Paper Cuts

by Gallifrey

Paper Cuts

Ponyville’s library was the definition of quiet, as all good libraries ought to be. After all, books don’t tend to be noisy in your presence, so what gives you the right to be noisy in theirs? It was a mutual agreement, and it worked well.
However, the silence was being broken every few seconds by a slow, steady and sticky dripping sound. Lost amongst stacks of books that stood as skyscrapers in a lost city of knowledge, a certain mare of lavender hue was gazing at her left hoof with a glassy expression.

Drip, drip.

It had been a while since Princess Celestia had received a report from her prized student, and Twilight Sparkle's initial plan had been to change that…

Drip, drip.

The fresh, virgin parchment that had been laid neatly in front of her was being stained crimson as the mare’s blood trickled from her veins. And what surprised Twilight was that she simply didn't care.

I’m bleeding, she thought fuzzily, lazily, apathetically.

Paper cuts were ever the curse of the bookworm and Twilight had suffered many of them in her time. Books, despite their docile and manifestly inanimate nature, have more sting than a scorpion if you aren't careful, as Twilight was reminded on a roughly weekly basis, and each time, forgetting each time just how sharp the sting was.
Exposed nerves cried for sympathy to her brain, but their pleas went unheeded: Twilight’s mind was occupied with more important things.
The droplets, a syrupy cocktail of water, simple sugars, amino acids, protein and haemoglobin continued to slowly splash onto her parchment, and Twilight was struck by the thought that it was this innocuous concoction of molecules that was sustaining her existence, her essence. The intricate mechanisms, balances, and complexities of biochemistry were no mystery for the unicorn, who had studied them extensively before, but never had she viewed them in this light.

They were what made her alive.

But what is Life? What subtle difference is it that makes me alive and not dead? I am only a complicated collection of atoms after all, but so is my clock, and that's not alive... I hope.

Her blood, the blood that was keeping her tenuously clinging onto this world, was now leaking from her body due to a vicious bite from a piece of paper. Was she that fragile that something as flimsy and innocent as paper could drain her of her life force, however inconsequentially?
The thought scared Twilight, but a more rational area of her consciousness finally clunked into gear and reminded her that, realistically, it was very unlikely that paper would cause her untimely demise.

This brought the studious mare back to reality. She glanced at her definitely-not-alive clock and was shocked to realise it was past eleven and that she had been staring at her blood-stained hoof for over ten minutes now, which was definitely long enough. Blinking, she felt the all too familiar pain shooting up her foreleg. Instinctively, she brought her hoof to her mouth and licked it to reduce the chances of it becoming infected. A smile grew on her face as she thought of what Rarity would do if she saw her lick her wound: faint, probably.

Getting gingerly to her hooves, the mare scrunched up the spoiled parchment and condemned it to the bin; sending letters covered in blood was not usually considered good form. Venturing to the bathroom, she searched her medicine cabinet for some plasters. Poking past bottles of migraine tablets, hoof sanitiser, and the discreetly labelled oestrus soothers, Twilight found what she was looking for. Once she was all patched up, she returned to her study to (carefully) collect some new parchment and write her letter to Princess Celestia. Kneeling down, she opened the bottom drawer of her handsome writing desk.

“Oh…” said Twilight lamely: she was fresh out of parchment. Typical.

There was nothing for it– there was a duty to the Princess to perform, and by the Princess’ own name Twilight was going to do it! She would buy some parchment in town, not cut herself again, and everything would be perfect.
By force of habit, Twilight opened her drawer again to write down a checklist of what she needed to buy.

“Did you seriously just do that?” she asked herself, voice laden with disappointment.

Fetching her sky blue saddle bag, Twilight threw open her door, a mare on a mission.

Trotting in a deep reverie, Twilight wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. She simply couldn’t stop thinking about her paper cut. It drove home the fact that she wasn’t as infallible as she liked to think, that she was in fact incredibly vulnerable, subject to the whims of the world and the merciless grind of time itself. As fear welled up inside her again, she was blind to the rear end of the prismatic blue pegasus she was on a collision course with.

“Woah!” yelped Rainbow Dash as Twilight’s horn hit home. “You gotta be more careful with that horn Twi! That smarts!”

“Oh Rainbow, I’m so sorry!” stammered the apologetic mare, returning to lucidity, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah yeah, it’s just a lil’ scratch,” said Rainbow casually. It took more than a little scuff to affect Ponyville’s most awesome resident after all. Twilight however, blanched when she saw the tiny rivulet of blood, running down her friend’s flank, at her infliction.

“Oh Celestia, not you too!” she cried.

“Uhh…” said Rainbow uneasily. “Twi, are you alright?”

Twilight nodded meekly then added matter-of-factly: “We’re all going to die… doesn’t anyone realise this except me?”

