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Chapter 1: Glasses1,857 words
Chapter 2: Counting2,180 words

Chapter 2: Counting

"Oooooooww!" Twilight groaned, eyes flicking open. There was a pain in her head and one wing felt twisted. Remembering instantly why she was laying on the floor of the Canterlot Archives again, she reached up a hoof and felt her face. The glasses must have fallen off. she thought. She sat up quickly and looked around, expecting to see the glasses sitting somewhere nearby, possibly shattered.

The only thing she saw, however, was the same purple earth pony. She was sitting under the window, staring at two cups of coffee and holding her head in her hooves. "Y-you're still here?" Twilight stood, leaping back and spreading her wings in case this pony was violent. However, her right wing was stabbed with pain and she realized it was bent. "Oooww." she groaned, attempting to stretch it out.

"Are you alright?" the purple pony asked, standing and stepping towards the alicorn. "You did seem to hit the floor hard."

"...Who...?" The moment the pony spoke, Twilight realized she was familiar. Had she seen this pony somewhere before? Then the pony turned and she could clearly see her cutie mark. She recognized the pony she had seen around Ponyville so much but had rarely talked to. "Aren't... you Berry Punch?"

The earth pony nodded, looking a little surprised. "So you do know me. I never thought you noticed me, you do mostly keep yourself to your friends." Berry trotted to her side and looked at her injured wing. "Looks sprained. You should see a doctor."

Twilight no longer cared about her wing. She tucked it at her side and continued to gaze curiously at Berry Punch. "What are you doing here? And... were you sitting on a cloud before?"

"I've been stuck here for two weeks." Berry told her. "And yes... I don't really make any sense anymore." To show her what she meant, Berry leaped into the air. She floated around for a bit, gliding about. when she passed Twilight, she didn't feel the resulting wind at all. Finally, she landed on the cloud.

"But... how... h-how did you do that?" Twilight trotted over so she was right in front of the cloud and looked up at the strange pony. "Earth ponies can't fly or sit on clouds..."

"No, they can't." Berry sighed and looked down at the floor. "I don't know why I can. I haven't been the same ever since that one day, with my friends..."

Raindrops giggled and hiccuped, passing the bottle of alcohol to Berry. "So we're at *hic* two bottles, now?"

"Lightweight." Berry said, though she looked much more tipsy than her friend. "It's not like you drank mucha it. Colgate *hic* and I dranked most of it."

"Um... we should get home." Colgate suggested, sounding more sober than the pegasus and earth pony by her sides. There were loud protests from Berry and Raindrops.

"Naaaaaw, Cooly!" Berry waved her hooves, almost spilling the alcohol she was holding. "We promised we would be here all *hic* night!"

Raindrops waved one hoof around, indicating the area in which they sat. They were right under the window, sitting in a large room of the Canterlot Archives. "Nopony's gonna be here *hic* until morning, buddy! You gonna *hic* waste this oopur- oopurtu- chance?"

"Berry has a kid and you have a roommate, Raindrops. We can't spend all our trip to Canterlot in some dusty old archives drinking." Colgate told the yellow pegasus seriously.

"Derpy can take care of *hic* herself!" Raindrops said, nudging the blue unicorn. "She's a full *hic* grown mare!"

"I shouldn't go home to Pinchy drunk." Berry said, suddenly looking sad. "She h-hates it."

"Well then, we'll get you two sobered and get you back home." Colgate took the bottle in her magic and trotted away. "I'm going to be back with some water. Stay. Where. you. Are."

Raindrops and Berry Punch waited until they were sure Colgate was gone, then the pegasus pulled out another bottle she had been hiding."Gimmie, I wanna try somethin'." Berry grabbed the bottle from her friend's hooves and pulled out another bottle of unknown liquid, probably more alcohol. She pulled the top off of both bottles and poured them both together, mixing them up.

"Cool." Raindrops grinned stupidly. "T-that's gotta be strong *hic* stuff."

"The strongest." Berry finished shaking up the mixture. when she took her hoof from it, it fizzed with a loud 'sssssstt'. Without a second thought, she downed the entire thing.

"... and that's all I can remember." Berry Punch's eyes were swimming with tears, but when they fell from her face they simply disappeared. "I heard some screaming, and when I woke up everyone was gone and I couldn't leave this room."

"I...I don't..." Twilight was so confused. Berry was out drinking one night and was somehow cursed the next? What was going on? The only thing she could think of was that Berry had died and become a ghost, like a horror movie Rainbow had made her watch a week ago... no, ghosts weren't real. She was sure Berry was trapped by some sort of magic, possibly in the drink she made. Maybe even some dark magic was in one of the bottles she mixed. She was silent for a moment, before looking back to Berry. "Don't worry, Berry, I'll find a way to get you out of this."

"If there is a way." Berry added. "But either way... thank you. I just want to see my little one again and make sure she's alright and happy."

