//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two: Ten Years Later 
// Story: Fallen Unicorns 
// by Flyer 
//------------------------------//


CHAPTER TWO:
TEN YEARS LATER


Rain fell in sheets over Ponyville, somewhat melting the high mounds of filthy gray snow lodged with leaves, and twigs, and other various pieces of debris. Lights, as well as the outdoor temperature, were all dimmed to a record low throughout the town as Princess Luna’s moon failed to peek through the thick pillow of solid gray clouds that hung overhead.
The Ponyville train station sat in the pure darkness when off in the distance, on the western-bound track, a small round orb of pale light shone into view. With each passing second, the orb grew larger, and the sheen of the orb grew even brighter. Finally, at the platform, the orb of light came to a complete halt, and it was obvious that it belonged to an Equestrian locomotive.
The train stood still for a moment, letting pockets of translucent steam hiss out of the vents and shoot into the air. The final passenger car opened, allowing a single pony to exit from the warmth of the car into the arctic air. This mare was hidden by a long, body-length khaki cloak. The only portions of the pony that were visible were the tips of her hooves and a pair of piercing violet eyes that shone from the blackness of the hood concealing the rest her face.
The violet eyed mare turned, startled as the entrance to the train car shut. She watched in total silence as the train began to slowly maneuver its way down the tracks ahead, eventually picking up forward momentum and disappearing in the vast abyss that was the western horizon. The hidden pony then turned and focused her attention on the state that the train station was in. Over the past decade, the once clean, lively, and prosperous train depot had fallen into massive disrepair. Large and gaping holes were sprinkled about the boarding platform. Columns supporting the roof were splintered and sagged, looking quite unable to hold up the roof for much longer. Out of the three ticket windows that overlooked the platform, only had not been boarded up. The pony calmly approached the only window that could still be looked through, and even then, it was still extremely difficult to see the interior of the building.
The pair of violet eyes squinted and paired through the dirt-caked and cracked window to see a rather melancholy sight. Inside, two mangy rats were duking it out over a rotting and long-browned apple core. The pony became implausibly mesmerized by the display of the smaller rat putting up a valiant effort to protect its meal from the larger, more menacing-looking rat.
Finally, the disguised mare had enough of watching this grotesqueness and sighed. She readjusted the plain brown saddlebag draped across her back and then slowly walked off the platform, out of the protection from the rain that the shoddy roof had provided. A bone-chilling gust of wind sent the rain into a different trajectory, from straight down to nearly raining sideways. Drops of rain stung the pony’s face in a pain on par with being stung by a thousand angry hornets. Each drop of rain blurred her vision as she slowly trudged through the muck made up of rain, melted snow, mud, and other ground debris. Finally, after a long, grueling hour, the pony reached the destination of Golden Oaks Library, which was normally a ten-minute walk to the train station. The pony looked up at a sign on the door that read:


TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVIENCES CAUSED


The pony’s heart dropped just a little bit after reading this sign. But nonetheless, she reached into the saddlebag, pulled out a key, and placed it in the lock. After a few minutes of jiggling the lock, the door creaked open, after which the pony rushed inside to escape the cold and rain.
The door was shut, kicking up a swirling cloud of dust in the old library. The hooded pony looked around the abandoned tree interior to see nothing but blinding darkness. Even though she had stepped out of the rain, it was still just as bitterly cold inside the library as it was outdoors. And the fact that the pony was wearing a saturated garment didn’t help matters any, in fact, it made her even colder. She knew it was time to act fast before a dreadful sickness sat in. With chattering teeth, the pony made her way over to the fireplace and checked the wood bin to see if there was wood any left over from the library’s last usage. Much to her surprise, there was still some left inside the storage bin. It may have only been a few small pieces of wood, but it was dry and just enough to suffice for a warm fire.
The pony tossed the contents of the wood receptacle onto the fireplace grate, which allowed all the soot and ash to seep through to the ground.
But what to use for kindling? she wondered.
Looking around the library, came to the realization that there was a source for kindling, which was the thousands upon thousands of old books that made her home right here in Golden Oaks. But dismissed the thought of using a book to start a fire, as she could never bring herself to disrespect any book like that. However, a change of heart soon swept through, as an icy draft wafted her way through the window and sent the sopping wet pony into shivers.
No matter, swallowed her pride and grabbed the smallest book on the nearest shelf she could find. It was a tattered old copy of Funny Dinner 4: The Funny Hijinks of Dinner Colt. It was one of the few books that she could not stand at all. She disliked the movie even more than the novel. So with a slightly clearer conscience, she tossed the book onto the top of the firewood. A lit match almost immediately followed, starting a small fire sheening of bright orange and red hues.
The pony calmly approached the brightly glowing warm fire. Giving a loud sigh as she felt the heat from the fire beginning to warm her entire body, she slowly dropped the saddlebag from her back. The bag hit the ground with a thud, and finally, removed the cloak that was concealing her features.
Twilight Sparkle stood atop her disguise and stared at the almost hypnotic sight of the fire and sighed. She sat on the dusty floor and stuck her hooves out in front of the embers, hoping to warm her hooves. She rubbed them together and blew warm breath on them. She stood up and looked around the room, saddened by the sight of the place she had once called home: volumes upon volumes of books that hadn’t been opened, let alone touched, in what seemed like ages. Almost everything was caked with a thick layer of gray dust. Twilight shut her eyes, hoping that this sight wasn’t true. But it was, no matter how many times she tried to reason with herself that it wasn’t.
Twilight looked at herself in an old mirror. She had never fully noticed before how much she had aged in the past decade. She was still the same size as she was before, however, a lot of her other features had changed. Her mane and tail, once lustrous and shiny violet with a streak of neon pink, had become dulled and grayed. They were both still violet, but with wisps of gray peeking out. Dark circles and bags of exhaustion had taken up a seemingly permanent residence below her eyelids. Her coat used to be a bright lavender hue with soft, delicate fur. But the lavender had faded into dullness, and her fur was full of mats and other rough patches. One thing, however, stood out as a glaring change in Twilight’s appearance. Her unicorn horn was now mangled and misshapen. The purple pony was still capable of doing magic;, however, she was nowhere near as capable as she used to be. There were even times when her horn didn’t function at all. She looked at her massively aged body in the mirror and sighed. Twilight Sparkle had looked in the mirror at herself dozens upon dozens of times within the past few years. However, this was the first time that she really noticed how much she had aged in the past decade.
Gee, Twilight thought, I look so much older than I should. That’s something Rarity would be worried about.
Twilight shed a tear as she thought about her fashionista friend. It had been just over ten years since she saw Rarity, as well as her other friends. Twilight had written her friends diligently at first. She sent weekly letters for the first year. However, as she became more and more involved in her career, the amount of letters trickled down from weekly, to monthly, to bimonthly, and finally, she just stopped sending them.
Twilight realized that she had last sent a letter over eight years ago. This angered her, as she had broken her Pinkie Promise to her friends, the mares that she loved just like they were her family. She shook her head and walked away from the mirror. Then she picked her saddlebag up off of the ground and emptied the contents onto the table. One piece of paper fell to the hit the side of the paper and fell to the ground. Twilight bent over to pick it up and swiped it off of the floor, realizing that it was photograph. She took a look at the photograph, with its aged yellow tint and frayed corners. The photo was of her and Spike dressed as Star Swirl the Bearded and a baby purple dragon respectively. She looked at the date on the bottom left hand corner and saw that it was dated back to both of their first Nightmare Night in Ponyville.
A tear of sadness fell from Twilight’s eye; she wiped it away and became lost in the photograph. She thought about Spike and wondered how he was. Twilight could hardly believe that it had been seven years since she and Spike had parted ways. Twilight choked up and shut her eyes.
She sadly could still remember it just like it happened yesterday.

~~~

Twilight awoke in the morning in her special dormitory at the Academy. She looked at the clock, reading five-thirty in the A.M. and looked out her window. The night sky was about to give way to Princess Celestia’s raising of the cool springtime sun. She smiled and tossed the covers off of her bed and stretched all the limbs in her body that she could and yawned. She and Spike had been at the academy for only a semester and a half, but she already felt like she was home. 
The lavender headmistress looked over at Spike’s wicker bed to see the covers thrown off and the bed empty. Twilight looked and saw that the bathroom was unoccupied and cleared her throat.
“Spike!” Twilight Sparkle called out, worried about her number one assistant.
Twilight then opened the balcony door and stepped outside, the chilly spring air felt good against her shiny, soft coat. She scanned the area from the balcony, which overlooked the entire boarding academy. There was no sign of him out there that she could see.
“SPIKE!!” Twilight cried with more worry in her voice than before.
Finally, when she hung her head down, scared and wondering what to do next, Twilight heard:
“I’m up here Twi,” an unseen Spike calmly replied.
Twilight’s head immediately perked up in anticipation. With wide bug eyes, she frantically began to look around the balcony.
“I told you,” Spike called out, “I’m up here!”
“Where’s here?” Twilight responded.
“Look up,” Spike said after a moment of silence.
Twilight followed suit and looked up to see Spike sitting on the roof nonchalantly. He smiled at Twilight, who stared back at him in complete and utter confusion.
“Spike,” Twilight called, “how in Equestria did you get up there?”
