blind twilight 01

[byonicluna]

Fandom: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Characters: Princess Luna, Twilight Sparkle
Warnings:
Notes: Still being edited, not final version. Criticism welcome.
Genre: Slice of Life/General. Drama.
Summary: An untrained unicorn filly channeling vast amounts of magic is a dangerous thing. Thankfully no one got hurt.

Oh, wait.






Twilight glared hard at the purple mottled egg in front of her, but nothing happened.

She waved her forelegs at it, frantic and commanding, but nothing happened.

She closed her eyes and crunched up her face, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she concentrated and wished and strained her horn, the egg wouldn't even budge, much less hatch, like it had to for her to pass the test.

She heard a cough coming from the back of the room, and when she turned to look there, she saw the proctors scribbling notes, looking bored out of their minds and not a little disappointed, like they'd rather be anywhere but in that classroom with Twilight. One of them looked at his watch impatiently. "We don't have all day," another one reminded her.

A chill went down her back when she realized how quickly her allotted time was running out and she still hadn't the faintest idea of how to hatch the egg.

Her insides sank down to her bottom, cold like ice. She was wasting their time.

She really shouldn't have come here in the first place. She wasting not only the proctors' time, the other aspiring students times, her parents time and her parents money that they'd paid for the entrance fee.

She was a disappointment, that's what she was. What had she been thinking, that she could be great like the Princess? Do magic powerful enough to raise the Sun like Celestia? That was so stupid. She was stupid. She should just apologize and go home and never show her face around these parts again, never go out again, hide beneath her bed and--

No.

Her eyes had filled up with tears but she fiercely blinked them back in.

She had to pass this test. She had studied so hard, staying up past her bedtime night after night, week after week, just for this moment. She had read all the books in her house related to magic and then had begged parents for more. She had worked so hard -- she couldn't give up now!

She still remembered the Princess on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, glorious and beautiful and eternal, a being from outside of this world and time itself, framed from behind by the Sun's light as she rose to the sky and the Sun with her, and at that moment, Twilight's heart and soul had soared with them too. Her dreams and aspirations had concentrated into a tiny pinprick of light, gathering more and more force until they ignited into a little sun all of her own; burning higher and brighter than anything she had ever known before, more intense and important than she could even understand. From that moment on, she had been unable to think of anything she wanted more in her life than to learn magic.

Her heart brought to life by her memories, she realized that failing this exam simply wasn't an option. She had to pass. And in order to do that, she had to hatch this egg.

She couldn't fail.

The egg sat in its makeshift nest on its trolley, just resting there innocently. Twilight could swear it mocked her.

She couldn't fail.

She would crack that shell open and bring out the dragon it contained, and she would pass the exam and nothing would stop her. Nothing!

She couldn't fail and her world erupted into painful light and colors like a rainbow.





It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt IT HURT SO MUCH why wouldn't it stop?!

She was in danger, she could feel it but why was the room so small she had to get out get it out.

Her skin felt too tight for her, she was enormous, larger than her house even, how could she even fit in this room.

It itched beneath her skin and her insides vibrated. She knew she would explode, she wanted to cry but her head pounded and there were no tears.

Everything swirled and shifted around her, bright magenta light and it was so beautiful but it hurt her eyes.

It hurt like it hurted to look straight at the Sun. Her mom had warned her never to look directly at the Sun because it damaged her eyes but her eyes hurt so much already, like they were boiling.

She tried to close her eyes, but the Sun was behind her and she wasn't looking at it except that she was. Its gentle soft rays soothed her tenderly, and asked her to please calm down, everything was all right.

No, nothing was all right nothing was all right and--

You can stop now, it told her.

I can stop now?

Yes, I am here, it said. I will catch you.

Promise?

I promise.

She stopped.





Everything was dark and peaceful, as much as a void could be peaceful.

It was calm and quiet, except for a soft beating noise around her, which felt more like pressure than a real sound.

As soon as she became aware of the beating, she realized it came from her heart and from inside her ears. It pulsed and beat all around her head. It was uncomfortable.

She felt the rest of her body again, heavy with the lethargy of sleep and sore like it had never been before, so she decided she could sleep some more -- it wasn't even morning yet.





When Twilight woke again, she thought she heard a noise somewhere beside her, like someone trying to move silently in order to not catch her attention.

It was still too dark, darker even then it got inside her bedroom at the quietest part of night. Even when everypony finally went to sleep outside, there were the lights from the street coming in through her window, and shining even through her curtains when she bothered to close them.It was peaceful to look at the lights when she woke up in the middle of the night; not scared from a nightmare, but too tired to get up and do anything else. The muffled lights always soothed her, but never as effectively as the stars did. That was why she preferred to sleep with her curtains drawn open, to see the stars, even if they were regretably obscured a bit by the city's lights.