“L-Let’s get you home…” said Rainbow, recognising the tell-tale signs of a Sparkle teetering precariously over the edge of a breakdown.

“For what are we but mere droplets in the ocean of infinity? We are nothing Rainbow, NOTHING!”
Smiling sheepishly at the ponies around them who were staring at Twilight with both concern and annoyance, Rainbow gently guided her friend towards her distinctive treehouse.
"NOTHING!" Twilight yelled.

Rainbow sighed as she resigned herself to helping her friend overcome her latest existential crisis.

“What’s that tea that’s supposed to be real relaxing?” asked Rainbow Dash’s muffled voice as she searched Twilight’s kitchen cupboards. "You obviously need something like that right now."

“Camomile,” mumbled Twilight, who was so slumped at her kitchen table it would make old Mr. Waddle proud.

“Doesn’t she work at Waterhooves on weekends?”

“No, the tea is called camomile... second shelf on the left…”

“Ahh!” said Rainbow happily, locating the tea with the supposed soothing properties. She put a kettle on the hob and turned to face Twilight, wondering how to approach the subject. “Soooo, what’s got ya so wound up today?” she said bluntly: being blunt usually worked in her experience.

Twilight blinked, which Rainbow took to be an acknowledgement of her question. "It doesn't really matter," she said softly, "I'm just being stupid."

"I'm calling bull; the Twilight Sparkle I know is never stupid," said Rainbow, fixing Twilight with an intense gaze.

"Well, I was this time– I had a paper cut." She flinched as she finished, and she was right to do so, because Rainbow was giving her a look so deadpan, the pan was fossilised.

"What?"

“I guess,” she began nervously, “I’ve never really contemplated mortality before… I don’t like it Rainbow, it’s like there was a barrier in my mind, and now it’s come crashing down.”

“Uhuh,” said Rainbow vaguely, not really paying attention and glancing out the window. "How does a paper cut fit into all this?"

Twilight shuffled in her seat. "You remember when you broke your wing that time last year?" said Twilight. Rainbow's wings automatically shuddered at the memory. "And you were in hospital for three weeks?"

"I try to forget, but yeah," she replied.

"Didn't you ever consider that you could have died in that accident?"

"Not really," said Rainbow, adjusting the kettle on the hob, "I mean, what's the point in thinking about that?"

Twilight's pupils shrank slightly in their sockets. "The point? The point?! It's a very important issue Rainbow, you can't brush it off that easily!"

“So you’re, uh, thinking about death and stuff?”

“Yes,” said Twilight desperately. “I mean, we’ve got what– a hundred years or so in this world if you're lucky, and that’s it.” She fiddled with her hooves. “It’s such a short time,” she added sadly.

Rainbow’s ears twitched at this, and her expression changed from one of mild disinterest to one of attentiveness, and sympathy. “Heh, you’re right,” she said slowly.

Silence fell like a heavy blanket over the pair, until the kettle started whistling sharply; Rainbow whisked it off the hob and prepared two cups of steaming hot tea. Moving to the living room, Twilight collapsed like a ragdoll into her squashy armchair. Thanking Rainbow for the tea, the unicorn took a sip and almost immediately felt her mind begin to calm down, but it was an ominous calm, like the eye of a storm.
Rainbow took an experimental swig and her face scrunched up in distaste. Reaching over to the tea tray, she added four sugar lumps to her tea, and from there drank happily.
A few minutes of silence passed, during which Rainbow sat looking around the room for something at least vaguely interesting to focus on, while Twilight closed her eyes, taking many much needed calming breaths for her nerves.

“Oh Rainbow, I’m sorry about this,” she said, rubbing a hoof into her temples, “I don’t know what came over me…” Her lip trembled slightly as she looked at her hoof and the thin rent in her flesh. "I just think too much."

"No biggie, thinking's your thing. It's like saying I fly too much, or Pinkie laughs too much."

"Sometimes she can laugh too much," said Twilight with a grin, and Rainbow chuckled. "But I love her for it... I doubt she'd worry over something this trivial."

A pause, and then:

"Twi, I don't think you should dwell too much on stuff like this, it doesn't sound all that healthy to me. Besides, you're making it sound like death is the absolute end or something."

Twilight's brows narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, there might be something after death, ya know? Some kind of afterlife. I know there's a bit of a, um, dispute, about it, but..." she trailed off lamely.

Twilight didn't speak. Since there was not a shred of viable evidence one way or the other, she didn't think she could give a valid statement on the subject as though it were fact... but her internal logic told her that she came into this world out of nothing, and had been granted a set amount of the precious, slippery and non-refundable commodity known as time. One day, that time would run out, and her life would be indiscriminately snuffed out like a candle in a biting wind of reality.

Dear me, I am morbid today, thought Twilight, dimly aware that Rainbow was talking again.