Twilight was about to respond, when she was suddenly knocked over by a powerful force. "Twi, you're okay!" The alicorn, groaning with pain, looked to see who had knocked her to the ground. It was Rainbow Dash, and at her side was two pegasus nurses. "You looked really hurt so I went to get some help." the cyan mare explained, motioning to the nurses.

A light pink nurse landed next to Twilight. "My name is Joy Heart, I'm a royal nurse. My friend and I are to take you to the royal doctor."

"I-I... Rainbow, I'm not that hurt!" Twilight protested. However, her wince when the two nurses lifted her onto their backs proved different. "but, do-"

Before Twilight could ask anything about Berry Punch, she was flown out the window, which seemed to be the new doorway as of late. Berry Punch just watched them go, then sighed and laid her head on her hooves again, tears falling from her face and vanishing before they hit the cloud.

Twilight sat in a bedroom in Canterlot Castle. Her wing was bandaged up and she was told not to use it for the next few days. She was a unicorn for most of her life, it's not like she needed wings. However, she still was told to remain inside or near the castle until it was healed.

Great. she thought, and if she had said it out loud it would have been a mutter. I can't get those pages in the Canterlot Archives, I can't go home, and I haven't had the chance to talk with anypony about Berry Punch! She rolled over and looked out the beautiful window. The sun shone in, lighting up the room brightly. It would have been Twilight's official bedroom if she had decided to live in Canterlot. The rug had a large, six-pointed magenta star on it with smaller white stars dancing around it. The walls were painted purple and pink, though it was hard to tell because of all the empty bookshelves covering it. They would have no doubt been filled with books if Twilight spent more time here.

Twilight looked over at the door. It was ajar and every once in awhile she would see a guard pass by, covered in armor. She rarely saw anypony else, but when it wasn't a normal guard it was one of the bat pegasi that worked for Luna. Nopony else was really allowed up this far, unless accompanied by a guard.

And that's when she saw a yellow mare trot by, looking gloomy. "Hello?" Twilight called. She used her magic to open the door and got up from her bed. A trespasser was at least somepony to talk to, and if she read books it would just fuel her desire to find those missing pages.

The yellow mare looked back at Twilight. She was a bright yellow unicorn with messy blue hair with lighter blue streaks. Her cutie mark was three blue diamonds, and her eyes shone as bright as jewels. When she saw Twilight looking at her, she looked behind her, as if searching to see who the princess was addressing.

"Miss, do you have permission to be up here?" Twilight asked, trotting out the door and into the hallway. "The fifth floor is off-limits for un-escorted civilians."

The yellow unicorn continued to look around the abandoned hallway. When she saw nopony except herself and Twilight, she gave the alicorn a curious look before turning and trotting away. "Hey, wait!" Twilight chased after her, blocking her way. "I'm afraid you'll have to go downstairs and tell-"

"Stop talking to yourself, Princess." the yellow unicorn told her calmly. She continued on her way down the deserted corridor.

Twilight, confused by this statement, walked by her side. "What do you mean, talking to myself?" she asked.

"It's not like I'm real." the yellow mare told her. "If I was, other ponies would notice me. I've been wondering this castle for seventy years, and I find it unlikely that you're the only one with good eyesight here." She looked Twilight in the face. "But... you seem to have built-in glasses. I didn't see those the last eighty-one times I've seen you."

"Seventy? Eighty-one? Built-in glasses?" Twilight was so confused she imagined her eyes crossing. "What are you talking about?"

"My name's Lemony Gem." the unicorn said. She looked like she was going to stick out her leg for a hoofshake, but thought better of it. She pointed instead to a door behind them. "That's the fifty-sixth doorway on this floor. That staircase over there," she pointed to a spiral staircase not far away, "Has exactly sixty-six steps. I've seen that Shining Armor five hundred times, sixty since he's been married. I've seen you eighty thousand times, eighty-one since you've been given wings. There are thirty-five white guards in the day, forty-eight gray guards in the day. There are forty-eight white guards in the night, and thirty-five gray guards in the night. There are only twenty-nine bat pegasi guards, and the other fifty bat pegasi work as servants around the castle. Do you want me to go on?"

"But... Miss Gem, how do you remember things like that? How did you count it all, and how did you have the time to?" Twilight asked, mouth wide open.

Lemony Gem sighed. "Counting is all I can do now." She turned away from the purple alicorn and made her way towards the spiral staircase. She looked back over her shoulder. "You might want to look in the mirror, by the way. I'll see you again, Twilight Sparkle." and with that, she went up the stairs, counting down. "Sixty-six, sixty-five, sixty-four, sixty-three..."

Twilight just stared after Lemony before returning to her room, completely dumbfounded. She ignored the guards she ran into on her way and stopped by the library to grab a few books. she made sure they were fiction, so she wouldn't be tempted to sneak away to the Canterlot Archives to look for those spells until she was healed.

"Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine..." Lemony paused, stopping on the staircase. She looked down at the bottom, where Twilight had sat just a few moments ago, purple wings spread. Wings that she wasn't born with, but had earned. She looked at her own wingless back and bit her lip. "That... could have been me. That should have been me. What a curse." Lemony whispered.

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