It was noon already when Twilight closed the book. Time does fly faster when you're engaged in a good reading, she thought as her hooves carried her towards Pony Joe's doughnut shop. The streets were busy as usual, crowded with fancy dressed mares and gentlecolts that browsed the numerous boutiques. At her age, Twilight had little concerns of what adults considered to be statements of fashion and elegance but she sometimes admired the poise and the delicate nature of several unicorn ladies that passed her by. In turn, she was most of the time invisible for these high-fare ponies, they barely noticed her presence - and that's precisely how she liked things to be. More time for studies implied less time smiling politely and sharing compliments with strangers that bore no significant importance to her. As she opened the door to the shop, she was greeted by the forever jolly baker:
- Welcome Twilight, what can I get for you today?
- Just the usual, Joe. And a quiet table for reading.
The doughnut shop was not a highly solicited parlor in the castle, but it had the best confectionery she sampled up to that moment. And its grape juice was to die for, especially in pretty hot summer days. Picking an isolated table towards the back of the shop, Joe helped Twilight to sit comfortably on the rather rugged chairs by fetching a pillow from underneath the counter. It was the very same pillow that she gave to Joe on his birthday last year, and ever since then it became Twilight's official pillow in the shop. Placing the tome on the table, and biting a morsel out of the doughnut brought by Joe, she resumed reading:
"Ever since I gained control over my magical powers, I stopped noticing the ghost's presence. For all that I knew then it was gone for good, and I felt a small amount of relief at the prospect of having dealt with it. But as I was floating in the pitch black nothingness, sadness crept up upon me. And loneliness joined soon enough bringing in a particular kind of solitude, that of being the only spot of silence in a dark ocean of whispers. That's why I said I was not alone: as my body grew accustomed with its expanding magical powers, I started to experiment with my abilities and some of my creations lingered beside me in the darkness. I was simultaneously horrified and amazed as to what I was able to summon and consequently banish - the only problem was that a rather large number of my creations were smart enough to escape my expulsion magic; the once silent darkness became populated with sounds, murmurs and cracks, shuffles and crawls.
I brought them to life in the void, lives of uncertain scope and purpose, and they resented this as much as they were thankful for their existence. Not few where the moments when I went out into the nothingness of my location, carried by the power of my magic and searching for them. Sometimes I was successful and I ended their turmoil, and I was happy for them as my loneliness grew after being fed with their disappearance. Other times I failed to reach them and their avoidance gave me hope of seeing them some other time. I was as much their captor as their captive.
Who knows how much time I had spent inside that endless bubble? Long enough to grow a beard of the likeness you saw me wear when we met inside the memory. I was neither hungry, nor sleepy. Never tired of going nowhere, never bored for having the possibility to create pictures of the ponies I used to know was more than enough for me; even the fish creature held a spot in my endless canvas. I spent ages staring at minuscule dots on the magic painting, wishing them into different colors, I tasted my palette of colors and sang new ones into being. The lack of any feeling seemed too small an issue to change my actions, and I was casting myself further adrift on that domain of tranquil forgetfulness. And then there was the wall.
I could not breach it with all the might of my magical force. I unleashed torrents of fire and lightning against it, I ordered armies of summoned minions to bash against its invisible surface; I bumped into at accidental times and regardless of the direction I was currently facing I inadvertently reached it after a while of wandering. And each time my fury incremented at my inability to break through it; I grew disillusioned as to why I regained my powers in the first place; was my destiny to roam that unknowable dimension for all time or until my bones would become the play-things of the "pets" I had summoned inside? I think i even spent some good years trying to reach the end of it. Heh, an attempt as futile as my previous magical lash-outs had been. I floated away and burrowed inside my mind, replaying my memories. And the words of advice that I sought to ignore begged for my attention. And something occurred, beyond my scope of action. It started with a point of light that diffused itself a thousandfold into the darkness. My summons gathered around me scared, and I betrayed their trust by banishing them all in an instant. I wanted out of the comfort of my personal oblivion, and launched myself straight through the brightest region of the now permeable wall.