"An afterlife, maybe?" said Rainbow encouragingly, seeing the rivers of thought flowing behind her friend's eyes, and she wasn't entirely sure the rivers were flowing in the way she hoped.

"I... don't know," said Twilight honestly. "And no-one does. I sure would like to think there was of course, but nobody knows, and no-one should act as though they do, either out of the arrogance that comes with knowledge, or fear of the unknown."
Rainbow blinked, listening intently.
"But, personally," Twilight continued, "my feeling is that there is nothing after this life, and what I have is all I will get. I base this assumption purely on the observations I have to hoof and my best judgement. But, more importantly, I won't pretend I know what I think is true. That is my opinion on the matter," she concluded, finishing her tea.

"Right," said Rainbow slowly. "And you're worrying today because you've only just realised how little time you actually have?"

"Yes," said Twilight in a small voice.

"Well, it's like you say, you could be wrong," said Rainbow, hoping this might cheer Twilight up. "You might live forever yet, Twi."

"Maybe, Rainbow, just maybe."

A shadow of a smile flickered across Twilight's face, though she clearly wasn't going to be convinced that easily.

Rainbow Dash left the library feeling that although she had done her best in cheering Twilight up, it wasn't good enough. Glumly, the blue mare plodded her way home through the streets of Ponyville.
Celestia's Sun ticked its inexorable way across the sky, heralding the time more accurately than any clock could ever hope to. However, Rainbow didn't need the Sun telling her that it was lunchtime: her rumbling tummy was more than enough of an indication.
Meanwhile, a bubbly pink mare was working merrily in Sugar Cube Corner, serving her customers with an ever present smile and a warm welcome. The bell tinkled and Pinkie Pie's head swivelled like a periscope to the door.

"Hallo Derpy! What can I get my favourite mailmare today?" Pinkie asked the blue-grey pony who had just entered the establishment. Pinkie led Derpy to a table by the window. "I saved your favourite table for you as well," she chirped, "I know how much you like to watch the world go by when you're here."

"I– thank you Pinkie," said Derpy, touched by the kindness. "Can I have a hot chocolate please? And a–"

"Muffin? Of course! I'll be right back."

Derpy smiled as the pink pony zoomed off.

"Here!" she sang about two seconds later, balancing the pegasus' order on her head.

"H-How do you do that?" asked Derpy.

Pinkie tapped her snout knowingly and trotted away, when she saw a certain gloomy blue friend of hers walking past the window.
Sprinting with the agility of a bolt of lightning, Pinkie bounced up to Rainbow Dash.

"Heya Rainbow! What'cha doin'?"

Rainbow raised her head for the first time since leaving the library, and found her field of vision filled with pink; only one thing ever did that.

"Oh hey Pinkie," she said in a low voice. She mentally slapped herself awake, and began again. "Hey, not much I guess." Her stomach rumbled again, causing Pinkie to giggle. "I am hungry though," she added sheepishly.

"Well we can’t have that! Come in!"

Rainbow gratefully accepted Pinkie's invitation. Entering the shop, Rainbow's nose was greeted with the warm scent of freshly baked goods mingled with the stimulating smell of coffee. The pegasus fell under its seductive spell and her mouth watered in anticipation.

"The usual?" asked Pinkie, jumping over the counter to the mild alarm of Mr. Cake.

"Please," replied Rainbow, taking a seat near the counter.

Becoming swiftly bored, as Rainbow had a tendency to do, she looked around for something interesting to hold her abysmally small attention span. Her gaze fell upon Derpy Hooves, who was quietly enjoying her muffin in solitude. Derpy was several years older than Rainbow, and she even had a young daughter. Rainbow's mind rewound back to her conversation with Twilight and she wondered whether the humble, wall-eyed mare ever contemplated subjects such as death. She must have: Derpy's father had succumbed to cancer last year after all, and the poor pegasus had been very shaken by the ordeal, taking two weeks off work for it. Rainbow remembered well; she’d volunteered to deliver the mail in her stead.

Twilight was right, we don't have much time...

"You okay Rainbow? You look awfully frowny."

Rainbow blinked. Pinkie was at her side, a tray of food on her back and a concerned look on her face; one of her friends was sad, and that was no good at all.

"I- uh, I'm fine!" said Rainbow Dash as coolly as she could, trying to save face as Pinkie gave her the food.

"Dashie, don't lie to me," said Pinkie. Rainbow didn't think it was possible to say that sentence in a friendly manner, but Pinkie found a way.

"I... Twilight's not been too great lately," said Rainbow, which was true. "I think she needs to get out of that library and into some fresh air."

"Oh dear! How is she now?"

Rainbow took a bite of her cake. "Still down, I tried my best, but I'm not great at feelings."

"B-But what's the matter? Has something happened?"

"Yeah, she got a paper cut," said Rainbow bluntly.

