Now that we’ve learned the basics of alchemy, it’s time to learn a few spells. As I’ve preached many times already throughout this book, even the lowliest transmutations can go horribly wrong at the worst of times, and cause great harm or even death to another pony. Many of the conversion spells that I will teach you can be used to either help or harm ponies.
Many of the spells we will learn later on, like converting matter directly into kinetic energy, can be effective as a means for attacking someone. The use of alchemy in self-defense is banned in Equestria, though, and for good reason. It’s hard to just harm a pony with alchemy. Most spells used for attacking include those that turn things into matter and make them explode. More advanced spells that allow for turning things into energy and using them as projectiles are even more deadly, because matter holds so much energy in it.
I beg of you to never use this magic when defending yourself. You always want to take the path that won’t lead to death, no matter who is attacking you.
Now that I’ve ranted at you yet again over the dangers of alchemy, let’s get started with the first spell you’ll do: turning one type of stone into another type of stone…
The sun was well over the horizon now, and Twilight Sparkle was well on her way to Fillydelphia. She was absolutely exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to just keel over and go to sleep forever. Any adrenaline she had last night, and any leftover buzz from that energy potion was completely gone, leaving her feeling like a husk of a pony. She was hurting all over. But, the physical pain wasn’t the worst pain she was feeling.
After she woke up, she first wondered why she was in the middle of a forest. It had taken her a few seconds to realize that the previous day hadn’t just been a dream. She cried for what felt like forever, but was probably only about thirty minutes. After she dried her eyes for the last time, it left her feeling hollow. She had killed probably around a hundred ponies, maybe more. She had never killed anything before in her life, except maybe a bug or two. But she had killed ponies. Ponies with families, dreams, hopes, lives, feelings. One hundred lifetimes of experiences, snuffed out with one stupid decision.
Twilight had strongly considered turning herself in. She was probably the most wanted criminal in all of Equus, and rightfully so. She had gotten dangerously close to doing so, but then an image flashed across her brain: the sight of Celestia. Twilight had never seen Celestia so angry before. She had never seen anything so angry before. Celestia had reminded Twilight of when Luna transformed into Nightmare Moon, but this was so much more horrifying, because for one she had never seen Celestia even halfway upset about anything, let alone furious, and two, because every single ounce of that anger was directed directly towards her.
The image of Celestia was too much for Twilight. She thought that going back and seeing Celestia furious and disappointed with her might be even worse than the regret of not turning herself in. But, Twilight had a mission; she needed to get to the ley lines, and she needed to do it as soon as possible. She thought that maybe if she could get to Zebrica before the guard caught her and got lost in the jungle quickly enough, they wouldn’t ever be able to find her again. It was a stretch, but it was possible. Then, when they forgot about her, she could research the ley lines and work on her infinite magical energy source for Equestria, and when she finished that, she could bring it back and maybe she wouldn’t be so much of a villain.
Twilight’s days as a heroine were now over. She never really cared much for being the heroine and being universally loved by all ponies. As long as she had her friends and her library, she could be happy. But now, she only worried about not being despised by all. She needed to make up for her blunder, even if it killed her. She had convinced herself that if she turned herself in, she would only be able to answer for her sins, and not actually make up for them. So, after spending an hour crying and debating with herself, Twilight ran as fast as she could have with what energy she had left, which wound up being more of a light trot.
She guessed that if she moved all day and most of the night, she should be able to reach Fillydelphia in three days. And from Fillydelphia, it was only about a day to the Equestria/Zebrica border. She had to hope and pray that the Equestrian military wouldn’t find her in that time. If they did, she wasn’t sure she could defend herself against even just a small group of them. She could try teleporting, but that would wear her out and leave signs for mages to pick up. She was running on the basis that she didn’t think they knew which way she could have gone. It wouldn’t have taken them long to decide that her trick in Ponyville leading west out of the city was just that: trick. But that didn’t necessarily mean that they would be able to easily pick up her trail. Because she moved through the Everfree, they would have a very hard time tracking her magical steps.
Twilight was lucky that at least the first half of her route to Fillydelphia would be medium foliage, providing a decent enough canopy to prevent her being spotted immediately by any fliers they sent out. But Fillydelphia sat in the plains, a good twenty miles from any sort of dense foliage. She would have to make the trek across that stretch of land at night to prevent being seen.