Spike did not reply; he just started laughing.
“Hold on Spike,” Twilight said. “I’ll get you down!”
“No need Twi,” Spike replied.
With that, he stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof, the last sign of terra firma before at least a six foot drop to the balcony floor.
“Spike!” Twilight screamed. “No!”
But it was too late, Spike had stepped off the edge of the roof and began his hasty descent. Twilight frantically leaped forward hoping to catch her closest confidante, but he never reached the ground.
Twilight heard what sounded like flapping wings. She slowly looked up to see Spike, levitating himself to the ground with his brand new pair of dragon wings. As Spike landed, Twilight could only stare directly at his smugly smiling face with her mouth comically agape. After a few moments of awkward silence, Spike unfurled his wings again.
“So,” Spike asked proudly, “Whaddya think of these new babies?”
“W… Wh… When did you get those?” Twilight inquisitively stammered.
“Sometime between bedtime and four o’ clock this morning,” Spike responded. “I noticed these when I woke up to go to the bathroom.”
Twilight shut her mouth and recomposed herself. She knew that one day he may sprout wings, but did not expect it to happen so soon. The thought of Spike growing up brought out the maternal side of her. She was sad, yet proud of Spike like the way a mother becomes sad when her children grow up and go out into the world.
The lavender headmistress forced a smile and gave Spike a hug.
“Congratulations, Spike!” Twilight said proudly.
They continued to hug as the sun now officially burst into the far eastern horizon.
It turned out that Spike growing his wings were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of his maturation. As the days, and weeks, and months passed, Spike began to grow bigger and bigger. His size increased, his teeth grew sharper and more abundant, the pupils in his eyes grew narrower and more lizard-like, and his voice grew deeper and much more masculine.
Finally, about a year after Spike grew his wings, he had become too large to enter into the dormitory, let alone, anywhere else that was interior in the school. Spike, who was once so excited about growing up, had now grown more and more depressed as his size increased. His new bed space was the entire balcony was confined to the outdoor campus, and while the students of the academy liked Spike and knew he was pretty harmless, they began to grow fearful of being crushed by his gigantic purple and green body.
Although Spike was depressed about his new features, he hid his inhibitions from Twilight because he knew that it would devastate her if he decided to leave. It had been something that he had been thinking about for at least a year. Spike yearned to spread his wings and aerially explore the lands beyond Equestria. From his sleeping space on the balcony, he watched the stars and wanted to fly to them. He loved Twilight, he loved her so much, but he wanted to leave.
Little did Spike know that it pained Twilight to see Spike cooped up in the school grounds. She could see it in his eyes and his actions, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Twilight often spent sleepless nights pondering what to do. She wanted Spike to be happy, but at the same time, she struggled with a small sense of selfishness over her number one assistant. After all, Twilight hatched Spike and raised him with Princess Celestia. Spike was arguably Twilight’s closest, and at this time, only friend in Equestria. This was around the same time that she had stopped communicating with the rest of her pony friends back in Ponyville. Finally, one spring night, a little over a year after Spike began his dragon puberty, Twilight awoke from a sleepless toss and turn to get a drink from her dormitory’s kitchen. On her stroll towards the eating space, she caught out of the corner of her eye Spike watching Princess Luna’s exceptionally large full moon. She walked over to the sliding glass door and pressed her nose against the glass. Spike did not notice, as his sight and mind were lost in the night sky. As he once again yearned for the chance to explore, a tear fell from his eye.
Spike choked up, trying not to burst into a fit of tears. However, inside the dorm, Twilight pulled back and began to cry. She knew her number one confidante was miserable, and now Twilight had finally come to terms with the fact that it was time for the two of them to go their separate ways.
Twilight awoke the next morning looking like she had not slept at all. She splashed some water in her face in the bathroom and sighed. The purple unicorn knew that it was time for her and Spike to talk, and the sooner the better. She knew that the longer she waited, the harder it would be to do so.
Twilight Sparkle looked out to the balcony. Spike wasn’t there, but she could see him in the courtyard of the school. Tears welled up below the surface, and Twilight could feel a sickness in the pit of her stomach. No matter, she shook it off. It was time to do it.
Out in the courtyard, Spike, now the size of a normal adult dragon, leaned against one of the wings of the school. He sighed; he was going to tell Twilight how he felt finally, as soon as he saw her, so he wouldn’t talk herself out of it later.
“Hey Spike,” a familiar female voice quietly called out.
Spike turned around to see his best friend straining her neck to see his face.
“Hiya Twi,” Spike replied in an extremely deep voice.
“What are you doing down here?” Twilight asked.
Spike shrugged.
“Just checking out the view,” Spike replied. “It’s actually quite nice down here.”
A brief bit of silence followed before Spike extended his massive dragon claw to the ground in front of Twilight.
“Wanna check it out?” Spike asked with a small smile on his face.
Twilight stepped into the wide open palm of his claw, allowing him to lift her up to his level. The hulking dragon let Twilight down on the roof. They both looked out at the view of the Fillydelphia skyline. The view wasn’t as majestic and breathtaking as it was from the balcony of Twilight’s bedroom, but it was still pretty to look at, especially at this time of the morning, with the morning sun glistening off of the city’s tallest skyscrapers.
Spike and Twilight both took their eyes off of the city view and looked at each other.
“Can we talk?” both Twilight and Spike asked at the very same time.
The awkward timing flabbergasted both purple creatures.
“You first,” Spike said.
Twilight took a deep breath and let the words fall out of her mouth.
“Have you ever looked out beyond the horizon and wanted to explore it?” Twilight asked.
Spike shot her a ‘how did you know?’ look.
“I’ve known you’ve wanted to leave Spike,” Twilight explained. “I always knew this day might come, and I have to accept that.”
“I do want to go, Twilight,” Spike confessed, “but at the same time, I don’t want to leave you.”
“I understand. I don’t want you to leave either,” Twilight retorted, “however, I also want you to be happy. And can you honestly tell me that you’re truly happy here?”
Spike clenched his teeth and sighed. He let his claw down and allowed Twilight to climb on. Spike carried her up to eye level. The unicorn nudged her nose against Spike’s larger nose.
“I love you Spike,” Twilight said with tears streaming down her face.
“I love you too Twilight,” Spike replied. “I will always remember you, Twilight.”
She gently placed her hoof against his nose.
“I will never forget you Spike, my little dragon,” Twilight said sadly.
They both shared one last smile before Spike set Twilight back down upon the grassy courtyard. Spike stretched his mammoth wings out wide. With a final wave, he leapt off of the ground and flew high into the air.
Twilight could only watch as her now former number one assistant had departed to make a life of his own. She sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes, and began to walk back indoors.