The texture of magic once more surrounded me as it felt like swimming through a thick layer of bee honey. My realm of darkness was replaced by one of shadows, albeit somewhat colored ones. The wall was reluctant to give me away and it dropped unto a group of smoky shapes that I felt were watching my struggle with some degree of interest. One of my hooves unwillingly touched the undefined edges of one of the smoking sprites, and I felt an unbearable pain lashing through it, ascending upwards my spine and towards my skull with a fierce power. I almost blacked out from the pain, giving way to the wall's powers to drag me back into my domain. But the wall never regained its integrity, allowing me to observe the shadowy creatures from afar. I had no will to touch them ever again, but in my heart the seed of hate had been planted; I was going to cause them just as much suffering as they did to me, and within the safety of my realm I planned out my vicious attacks.
Every once in a while, I pierced the veil between our worlds and cast my magic at their almost incorporeal nature. My first attempts were pretty weak against them, and they barely paid any attention to my works. I thought that my gravely unkempt appearance was not making the necessary impact, so I devised the first prototype clothing, similar to the outfit you saw me wearing. They were not impressed, and so I tried to cause some more chaos, with feeble success. Each time I went back and revised my plan of attack, I cursed that wretched land where I could see no distinction between land and air, between dark and night, between one creature and another; all the colors were there but faded and blended into the general murky and oily shadowy landscape. I wished for a clear target from which I could extract the information I would need to get back home. I was getting reacquainted with the feelings of pain and remorse towards the parents I had left behind, and my aching heart made things worse. It blurred my purpose, made me forget why I was doing these cruel acts - if I had not been sure that my magic managed somehow to hurt them, I would not have stepped up the game with each incursion. And to my twisted satisfaction, I reached the point where the shadows scattered at my very sight, avoiding the reach of my spells. I felt their fear, disgust and most of all suffering, and their lack of response amplified my wrathful self-esteem.
I was as blind as ever to my surroundings on my final moments spent among the country of shadows. I came out of my domain and in my mind I had prepared a vast array of new spells that I wanted to try. The very first one was specifically aimed at making these insufferable creatures more solid, I wished to be able to see them breaking apart as I unleashed my magic upon them. I was in one of their dwellings, and only two of them were in my immediate vicinity; neither of them noticed my presence, and I began preparations for my spell. I picked the smaller target and channeled all my anger and frustration through the beam of magic surging from my horn; my spell hit the shadow and its smoke contours began to turn opaque as the spell bounced off and ignited the other surrounding shadows. One by one, familiar shapes began to form, and with each object that I recognized a feeling of dread inside me increased; by the time the two creatures in the room were completely formed, I had dropped to the ground, covering my weeping eyes. Through my moist vision, I recognized myself looking much younger and gazing out of a window, as a shooting star grazed the night sky.
As all my past events were unwound before my weeping eyes, the words of the zebra and the strange creature finally made sense. Never before had my pain been stronger than then, but with it it came a clarity of purpose I never achieved again to this very day. Step by step, my path was being illuminated within my mind, and the knowledge of how to achieve it consolidated my plans. I was never again going to use my magic so irresponsibly, and my very first spell had my most sincere thanks and well-wishes embedded in its flowing colors. I gently touched my sleeping mother with it, and felt her condition improving significantly. I then looked down on my younger self who was deeply asleep; as I gently grabbed him and pulled him up through the wall of my domain, I smiled - the fish creature had approved the final iteration of my clothes. I also grew fond of the hat in the last days, as I also cherished the young magic-less unicorn under my supervision. And I made sure that he faced all the needed circumstances required for me to turn out alright. We went on our separate portions of our journey when the wall of magic in the land of the crazy ponies had hit me as well, sending me back to my mother's room. Least to say she was surprised to see, as she opened her eyes in the morning, a fully grown and bearded unicorn smiling awkwardly at her."