Books, books, books, books, books. I had been reading nonstop since the funeral. Books on astronomy, books on herbalism, books on pony history, books on culture, books on books, almost every genre of book had passed in front of my glassy eyes. I didn't really read much of any book, of course, but most of the books had entertaining pictures. Every now and again I would read a page or two of a book, but I mostly just flipped through to find pictures.
I had slowly worked my way around the library. Every single shelf of books in the library was now scattered all over the floor. I was on the precipice of insanity and I was losing my balance. There was only one book remaining, and it was huge. I levitated the book over to me and threw it on the floor. It was titled The Comprehensive Book of Spells. I flipped through it and saw almost zero pictures. Before I threw the book across the room and gave up on life, I had an idea. While reading had kept me occupied for a while now, it was starting to get repetitive. I was paying less attention to the book and was drifting more off into my thoughts. If I drifted off into my thoughts, there was no telling what would happen. If I actually did something active, I would be more involved and so could hold the psychosis at bay longer.
I flipped open the book and started skimming. I would pick a random spell, try doing it for a while, then move on. I failed most of the spells since my magic was specific to healing, but I was able to perform some of the novice spells. I created a self-checking To Do list with one spell and set it on fire with another spell. I regained my balance on the precipice and even started having a little bit of fun. I conjured a napkin, teleported around a little, and even temporarily changed my mane color to red. I began to wonder why I had never done this before After about an hour or two of performing random spells, I got tired of them. I threw the book across the room and collapsed from exhaustion.
As expected, I dreamed only about Twilight; however, I only had happy dreams. I had a dream where Twilight was still alive and we had gotten married. I had a dream where Twilight and I became a superstar couple. I had a dream where Twilight and I were on a sitcom. My dreams were all lighthearted and happy-go-lucky throughout my slumber. My mind still wasn't ready to accept the loss.
Then I had an interesting dream. I watched myself standing at Twilight's grave in the middle of the night in the third person. I had lifted away the statue, brought the coffin to the surface, and opened it. I just stood there for a little bit, then started squinting. I saw the color fade away from my mane, tail, and coat until I was monochromatic. My horn began to glow red and intensify until I could barely look at it anymore. Suddenly, a stream of red shot from my horn and hit Twilight's corpse, shaking it as if it were being electrocuted. The dream concluded with Twilight coming back to life and walking over to me as I collapsed.
When I woke up the next morning, all of the dreams from the previous night were fuzzy and unclear. Except for the resurrection one. I sat on the floor for a little trying to recall the resurrection dream, and I was able to almost completely reconstruct it in my head. It had been so vivid that it had felt as if I were actually watching myself give my life force to Twilight. I began to wonder if such a thing were even possible. After all, if I could do anything to bring Twilight back I would. I began looking around the library as if I could find my answer in big bold letters on the walls.
I started searching through books to see if any of them had any information on resurrections. I grabbed each book one at a time and flipped straight through the index. I started grabbing two, three, four books at a time to speed up the process. Spike would've made the sifting easier but he was still sulking up in his room. Quite frankly, I was surprised that I was able to do so much after the love of my life had just recently passed away. I was determined to find some answers and nothing would stop me.
After at least an hour and a half of searching I came upon the spell book. I flipped through to the index and almost squealed. The index showed that one page of the book had something to do with resurrection. I flipped to page 758 and saw that I had entered the Advanced Skills section of the book. The spell in question took up the entire page, which was rare for a spell. It had been created by Starswirl the Bearded at least 200 years ago and was rarely used because of controversy surrounding it.
I read the entire page twice before even thinking about attempting it. The book instructed that only advanced spell casters would ever be able to perform this spell and that it required large amounts of magic and energy. The page included exercises to be done before casting the spell to aid in concentration and lessen the chance of failure. It recommended a background in medical magic.
I tried the concentration exercises for a while as practice. When I memorized the exercises and read the part explaining how to cast the spell, I felt ready to try it out. It suggested that the spell be used on small animals. I took my now-ruined salad out behind the library into a small grassy field. I scattered the salad over a small area and hid, waiting for something to smell the vegetables. After a few minutes, a squirrel found the salad and started nibbling on a cucumber. I grabbed the creature with my magic and took it inside as practice. Really hoping that I knew how to perform the spell, I sat down with the book, gingerly levitated the squirrel in front of me, and snapped its neck. The limp body stayed suspended in mid-air as I started the concentration exercises. I took deep breath, thought about flowers blooming, filled my mind with happy thoughts, and focused completely on the task at hand.
Ready to perform the magic, I started by healing the dead squirrel. It was still dead, but the subject had to be completely healed before attempting the spell. I left the squirrel on the ground for a second and went to the bathroom to find a pair of scissors. I came back with the scissors and sat down in front of the dead body. I made a small cut on my front left leg and let some blood dribble out of the incision. I then bent my head and dipped my horn into some of my blood. I slid my hooves under the squirrel and gingerly lifted it up to about face level. I then concentrated on pushing magic from all over my body into my horn. I saw a red glow coming from above my eyes and saw that it was being diffused slightly. The magic was trying to escape my horn but was blocked by the blood, so it began to form a bubble of blood about the size of a cherry tomato. Finally, when the bubble seemed ready to explode, I sent one final burst of magic through my horn and detached the magic bubble. I saw it float around for a little before finally touching the squirrel. A flash of bright light illuminated the library, and I let the resurrected squirrel scamper out the front door.
I was slightly dazed when I sat back down on the library door because of the energy the spell required, but I was ecstatic at the possibility of saving Twilight. What I feared was that resurrecting Twilight would take too much energy and I wouldn't be able to supply enough. No matter what, though, I still had to try. I loved Twilight more than myself, and resurrecting Twilight might just allow me to live with myself for the rest of my life.