As Twilight trotted through the trees, all she could do to pass the time was plan and fret over what had happened. She didn’t let herself fret, so she planned. She knew the geography of Equestria very, very well, so she planned for every step of her route what she would do if she encountered any soldiers, including how to deal with unicorn mages, pegasi fliers, and earth pony soldiers. But after several hours of walking and trotting, Twilight could think of nothing else to occupy her brain with, and she needed to keep her mind off of the previous day. She needed a book now more than anything…
Which reminded her: she did have a book.
Twilight pulled the book from her saddlebags and leveled it in front of her to where she could still watch where she was going. She was more than skilled enough at reading and walking for this to not slow her down. As she opened the book to the page that she had been on, though, she was reminded that last time she opened the book, she blew up a castle. She went to put it away, but she had to think about what she was doing. Could she really blame alchemy for her mistake? Celestia was mad that Twilight had used alchemy at all, but was it really the magic’s fault? Twilight had learned that all magic was neutral; even the magic of friendship was considered neutral. The only evil and good in magic was the ponies that used it. Even dark magics could be used for the greater good in a way that didn’t inflict harm on anything, except maybe the user itself.
All of this, combined with Twilight’s will to never let something like that happen again, made her want to study alchemy harder. She wanted to learn what had happened and why the spell went off like it did. And besides – since she had little energy left herself, if she needed to get out of a situation, she could use the extra help. So Twilight cracked the book open again, right to where she left off, and she read.
Twilight was starting to experience several different emotions after not seeing a single soul for a whole day. She was starting to feel a little lonely with no one else to talk to about the situation she was in. But, she was also feeling relieved, because she didn’t want to bring any of her drama to other ponies. Surprisingly though, the day felt somewhat relaxing. The whole day was spent reading and walking, which were two things she enjoyed quite a bit. So, she got this whole time to herself.
She wasn’t reading very fast, so that she didn’t blow through the book in a day and have nothing else to do. She also didn’t want to get too distracted from running, listening, and making sure she was always safe from discovery. When she had bedded down that night around midnight or so, she had figured that she had gone at least twenty miles today. That was a good distance for a day, and now she could go to sleep at a decent hour and hopefully get some rest. Before bedding up, she realized she hadn’t actually eaten anything since she left, which was a very bad thing, because she needed to keep her energy up.
Twilight couldn’t recall any instances of a pony ever actually starving to death in the open, though. While it wasn’t something ponies LIKED to do because it was considered… primitive, it was still something that kept a pony alive when there was no other food source readily available. Twilight let out a sigh and leaned her head down to munch on some grass by her bedroll. Nopony would ever openly admit to grazing, but it was something Twilight felt was necessary. Were she to go look for flowers or berries that weren’t poisonous, she might have wasted valuable time. And to Twilight, time was the most valuable thing she had right now, and she wasn’t going to waste it to save her pride. Luckily, grass is actually pretty good for ponies, and she managed to ignore the taste enough to fill her belly. When she was full enough, she laid her head down on her bedroll and went to bed.
The next day, Twilight woke up around seven o’clock and felt much better than the day before. Her body was starting to settle into the running away mode, so she wasn’t hurting as much, and she felt fairly rested. She could probably use a good portion of her magic again, too, since she did used little the day before. After rolling up her bedroll and munching on some more grass, she was up and at it again in fifteen minutes.
Her second full day of running wasn’t really much different from the first. Twilight read some more and covered more ground than the day before. The only hitch was when a group of timberwolves decided that Twilight would be a good meal for them. They were sorely mistaken. After immobilizing them with her arcane magic, Twilight had decided to try out an alchemy spell she had been memorizing all day. She formed the formula in her head, focused on the power in her hooves, and she released it, creating an explosion just large enough to blow one of the timberwolves to splinters. The others eyed her from their stasised forms, wanting to get away but not being able to break from the unicorn’s powerful magic. Twilight didn’t want to cold-bloodedly (cold-woodedly?) murder all of these timberwolves. They were just animals, and they would have gladly eaten her up had she let them, but her time spent with Fluttershy had made her feel bad for thinking of any living creature as a mindless beast that deserved death.
…But then again, killing one timberwolf wasn’t going to hurt anybody, right? After the other one had exploded all over the forest, Twilight let go of her stasis spell and all of the other timberwolves were very quick to get away from her as quick as possible. Twilight breathed a relieved sigh at that situation going about as well as she could have asked for. The alchemic spell that she cast was one that created matter into energy, creating an explosion. It was an immensely dangerous spell were it to go wrong. Release too much energy, and you could end up blowing up a crater in the world, as well as blowing yourself up. But, in small, contained uses like Twilight had done, it is an effective spell when last measures are needed.
Happy with herself for accomplishing that and for probably making sure the local timberwolf packs would leave her be for the rest of her journey, she continued onwards. Besides that encounter, the rest of the day was pretty much like the last. She read a lot, walked a lot, and not much else happened. Around eight o’clock, Twilight reached the edge of the Everfree Forest. It was twilight out, and the natural light from the sky was fading away. Twilight sighed as she laid down for a small rest, knowing this is when she would need to make her trek across the plains to Fillydelphia. It would take all night and would put her there around seven or eight in the morning.
She stopped and rested up for about thirty minutes, drinking from her waterskin that she refilled herself using alchemy to convert some stone into water the proper way this time. She realized what she had done wrong before, and she triple checked her work before actually using the spell. It did exactly as she wanted, but she focused too hard the first time and forgot to actually place the flask under the rock, so all of the water simply fell to the ground. She had also stumbled across some flowers that she knew were edible on her journey, so she had picked a bunch and put them in her saddlebag for when she would have time to eat them.
Twilight sat at the edge of the forest, looking south along the ever-stretching plains that made up the space between the Everfree and Fillydelphia. She heaved a sigh, trying her hardest to just enjoy the view. The sun was setting in the west, and was already just below the horizon. The sky to the west was a deep orange color, and it slowly faded into a dark blue, dotted with the beginnings of the stars. Over the Everfree Forest were streaks of clouds, not quite thick enough to block the view, but just enough to be seen. The pegasi never let lone strings of clouds go like that, but not much could be done over the Everfree.
The silhouettes of the rolling hills that seemed to stretch on into infinity before Twilight were barely visible in the low lighting, and they were slowly fading into darkness the longer she waited there. Her mane blew slightly in the night air, the chilliness of it causing her to shiver and pull the cloak on her back tighter around her barrel and head. The twilight had only lasted for about twenty or so minutes, but it was worth the wait to watch the day slip silently into the night. Twilight could see the moon slowly rising from the east, and thought about Princess Luna and Princess Celestia standing on the balconies in their spared towers, performing their duties even as half of their castle lay in ruins behind them.
Twilight blinked the tears from her eyes and shook her head, standing up and taking a sip from her waterskin. She had a very long night ahead of her, and she intended to make very good time, trying to get to Fillydelphia as early in the morning as possible.
As Twilight trotted through the rolling fields, she kept her view mostly to the sky. Not because she was looking for pegasi, because she knew they wouldn’t waste their time looking for her in the dark. Rather, she was watching the sky, looking for certain constellations and all the different streaks of color. Even miles from her home, this sky was still the same sky she saw there, and the moon was the same.
Though she tried to keep her mind completely clear of many thoughts outside the beauty of the masterfully woven artwork above her, her mind kept turning back to Spike. What was the baby dragon going to do now that she wasn’t there? Would he take over the library in her absence? Would he move in with Rarity, or one of her other friends? She hoped with all of her heart that she hadn’t made a big mistake in stopping to see her best friend before leaving. If Celestia were desperate enough, could she pry the thoughts and memories from a dragon, albeit a very young one? Would she pry the memories from Spike? He had done nothing wrong at all. Celestia couldn’t possibly expect him to turn Twilight in the moment he saw her and warn the princess about her quick visit. But, Celestia seemed uncharacteristically mad when Twilight had left her.
That thought had kept playing in Twilight’s mind over and over; was there some other answer behind Celestia’s blind rage besides the obvious? She couldn’t decide whether that was enough for Celestia to have that sort of hatred in her. From what Twilight could recall, the princess hadn’t even gotten that mad when Nightmare Moon took over Luna’s mind, turning her into a murderous villain who sought to imbalance the day and night cycle. Why did Celestia have such hatred towards alchemy specifically? Twilight was reconsidering her idea to use this time to study the ley lines, and instead focus on trying to learn more about alchemy. The problem, though was that the book she had gave little information except spells. What she needed was a book that could detail the history of the magic for her, and its relation with Equestria, and why specifically it was banned and forgotten for near a millennium.
Twilight was using the lowlight spell so that she wouldn’t stumble upon something she didn’t want to. The grassy fields she was crossing were for the most part featureless and uninteresting. But, they had a beauty to them that one couldn’t get when anywhere else. Mainly, it was the unbroken view of the sky from horizon to horizon that made them a nice place to be. Twilight could have sworn she could see the glow of Fillydelphia from where she was, but she wasn’t really quite sure. Since she left the hillside of the Everfree, she hadn’t really been paying attention to the miles she traveled, because that would just make the hours seem to roll on and on longer than they actually needed to. From the moon’s position in the sky, she guessed it was probably three in the morning. Fillydelphia was about twenty miles from the edge of the forest. She hadn’t been running much, because of the lowlight spell, so she was probably moving an average of one and a half to two miles an hour, and she had been walking for about six hours, meaning she was probably about half-way there.
Even after the fair night of sleep she had the night before, Twilight was feeling weary with fatigue. She debated holding off leaving Fillydelphia for a day, and getting a hotel room to sleep in under a different name. Honestly, the guard wouldn’t expect that, as they would probably be expecting her to keep going on. But, just in case they had the city on watch for any new and suspicious looking ponies, she needed to minimize the amount of time that she spent anywhere near civilization.
So she spent the rest of the night walking and trotting. She could rest once she got to Zebrica. Hopefully, Celestia wasn’t sure where she was going. It was a stretch, because Celestia was probably the smartest pony alive. Even if she did know where Twilight was going, hopefully she wasn’t thinking far enough in advance to ask for military access. As long as they had to wait, she could get into the jungle, find a nice hole to bed down in, and just rest. It was what she wanted right now more than anything.
Twilight tried to distract herself for the rest of the way. She went over spells in her head, both alchemical and arcane. She constructed and studied escape routes from Fillydelphia, she contemplated what she would do once she got to the ley lines, and she even wrote new spells in her head, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to try them out anytime soon. The moon slowly made its arc through the sky as she trekked across the dark hills. As she crested one hill, she could see across the others, and when she descended, everything became dark again.
Finally, the hours slowly wounded down, and with her darkvision, she could see the glowing of Fillydelphia off in the distance. She picked up her pace in excitement, somewhat forgetting that she was so tired. She clicked off her darkvision spell as the light from the sun slowly started to brighten the landscape around her, and she started up a small trot. She was probably forty-five minutes away from Fillydelphia. She was so close, and then she wouldn’t be far from the Zebrican border.
The sun was just peaking over the horizon when Twilight finally walked into the streets of Fillydelphia. She still had half a mind to go and get herself a hotel room and sleep forever. But she was sure that guards everywhere would know her face. She needed to lay low, get some supplies, and leave. First on her list was some more scrolls, and some ink. She was only able to get two scrolls back in Ponyville, and the vial of ink she got wouldn’t last with as much writing that she planned on doing.
Twilight knew Fillydelphia well enough. She’d been here several times for various different reasons. Once she was in the city proper, she went straight for the quill and scroll shop. It took her about ten minutes to get there, and to her chagrin, the store was closed until about nine. It was probably about seven at this point. Twilight cursed under her breath, wondering what she was going to do. She considered teleporting inside and just leaving the money for what she took, but she was sure that most buildings here in Fillydelphia had alarms for magic tampering, including teleportation detection. Breaking and entering and borderline thievery wasn’t necessarily something she would normally ever consider, but she was a desperate pony.
She eventually decided against it and went down the street to a general store that was open at all hours. She walked in, and the pony at the counter looked like she was about to pass out. She didn’t say anything as Twilight walked into the store and down the aisles. She grabbed the quills, scrolls, and ink she needed. She also grabbed some potions, just in case. None of this stuff was of the quality she usually preferred, since this was just a general store, but it would do. She also bought something cold to drink, because the staying up all night and walking was starting to catch up with her. The mare behind the counter hardly even comprehended what was going on as she rang up Twilight’s stuff.
Twilight walked out of the store with all her new supplies tucked into her now very tightly packed saddlebags, and took a swig from the soda she bought. She was still pretty far west in the city, so she would have to travel the whole length pretty much to get to the side she needed. It would be unsafe to go that whole way now, especially with so few ponies out so she’d be easy to spot. But, walking around the whole city would take longer, and time was still the most important thing right now.
The city of Fillydelphia wasn’t quite like Manehattan in size. It didn’t have an obscene amount of skyscrapers, and it wasn’t super busy at all times of the day. Most of the city was just sprawling commercial districts with lots of restaurants, shops, and things like that. It was honestly a very homey feeling, even to a pony like Twilight who was coming from a tiny town like Ponyville. She walked for forty or fifty minutes, and the number of ponies she was meeting on the street was slowly growing. She saw pony-driven carts taking others to different places, she was seeing lots of business ponies on their way to work, and she saw lots of foals playing around in the streets.
Luckily, she wasn’t seeing any Royal Guard or police ponies. She kept glancing up into the sky, checking for any flying guards, but saw none. Twilight was beginning to wonder if she was even being looked for at all. She was almost to the edge of town, when Twilight felt something weird flow through her body. She instinctually did a magical scan of herself, and at the same time went to teleport. Both of these things told her that what she felt was a teleportation block being cast on her. She could dispel it, but it would take either forcing the pony who cast it to go away, or about five minutes. She didn’t have five minutes.
A few seconds after the teleportation block, Twilight found herself surrounded by ponies in gold armor, many of them unicorns. They all teleported in around her, and had their horns ready, spells glowing at the tips.
“Alright, Miss Sparkle. Just to come with us quietly, and we won’t have to hurt you,” one of the guards said, taking a step forward. He was a large unicorn, and Twilight could feel the magical power he contained flowing from his horn. This was probably the head unicorn of the Royal Mage unit. Luckily for Twilight, he still couldn’t beat her in a one on one fight if it came to that. Luckily for him, there were about fifteen mages standing around her.
Twilight didn’t say anything. She thought she had thought of everything on her way here, but getting teleportation blocked was not something she thought in the repertoire of the Royal Guard. She was going to have to fight if she wanted to get out of this situation. She could use alchemy, but she wasn’t going to. Killing some of the guard is something she wanted to avoid if at all possible, and alchemy is not as… soft, as arcane magic can be.
Twilight formulated her plan quickly, doing a quick take around to making sure she had all her bases covered. She looked at the head guard and sighed, lowering her head. She could see him smile and he dissipated his spell, as did the others. “Good girl, now don’t you try anything—“
Before he finished his sentence, Twilight let loose a shockwave of energy.
All of the guards were caught off guard and flew backwards. Twilight made a break for it, running through the guards and towards the edge of the city. They quickly recovered and retaliated by flinging magic bolts in her direction. She raised a barrier behind her that should be able to block most of the spells these ponies could throw at her. With the edge of the city in sight, Twilight rushed towards it as fast as she could, but she quickly found herself face down in concrete and her side exploded in pain.
One of the pegasi fliers had tackled her and was standing over her, “You’re not going anywhere, Sparkle! Celestia warned us how dangerous you could be! We will use deadly force if we have to!”
“C-Celestia gave you permission to use deadly force?”
“Not specifically, but she said by any means necessary. If you die by some accident, we won’t be penalized.” Twilight’s brain was thinking at a thousand thoughts a minute. She needed to be away from these ponies. The mages were already caught back up and surrounding them.
“If I’m so dangerous, why are you standing on TOP of me?” With the word top, she used the same spell she just did and flung the pegasus off of her. In a quick movement, she stood up, fired off three shots of magic at the leader and the two ponies to his right, and ran again. The shots hit their mark, and the ponies were temporarily paralyzed for several minutes. The exact same spell missed her by inches, and several others flew passed her. She quickly turned around and erected another barrier. She looked up and saw several pegasi hovering, waiting for the right moment to strike. If she paralyzed them, they might die if they impacted the ground wrong. She needed to disable their ability to fly, though.
They threw spells at her shield, and they fizzled out as they hit it. Twilight knew they were throwing paralyzation spells, like she had been. Her barrier weakened the more hits it took, and she was still not out of the city. She raised a second barrier behind her other, and dropped the other. Instead of dissipating, the shots were redirected back towards their owners. Many of them were able to duck in time, but a few of the unicorns were hit directly and fell motionless to the ground. She then dropped the barrier and made a break for a side street.