Pinkie felt as though she had missed a step. She cocked her head like a confused dog, then cocked it in the other direction to see if that helped. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

"Huh?"

"Well, she got a paper cut and now she's worrying about the fubility of life."

"Futility," Pinkie corrected.

"Yeah, that one."

"I see. Oh Rainbow, we gotta cheer her up! We can't have one of our friends being saddie waddie!"

"But what can we do?" asked Rainbow dismally, "Fat load o' help I'd be if we go back there."

"We could always write to Princess Celestia?" suggested Pinkie tentatively, "If Twilight is upset about life and stuff, the Princess is probably best, she's known Celestia longer than she's known us after all."

"Heh, that's not a bad idea," agreed Rainbow. "I'll go visit her on my way home, check she's alright and give the letter to Spike. You wanna write it together?"

"Sure! You done?"

"Yup! Great as always!"

"Awesome!" Pinkie threw the plates over the counter, around a corner and into a sink. "Follow me!"

Rainbow was led around the back of Sugar Cube Corner, where Pinkie bounced up the stairs four at a time and bounded into her room. Rainbow didn't often visit the pink pony's bedroom in the shop's attic, and was always overwhelmed when she did.
Pinkie Pie's room was a riot of boisterous colours from all across the spectrum; pink obviously dominated. The bed was in the centre of the room, due to the slanting ceiling. As Rainbow looked around, she noticed that the room seemed to be a lot more spacious than it ought to be in relation to the rest of the house. As if it were bigger on the inside...

"So!" beamed Pinkie, half diving over her bed and into a drawer, rummaging for paper, her hind legs and tail wiggling as she searched. "We got a letter to write!"

Back at the library, Twilight's quill flew aggressively over the parchment, for she too was busy writing a letter. It wasn't addressed to anyone in particular, but the unicorn felt compelled to write something.
Twilight always found writing to be an excellent form of cathartic release, and though she knew full well that she'd look back at it one day and realise that it was all emotional drivel, and would be ashamed at her past self for even writing it in the first place, (as we all are when we see something that we wrote long ago, thinking we were oh so intellectual but it transpired to be shallow and embarrassing), she persevered. She didn't even care when some of her own semi congealed blood that remained on her writing desk soaked into the paper, if anything it just added to the macabre nature of the whole thing, though she did clean her desk after.
Once she had finished, she rolled it up and bound it in a blue ribbon, setting it on her bedside table. She would have written more, but she felt unusually tired. Flopping downstairs, she went to make some hot chocolate, ready for an early night's rest.

Half an hour and much scribbling and scratching out later, the letter was ready and tied up in a neat red bow. Pinkie got back to work and Rainbow took off for the library, letter in mouth. After being grounded for most of the day so far, the pegasus relished the wind flowing through her wings like a refreshing river. Enjoying the freedom that her domain provided, Rainbow took the chance to perform some manoeuvres she had been practising recently:

Manoeuvres she didn't have down pat...

Above Ponyville...

With almost painful predictability, Rainbow overextended her wings in an ambitious turn her confidence was sure she could handle. She yelped in pain and lost control. As if she were guided by the combined hands of fate and cliché, she was drawn like a magnet straight to Twilight's library, zooming through her luckily open window and crashing into a tall and heavy bookshelf, causing every one of the heavy and vindictive tomes to fall on her.
In the ensuing chaos, Twilight's emotional letter to no-one fell off the bedside table and rolled under the bed.

"Owwwwwie," she murmured under the small mountain of books that had successfully battered the poor pegasus pony. "What the hay is it with me crashing into Twilight's library?"

Rainbow heard a door handle being turned and a few pushes against it.

"Hello?" said the meek voice of Twilight Sparkle. "I-Is somepony in there? Rainbow? Is it you again?"

For the first time since... ever, Twilight didn't sound angry at having her books knocked over; she sounded diminutive and quiet, and Rainbow didn't like it at all.

"Yeah, it's me," said Rainbow, struggling out of the pile to see that it had effectively barricaded Twilight's bedroom door.

"Can you maybe move them?" asked Twilight, rightly guessing the issue at hoof. "I want to come inside, Rainbow Dash."

"Y-Yeah sure," said Rainbow dizzily, rubbing her head soothingly as she piled the books away from the door. "Try now," said Rainbow, once a lot of the books had been moved.
At the last second, Rainbow realised that the letter to the Princess lay in full view on the floor. Scrabbling forward, she batted the scroll under the bed before Twilight could notice. The unicorn shoved the door open, holding a mug of hot chocolate and looking downcast, which was worrying because you have to be very miserable to look downcast when you have hot chocolate.

"Goodness, are you okay Rainbow?" asked Twilight, seeing Rainbow flailing about, "You seem a bit shaky on your hooves."

"I'm fiiiine," she assured her purple friend, picking herself up and straightening her mane a bit. "I only dropped by to see how you were."

"Heh, dropped by, very funny," said Twilight rolling her eyes.

"Huh?" asked Rainbow, her own joke sailing clean over her head.

"Never mind," she grumbled, setting her hot chocolate on the window sill, trudging to her bed and flopping limply face down upon it. If Rainbow ever wanted to know what a pony with their bones removed would look like, this was her best chance.

"Twlight, are you alright?" asked Rainbow concernedly.

"Yeeees. Of course I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be?" she replied in a muffled and slightly detached manner.

"Well, it's just that you're still acting a bit weird and stuff..."

Twilight's ears twitched and in a flash she was sitting bolt upright, her nose buried in a book that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, her eyes flying over the pages.

"Normal enough for you?" asked Twilight, without looking up.

"I-I guess," said Rainbow, not buying it for a second but sensing Twilight wanted to be alone. "I'll uh, leave you to it. You know where I am if– you know, you wanna talk or whatever."

"Mmmhmm," said Twilight absently as Rainbow edged her way out of the room. With one last worried glance at her friend, Rainbow left and immediately bumped into an apron-clad Spike, who totally hasn't been eavesdropping, accidentally knocking him over.

"Whoops, hey Spike," said Rainbow, offering him a helpful hoof. "What're you up to?"

"Nothing, I swear! I just came up here to give Twilight some salad!" pleaded the dragon. However, Rainbow looked puzzled. "Never mind, what're you up to?"

"Checking how Twilight is, which reminds me–" She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and led him away from Twilight's door. "You know how she's been a bit loopy today?"

"That's an understatement I'm afraid: I'm worried about her," he said miserably, tugging at his apron, "Can't you help, Rainbow? Nothing I do seems to make any difference..."

"I'm working on it, but I need your help."

"Fire away!" he said eagerly, standing to attention. Rainbow couldn't help but respect his dedication to Twilight.

"Well, under Twilight's bed is a scroll– probably damp because it's been in my mouth– anyway, it's got a ribbon on it and needs to be sent to the Princess as soon as possible. It should help Twilight out, but don't tell her."

"I, uh, okay," said Spike, confused but accepting.

"Awesome, then my work here is done," she said smugly, taking her leave.

"Rainbow, wait." The blue mare paused. "Thanks."

Rainbow nodded, smiled, and left.

Spike, now alone, cautiously opened Twilight's bedroom door.

"What do you want now, Rainbow?" she asked, rolling over to see her friend. "Oh, hello Spike."

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, looking at Twilight's tired eyes and dishevelled mane.

"Mmmph," she replied, rolling back over, tail swishing in mild irritation.

"I brought you some food if you want it," he mumbled, setting a bowl on her bedside table. No response. Gulping, he slipped under the bed to find this so called scroll. Stealthily creeping around the dent Twilight's weight made in the mattress, the little dragon spotted and seized a letter tied with blue ribbon. He withdrew, and silently left the room, closing the door behind him.

Should I read it first? he asked himself, and truth be told, he was very curious.

"No! I shouldn't, it's none of my business after all, plus, it's damp..."

Blowing green fire on the letter, he sent it on its way, and with a renewed spring in his step, carried on with his work.

A drip echoed around the white, enamelled chamber. The air was sticky and humid, the smells of several different bubble baths blending together to create a harmonious aroma in clouds of steam that billowed across the room. In the calm pool of hot water that occupied the centre of the room, a head peeked above the surface like a crocodile in a lake– and like a crocodile, she was hunting, her prey in sight through the masses of bubbles that floated on the water. Moving stealthily, she made not a single ripple on the water, lest her quarry discover her position. The plan had been long and well executed, but now she was ready to reach the climax of the hunt, her heart speeding up in anticipation of her inevitable success. Springing forward, Princess Celestia lunged upon her target, missed spectacularly, and landed back in the water with an almighty splash, causing a veritable tsunami to spill across the bathroom floor.

"Damn. You win again, rubber duck," she conceded, mane clinging to her neck. "We should do this again some time." Huffily, she picked up the yellow duck which squeaked noisily. "I remember when you used to be Twilight's favourite bath time toy," she said with a slightly longing look in her eye. Alas, her faithful student was all grown up now. The alicorn reminisced, recalling the song Twilight always used to sing. "How did it go again? Rubber ducky, you're the one; you make bath time lots of fun! Aha, oh my dear Twilight..."

As Celestia chuckled over the antics of her student, a scroll materialised over her head, destined to drop straight into the water until she caught it with her magic.

"Goodness, what is this?" said Celestia, unfurling the scroll and eyeing the ominous looking red stain on the paper. She began reading. "Don't know what the point is... does anypony have any idea? What will happen after I die? Oh dear, Twilight, what is this all about?" Celestia continued reading to the end, but it didn't seem to have been intended for her to ever read. Her usually stoic and calm demeanour became increasingly shaky as her mind jumped to conclusions.

