*This chapter is tagged for a re-write
Princess Twilight Sparkle was sitting in the study of her castle in Ponyville in the dead of night. But unfortunately for Twilight, her castle was rather large and disconcerting compared to what she was used to, especially when she was alone. Twilight had always been the excessively modest type, and so a castle like her new home sticking out like a sore thumb in the small, modest town of Ponyville made her feel uncomfortable. A lack of furnishings and company meant that every slight movement she made echoed around the room, which she found both irritating and intimidating.
Spike had gone away earlier that day and said he wouldn't be back until tomorrow, and he would not say where it was he was going. Twilight intended to stay up late as usual to perform her studies. A rather large range of distracting thoughts were racing across Twilight's mind, as she hurriedly crammed copious amounts of information contained within the various textbooks provided to her by none other than Celestia herself into her adequately capable cranium. She thought of her friends, and what they made of her recent ascension into princess-hood. She worried for the future of Equestria: Since Tirek came so close to assuming complete control over the lands, who was to say there was not some other, possibly even stronger villain waiting for the opportune moment to strike?
As these thoughts slowly consumed her actively buzzing mind, she constantly stressed herself with her obsessive compulsive need to soak up all of this information concerning her magical studies within a certain tight time frame. Despite the fact she should know such habits are unhealthy, such is the nature of her disorder that this fact remains alien to her, as she believes that in order to avoid disappointing the biggest role model of her life, princess Celestia, she must continue to complete these tasks at a consistent rate.
Twilight's mind was plenty occupied already when, much to her irritation, a loud and Discordant knocking was audible emanating from the grand, golden doors of her castle.
With a frustrated grunt, Twilight made her way over to the source of the knocking and hesitated slightly, taking a second to sift through her mind in search of any hint as to who could possibly be visiting her at a time like this. When she came up with nothing, still rather unsure as to whether this was a smart idea or not, she slowly opened the large doors and prepared to greet her visitor.
She was still unsure as to what she should expect, however she definitely was not expecting to be greeting the Lord of Chaos himself, who now stood before her with his usual confident grin. He was holding a checklist of an exceedingly long nature along with a feathered quill, clearly in mockery of Twilight's habit of making checklists for almost everything she did on a regular day-to-day basis. His grin slowly widened as he hid the contents of the list from her and ticked one of its boxes with a deft swipe of his paw whilst cheerfully remarking in a voice clearly meant to mimic Twilight's,
"Surprise our beloved princess of friendship with an obviously pleasant, and completely innocent visit in the middle of the night? Check!"