~~~

Twilight reopened her eyes and looked down upon the photograph that brought back that painful memory and placed it facedown upon the table. She looked back into the saddlebag that she had dumped out earlier and pulled out one final item that did not fall out earlier: a letter. She picked up and read it again, like she had several times before. The letter read:

Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I am very appalled and disappointed in the incident that occurred this past week.  Although I understand that you have been maimed in this unfortunate incident and are still recovering, it has come to my attention that your actions led to this unspeakable tragedy. Therefore, as of this moment, you are relived of your duties as headmistress. You are also required to attend an official inquiry hearing on this subject at the time of ten-thirty of the morning of this upcoming Wednesday.

As always,
Princess Celestia of Equestria

Twilight grimaced at this letter again.
Normally, Princess Celestia wouldn't have been this un-cordial. It intially confused Twilight as to why she had just recieved a letter from her former mentor, rather than receiving a visit from the Princess herself. Had something changed with the Equestrian ruler since she had last saw her years ago? It simply baffled Twilight. But she would find out what was going on with the regal alicorn soon enough.  Twilight took one last look at the summons in her hooves, and in anger, she crumpled it up and threw atop of the still strongly burning blaze in the fireplace. Looking at the paper blacken and shrink in the fireplace, she decided that she had had enough and that she need some rest.
The injured unicorn climbed the rickety old staircase leading to the old bedroom she used to occupy. She opened the door and took a view. The room was barren, save for the thick layers of dust and an old, dirty mattress in the corner of the room. Twilight looked at the mattress in disgust. It looked so dirty, and smelly, but decided to suck it up for the night because it was better than laying in the inches thick dust layers.
The exhausted mare slowly climbed onto the mattress, it sagged under her weight and she could feel a couple of the metal springs poking out of the fabric, causing a severe sense of discomfort. She took a few minutes to readjust herself before finding the most comfortable position available. Finally, Twilight grew too weary to care about being totally comfortable. Her eyes became heavier and heavier with each passing moment.
Twilight Sparkle shut her eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep.