape ain’t nothing.”

Twilight’s mouth was hanging open in horror.

“Better close that or somepony might put something in it,” Sky said with a wink. “And I ain’t talking boogers.”

“Gross.” Enigma said. “Yeah, yeah. You’re hardcore. Yadda yadda.”

“You got that right,” the orange filly said. “Pass me another soup.”

“Jeeze,” he said as he rummaged for one in his saddlebags. “That’s like the fifth one. Don’t you have to pee?”

She floated the thermos over to herself. “You wanna watch or something? Sicko.”

“Ew, no. I’m not you.”

Twilight felt a blush creeping into her cheeks. “I’ll just be leaving then,” she said as she backed out through the door. There is seriously something wrong with that filly. “I’m sorry you got hurt trying to help me.”

“All in a day’s work!” Sky called out to her.

The next day, Belaq didn’t show up for History and Magical Theory, or for that matter, any of her other lessons. Twilight wondered where she was.

Sky, however, was back in class with an eyepatch by at least lunchtime.

“Yarr!” she said. “Give me all yer booty!”

“Is your eye okay?” somepony asked.

“I be havin’ a touch of th’ pirate pinkeye, ‘tis all! Now walk th’ gangplank or face me cutlass! Arrr!”

It was odd that she was back in class so soon. At Twilight’s old school, Sky would have been suspended for at least a couple of weeks for fighting.

When she asked the orange filly about it, she responded with, “Aye! What ye’re supposed t’do, be make like thar’s nothin’ better in th’ world than t’be homeport an’ nay at school. Then they give ye detention.”

For the rest of that week she wore the eyepatch, although Twilight noticed that it would sometimes show up on her left eye as well as the right. It took until Friday for the teachers to work it out.

“Take that off this instant, Azure Sky,” Mrs. Lonsdaleite said to her.

Sky was resting her cheek awkwardly on a hoof. “But me eye, ‘tis still a-healin’! It be a ghastly sight t’see!”

“You were wearing that on your other eye just a moment ago.”

“Fine,” Sky said sullenly. Twilight heard her mutter something about a pewter mad ray.

Echelle hadn’t asked her join at lunch or dinner after the incident. They would still greet each other politely when they saw each other, but there was something awkward about it. Twilight found it easiest to view the whole thing as some sort of test; she had studied hard, given it her all, and despite her best efforts, she had not passed. Perhaps if she’d stepped in to do something about the fight, or if she’d been as brave as Elsie, maybe the whole friendship thing might have worked out. It could have been that they just thought that being friends with her was too much trouble. Maybe it wasn’t even that. Maybe she just had a bad personality. No matter what the reason, Twilight was loathe to try again. Anyway, she thought, you probably aren’t allowed retakes for this sort of thing.

She had prepared a long apology for Belaq the next time she saw her, but didn’t really get much of a chance to deliver it. The amber filly didn’t show up to a single class that week, nor did Twilight bump into her in the hallways or in the dining room. There were rumours that she’d been expelled.

“Well I honestly didn’t anticipate for any of that to happen,” the Princess said.

Twilight was only half-joking when she replied. “But don’t you know everything?”

“Nopony can know everything,” Princess Celestia said. “To quote somepony I know, ‘these eyes of flesh see only the world material, time a droplet on a river eternal. One can only guess where the current flows.’”

“And where it stops, nopony knows?” Twilight said, knowing full well that she was being cheeky.

The Princess laughed. “That certainly rhymes much better than what was said afterwards.”

“Which was?”

“Is there any mustard left, I believe.”

Twilight looked up into the dark cobalt of the night sky. “I don’t think I can make friends.” In her mind’s eye, she traced the lines of canis major. “I thought it would be different here, because everypony is good at magic and smart and they like to read and know how to do math, but every time I try, something always happens,” she said. “I know things like fate and destiny aren’t real, but if you’re not the one who’s been causing all this stuff, then maybe I’m just not supposed to have any. Maybe it’s just not me to have friends.”

“Why, if that wasn’t the biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life,” the Princess said. “You have at least one friend already.”

“Who?” asked Twilight, but the Princess simply smiled.

“Your classmates will come around, Twilight Sparkle, and not everything will always be the way it is now. Nopony should spend her whole life alone,” she said. “You just need a little patience.”

“I guess...” Twilight said, not convinced.

AN: I claim no credit for the uncertainty principle or the double slit experiment.

Also, just for fun, here’s one silly proof Twilight might have given as an example:

2 + 2 = 4
x = 4x - 3x
x = y + z
4x - 3x  = 4(y + z) - 3(y +z)
4x - 3x = 4y + 4z - 3y - 3z
4x - 4y - 4z = 3x - 3y - 3z
4 (x - y - z)  = 3 (x - y - z)
4 = 3
2 + 2 = 3

Big Brother is watching you. Don’t divide by zero if your name is Echelle.

This document was initially posted on Google Docs. There are a couple of formatting issues due to FIMFiction's font size restrictions and stuff. The original story can be viewed here:

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/11/story-darkest-before-dawn.html