It's almost like a... suicide note... but that makes no sense! The Twilight I know would never do that...

Taking swift and decisive action, she jumped out of the bath without drying herself off, galloping through the castle to Luna's sleeping quarters.

"Luna!" she yelled, banging on her proud, black wooded door. Celestia heard a thump and the clip-clop of hooves. The door opened to reveal a Luna with a bed mane.

"Sister, you're soaking–"

"I know!" she barked irritably. "There's an emergency I must attend to at once, I'll see you later, also, the floor may need mopping."

"Emergen– what? What's going–"

But Celestia had already teleported away.

Tick tock, goes the clock.

Twilight Sparkle didn't need the stars in the night to let her know that darkness had descended across Equestria, for she had been counting the ticks of the small, wooden, definitely-not-alive clock that stood over her bed, relentlessly marking the passage of time; it was akin to being able to hear the hiss of sand through an hourglass, an hourglass that contained her life.
Twilight knew she was in trouble. When even books failed to calm her down, she was in trouble. She was contemplating all manner of things: using the time travel spell somehow to make herself some more time, buying lots of potted plants to grow all around the house so she didn't feel dead anymore, even stretching her imagination to becoming a long lived, practically immortal alicorn, but the mere notion was mere wishful thinking.
Her mind was clogged with a thousand thoughts, and nothing was being resolved; instead, it kept building up, threatening the seams of her mind and shaking the already precarious balance her consciousness had on the thin tight-rope of sanity.
Spike, to his credit, had done everything he could to help. Shortly after he had sent Rainbow's and Pinkie's letter to Princess Celestia, he entered Twilight's room to give her a drink of orange juice should she want one. He set it next to the salad he had left her earlier, and noticed it remained untouched. With an internal sigh, he turned and left to give Twilight some space.

Tick tock.

If this is what I call home, why do I feel so alone?

Tick tock.

Real life I'm sad to see you go.

Tick tock.

Twilight looked out of her window for the first time that afternoon, and was surprised to find that afternoon had been and gone. The horizon was burnt orange, the Sun, gone dark, sunk beneath the firmament of the world, leaving Ponyville behind as the epitome of peace and tranquillity. Twilight looked to the North Star and couldn't help but feel marginally more mentally grounded, as if the star was acting as a compass for her mind, or her heart...

Knock knock.

In her spiralling reverie, Twilight barely registered that there was a knock at her door. Yet there it was, and it wound down to Spike answering it for her.

"Oh, um, hi Princess, come in."

Celestia strode past the little dragon quickly, her face looking unusually serious, even fearful. Spike felt his stomach drop an inch or two when he saw her expression; whatever was worrying Celestia so badly, Spike didn't know, but he could make a good guess.

The only word Twilight heard from her room was 'Princess,' and that was enough to break her out of her stupor, if only temporarily.

"P-Princess?" she muttered under her breath, looking wildly around. Her room was a mess: her bed was unmade, scrunched up paper was everywhere, the air was musty from her being cooped up all day, and there was a light layer of books upon every surface.
Twilight could hear the stairs creaking and made a frantic but futile attempt to alleviate the room of its state of disorder.
There was a knock at the door and Twilight resignedly bade the Princess to enter her bedroom.

"Twilight, my dear. I've been so worried about– What are you doing?"

Twilight was standing in a corner of the room, a feather duster in her mouth and about a dozen miscellaneous objects twirling around her head. She spat the duster out and grinned sheepishly.

"I, uh, was just cleaning," she said lamely as Celestia cast her eyes across the mess that Twilight called her bedroom.

"I see," she said flatly, before turning her mind to more important matters. "What is the meaning of this?" She produced the blood stained scroll in front of Twilight’s muzzle.

"Wh-what? How did you get hold of this?!" she asked frantically, running a hoof through her increasingly ill-kept mane, "I didn't want this to be sent! I didn't want this to be read at all! Sp-Spi–"

"What I want to know," stated Celestia, swiftly cutting off her student, "is why this was written at all. You can only imagine my alarm when I receive a letter spattered in your blood and whose contents are on such macabre subjects as: 'our delusional self importance and why all we strive for is ultimately futile,'" she recited from the paper.

Twilight started trembling. How bad could this day get?

"I-It's just my thoughts on stuff I've been thinking about recently," she said, almost pleadingly. "I thought that if I-I could write it down, it would leave my head less cluttered. It usually works... b-but this..."

"Can you explain the blood, please," said Celestia, eyes emanating nothing but concern, though her tone remained hard.

"Ah, that'd be from the paper cut," she whispered.

"Paper cut?"