A pegasus was flying straight at her from behind. Instead of a spell, Twilight stopped a second before the guard reached her, and reared her legs back and bucked her right in the chest. The pegasus screamed out and fell to the ground, probably with a broken rib or two. Twilight’s legs ached, but she kept running.
As she was about to turn back towards the outside of town, a unicorn appeared in front of her. It was the leader, and he looked pissed. So pissed, in fact, that the spell he was preparing in his horn felt liked a spell that would actually Kill Twilight if she let it hit her.
Twilight acted quickly and lowered her head, charging straight at him. He wasn’t expecting that, and Twilight’s horn connected with his throat, right where his jaw met his neck. His eyes went wide and he coughed, the spell on his horn sputtering just as his air now was. Twilight pulled her horn from him and went to run. But, as her face met his, she felt a pang of guilt. He was going to kill her just then, but she still felt bad. She couldn’t stop though. One of the pegasi saw this and went to tell the others.
The head guard had gotten through her paralysis spell quicker than she’d hoped, and the others were starting to recover from their weaker versions of the spell. Twilight finally managed to reach the end of the city, but instead of one, this time she found herself confronted with nine unicorns. They all had the same spell that the head guard was going to use charged in their horns, and it was pointed right at her. She froze.
One of them stepped forward, “Twilight Sparkle. Leave now, or we will be forced to stop you by any means possible.”
“I-I… I can’t…” she said, tears forming in her eyes. She couldn’t go back; she couldn’t face what she left behind.
“Then I’m afraid that this is the end of the line for you.” All of the unicorns reared their heads back, and Twilight panicked. The head guard wasn’t dead yet, so the spell hadn’t gone away yet. He was fighting to keep it going, even as he lay dying, probably being tended to by a pegasus guard. Twilight reared back, and her hooves glowed white with magical energy. As they contacted the ground, the whiteness spread out as fast as light, and suddenly the nine guards were no more. The area in front of Twilight erupted in a massive explosion, disintegrating the guards in front of her, and blowing any pegasi out of the air. She stood her ground in the force of the explosion, and started running as soon as it was over. The pegasi got up, but did not dare follow her without magical backup.
About half a mile from Fillydelphia, Twilight felt the block on her teleportation cease. She immediately started to teleport towards the Zebrican boarder, not caring if they followed her. She had used a lot of energy not getting captured, and she was burning even more now teleporting out instead of running. There was probably thirty miles from Fillydelphia to the edge of the boarder. Twilight was traveling a mile at a time with each teleport, so within five minutes she found herself standing at the edge of a forest. It didn’t start out thick, but the further she went in, the thicker the vegetation got. She was now in the homeland of the Zebras, and she had just killed ten unicorns, one with her own horn. If she wasn’t sure they were looking for her before, now she was one-hundred percent certain of it. She didn’t teleport for fear of winding up in the middle of a tree, so she just ran as fast as she could.
Back in Fillydelphia, the body of the guard captain lay on a stretcher in a hospital nearby. He wasn’t quite dead yet, but he has long since lost consciousness. He was probably not going to make it. The guards that remained had already sent word to Celestia of Twilight’s escape, and of the death of the nine guard ponies. It would take half a day of straight flying to reach her. Twilight had at least a full day to find a spot in the forest to lie low and rest. But for now, she just ran.
One hour of running later, and she had no energy to go anywhere. Twilight laid against a tree, her chest heaving to catch some air, and she was crying. She sobbed loudly, and beat her already sore hoof against the ground. She hadn’t wanted to kill any more ponies. These weren’t even accidents; she had actually killed them. It was self-defense, but was it really worth it? Were those ten lives really worth her own at this point? The urge to quit was building in her more than ever. She was becoming a horrible pony, and horrible ponies didn’t deserve to get away with bad things.
She was deep enough in the forest now that the guard wouldn’t be able to find her, or at least not easily. She dug herself a small hole at the base of the tree, lying down inside it and covering her head with her cloak’s hood. It was only about eight or eight-thirty in the morning, but Twilight couldn’t go any further. She picked this spot, because it was at this point that her legs gave out on her, causing her to faceplant very hard into the ground. Her body ached, her mind ached, and her soul ached. The best thing should could do for herself at this point would to be just sleep. Sleep wouldn’t bring dead ponies back to life, but it would at least make her feel better.
So, Twilight laid her head on her bedroll, not even caring to spread it out. As the world was waking up and coming back to life, Twilight was falling asleep.