"Y-Yes, I had a paper cut earlier and it was... let's just say it wasn't fun."

Celestia knelt down so her head was level with Twilight's. She looked deep into the unicorn's eyes as she made an attempt to gently straighten Twilight's mane.

"I think we need to have a little talk, my faithful student."

Twilight nodded solemnly.

"Here. This always did you good when you were stressed, I assume this still rings true?"

Twilight took the camomile tea Celestia was offering and laid back on her bed, sipping timidly whilst the alicorn drew up Twilight's writing chair and took a seat. Twilight was suddenly struck with the darkly amusing thought that this was akin to a psychiatrist and her patient.
The patient looked to her doctor to see her gazing up and through the high window near the ceiling, to the wheeling stars overhead, brow furrowed. Twilight waited patiently, drinking every so often from her cup. Wondering why her mentor was being so quiet, she opened her mouth, but as she did so, Celestia spoke.

"Why do you think we are here, Twilight?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the sparkling jewels of the night.

"I-I don't know, Princess," she admitted. "There's always the obvious biological purpose, but–"

"You misunderstand me. Why do you think we are here?"

"I uh..." She fiddled with her hooves, feeling silly for even thinking it. Celestia looked expectantly at her, intently watching the wheels turn behind Twilight's eyes. "I don't think we're here for any reason at all," she blurted. Realising how stupid she must sound she added "And I believe that we all have to find our own purposes in life."

Celestia considered this, while Twilight's cheeks burned pink. The alicorn smiled warmly.

"That's a very thoughtful conclusion," she praised. "It's always best to think flexibly instead of in absolutes. After all, if one thinks of the world in terms of black and white, one misses the infinitely subtle shades in between."

Twilight had barely digested this wisdom when another question was thrown her way like a frisbee made of contemplation.

"And what purpose have you found in your life?" asked Celestia, genuinely curious about her student’s answer.

"Me?" she squeaked. Celestia merely nodded.

Twilight closed her eyes. What did she live for? Her immediate thought was for her friends, her five best friends in the world, who had been through so much together, learnt, bonded and shared deeply with one another; they were very important to her, more than anything... almost more than anything...

"Knowledge," she whispered. "It's knowledge. Why is it knowledge?" she asked Celestia, sounding worried.

"Why, Twilight? Is there something wrong with pursuing knowledge?"

"No, it's just– it should be the girls... they're more important than books will ever be... oh, I'm a terrible friend!" She threw her hooves over her face in shame.

"Twilight," said Celestia, being the calming anchor to the turbulent seas Twilight was swimming in. "Can you remember why I granted you permission to live in Ponyville?"

"Of course: it was to study the magic of friendship."

"And tell me," said Celestia, with an air of triumph, "what is studying friendship if not pursuing knowledge?"

Twilight's eyes widened. How did that not occur to her? All the years she had spent with her friends, she had always viewed time with them and time researching as mutually exclusive activities, but they were one and the same.

"I never thought of it like that," Twilight mumbled.

"I can tell– and it may be my fault for not specifying it from the beginning. I know how important your studies are to you, but I didn't want you treating your new friends as experiments!" she chuckled. "That is why I held my tongue, and for that, I'm sorry."

Twilight nodded in understanding, and then frowned. "But I don't see what this has to do with my... um, my..."

"Incident with a piece of paper?" offered Celestia.

"Yes," said Twilight.

Celestia shuffled her chair closer, until she was right beside the unicorn. "It seems to me," she began, gently taking Twilight's cut hoof, "that you were upset because your paper cut made you realise your mortality, yes? And you know more than maybe anypony alive today that there is more to see than can ever be seen, and more to do than can ever be done. But that isn't enough for you is it?"

"I'm sorry," Twilight whispered.

"Sorry? Twilight, it's admirable. You want to know as much as there is to know, you were always passionately curious, often to a fault; remember when I caught you in the restricted sections of the library when you were a teenager?"

Twilight's cheeks almost ignited as the haunting memories returned. "I was young! And– And hormonal!"

Celestia waved a dismissive hoof and laughed. "That's beside the point. You always wanted more knowledge, and you've realised you have a short amount of time to find it, and you think your dreams will turn to dust, right?"

"Right," murmured Twilight.

"Wrong!" Celestia barked, startling Twilight. "Sorry. I don't expect you to understand, this is a burden only Luna and I share... a long life is not necessarily a better one, Twilight."
Twilight waited, expecting the Princess to explain why, but she remained silent. Until:
"The world must seem so sparkling to you all, and all the more precious," said Celestia, almost to herself.
Twilight looked directly into her mentor's large magenta eyes, and saw exactly what she always saw: an ancient and kindly power, the only indication of the alicorn's true age, which spanned millennia. What had those eyes seen? What would they see? Her own death?
It was there that Twilight Sparkle realised that the burden was not on the dead, it was on the living.

"Sunny days, starry nights, and lazy afternoons with good friends, that's what we really live for," said Twilight. "Dancing in the light."

Celestia nodded, saddened that for her the world was tarnished and old, but happy that she had shown Twilight just how lucky she was. She smiled down at her.

"I want you to know how proud I am of you, my faithful student," she said, drawing her into a hug. Twilight could smell Celestia’s familiar honeyed scent and her mind was launched back into the past, memories long settled under the detritus of her mind were dragged up to be relived, all in a simple hug.

"Thank you, Princess," said Twilight sincerely into Celestia's neck, feeling all her anxiety and worry sapping out of her like poison from a wound. Celestia's heart warmed to see her cheer up.

"Ah, so you kept Mrs Buzzy then?" Celestia chuckled, looking over the top of Twilight's head to see the stuffed bumblebee that Twilight had retained from her foalhood.

"Um, yes," said the unicorn sheepishly, "after I let Big Macintosh keep Smarty Pants, Mrs Buzzy is all I have left really."

"Do you still go to sleep with her, like you used to?" asked Celestia wryly.

"Yes," said Twilight, cutting to the chase and letting Celestia have her fun.

"Some things never change," she said fondly, as Twilight yawned.

"Sorry," apologised Twilight, "I've had rather a busy day after all."

"I understand completely," said Celestia knowingly, watching Twilight retreat to her bathroom to brush her teeth. The alicorn looked up to the clock on the wall: half past ten. Twilight always did like her early nights. It had been a while since Celestia had visited Twilight's home, so she took this chance to have a little look around. The ever constant loose sheets of paper with half-formed thoughts and hasty hoofwriting were scattered around her desk so randomly it was as if they underwent Brownian motion whenever no-one was looking. The end of a scroll peeked out from the end of the bed and Celestia spied her name on the front of it. Curiously picking it up, she removed the red ribbon and began to read.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Hey, Rainbow Dash here, and Pinkie Pie too. We're writing to you because we're both a bit worried about Twilight, I (Rainbow Dash) bumped into her in town this morning, although she more bumped into me. Anyway, she started going on about how she's gonna die and other way depressing things, so I took her home and tried to calm her down. It sorta worked but Pinkie thought she might need your help, you know her the best after all. So, it would be super duper awesome if you could please check up on her and stop her going crazy, if you're not too busy that is, I'll make you a cake in thanks later, I know how you love cake, Princess!

Your loyal subjects,

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie

Celestia put two and two together, and realised that this must have been the letter intended for her in place of the more... personal one that had been sent in its stead. She surreptitiously took the scroll and kept it; Twilight didn't need to see that her friends were overly worried about her after all.

"You know, it's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep," said Twilight, returning from the bathroom.

"Hmmm?" said Celestia, unable to make heads nor tails of the statement.

"Huh? Sorry, Spike always says I start talking nonsense when I'm sleepy."

"Ah, you must be very sleepy then," teased the alicorn.

"Hey," said Twilight playfully as she got into bed.

Celestia stood up and tucked Twilight in, just like she used to when the purple mare was a filly. Both of them enjoyed the nostalgia of the moment, and Twilight instantly felt her eyelids droop heavily.

"Goodnight, my faithful student, and remember, if you ever need me, I'm always here."

"Thank you, Princess. Good night."

Celestia kissed Twilight softly on the cheek, and withdrew from the bedroom, leaving the mare inside it to explore the realm of dreams to her heart's content.
The Sun Princess turned around and saw Spike standing awkwardly before her.

"Is she okay?" he asked tentatively.

"For now, but I'm sure she'll find something new to worry about soon enough," said Celestia amiably, trotting down the wooden staircase.

"Oh good, I was a bit worried about her myself– she hasn't been that crazy since that whole time travel incident."

Celestia was at the door, and turned to look at the little dragon.

"Keep looking after her, won't you Spike? You do a wonderful job around here, you should be proud."

Spike felt his heart lift several inches inside his chest. He saluted Celestia as she took her leave, soaring out into the starry night.

Rainbow Dash's cloud bed had claimed her for itself. Weaving its seductive and fluffy spell upon her, the pegasus found it impossible to resist, and she was quite happy to fall into its embrace. She rolled over to a new position and sighed contentedly. She was reading, as she always did before bed. She'd recently bought a new Terry Pratchoof novel, and was completely enraptured by it. Chuckling at a scene with Death, Rainbow wondered what Twilight would make of a witty Grim Reaper. She flew through the pages with as much vigour as she put into her actual flying, which was perhaps too much vigour...
There was a sharp intake of breath, as Rainbow felt a stinging pain lance through her hoof. She glanced down and saw a thin cut on her hoof that was slowly leaking blood in a steady and sticky drip.

"Oh honeysuckle."

The End