She'd read about light pollution -- it was a problem in larger cities, obscuring the view of the night sky, but her book said that the stars were perfectly visible from more rural areas. She wanted to go outside the city and see that for herself, someday.

It wasn't just the darkness and the possible pony skulking around what mde her felt out of place in her bedroom, though. When she breathed in, she could smell something like disinfectant, which was a common smell in the bathroom and sometimes in the kitchen, but not in anyone's bedroom.

Confused, and starting to get a little bit frightened, she remained still beneath the sheets despite wanting to shift to get more comfortable (these sheets were a little rougher than her bedsheets, now that she thought about it -- and decided to address the mysterious pony in her maybe not-bedroom.

"Hello?" Her voice came out weak and raspy, like she'd talked for hours and hours.

She swallowed to try again, but before she could say anything else, the mysterious pony scrambled to get to her and yelled, "Mom, Dad, she's awake!"

That was Shining Armor's voice!

Hooves clopping against floor tiles resounded from the hallway and then in the room and Twilight was enveloped by warmth and love alike, confused, but happy to have her parents and brother with her in this odd situation.

"Oh, sweetheart! I thought--"

"You're awake! You--"

"Twily, you had us so worried! Don't do that again, I--"

Their words stumbled all over each other in their hurry to reach her, and she smelled her Dad and brother's sweat and her Mom's perfume.

The hugs became tighter still and a preposterous amount of kisses was peppered all over her face.

A part of her that had felt a little cold until now vanished into thin air, leaving her feeling content and clean, like after a bath.

But as glad as she was to not be alone right now...

"Mom, Dad, Shiny, I'm fine! Really! What happened at the exam? And why is it so dark? Did the lights go out?"

The hooves, legs, muzzles and bodies around her stopped moving abruptly. No one breathed for a few long seconds except for her.





She tried to place each pony's movements by the clops on the floor and the sounds of their voices, but she couldn't tell much beyond the fact that at least some of them were still inside the room with her.

Other ponies did come and go from the room, but she could hardly keep track of each of them with all the chaos and movement.

The yelling certainly didn't help.

Her Dad yelled, her Brother yelled, and the Doctor they were yelling at tried not to lose his calm and yell too.

Meanwhile, her Mom sat on the bed next to her, holding her tightly, as if she were afraid that Twilight would disappear if she let her go for just one moment.

Each of her light sobs shook Twilight, with her pressed against her side like that. The warmth comforted her, but the legs wrapped around her were gripping her too much and were she not so tired she would have tried to wiggle free or ask her Mom to let her go to stop feeling so constricted.

As it was, she sat somewhere in-between exhaustion and confusion. She wanted to know what was going on...

"What do you mean there is no cure? You are supposed to--"

...but words like "we are not sure" and "magical backlash" and "eyesight" and "the specialist is on his way" and "I'm so sorry" had been flung around far too often for her taste, and for once in her young life she thought that, maybe just this one time, it might not be so bad if she didn't know absolutely everything there was to be known.





Some time later -- maybe an hour, Twilight couldn't really tell-- Shining Armor left with promises to come back soon, and her parents were called away by somepony for some reason Twilight couldn't quite catch and they closed the door behind them, leaving her alone in what she now knew was a hospital room.

Time passed by, but without a clock Twilight couldn't tell how much. Maybe half an hour? Ten minutes? An hour? Five minutes? Her sense of time was utterly wrecked.

Twilight laid on her bed thinking about nothing in particular, her mind fuzzy and overwhelmed and her body both tired and restless at once, itching to move and do something, when somepony knocked.

A door opened and Twilight sat up, wondering if her parents were back.

Instead, she heard the most beautiful voice that ever existed ask, "May I come in?"





Twilight was beside herself with joy -- Princess Celestia had come to visit her! Her!

The Princess's words were soft and soothing and she sounded genuinely happy to be talking to Twilight of all ponies.

She was so patient, so kind, so wonderful, and she asked Twilight how she was feeling and what kinds of things she liked.

Twilight tried not to make a foal of herself, but the words gushed out of her mouth as they pleased, without her permission, but the Princess didn't seem to mind in the least.

The Princess told her she enjoyed reading books too, and that gazing at the stars at night was something she tried to always make room for in her schedule.

Her favorite foods were desserts, she confided in a whisper, and Twilight felt special for sharing in a secret with her.

Twilight clung to every word the Princess spoke, committing them to memory, still not believing that this was really happening...

But something she hadn't dared to voice or think about too deeply kept grinding at her, distracting her from fully enjoying the moment.

"...It was my magic what blinded me, wasn't it?" she asked during a lull in the conversation.

The Princess was silent for a moment and Twilight regretted asking.

She was going to apologize profusely when the Princess replied in a solemn voice, "Magic has as much potential for harm as it has for creation. When out of control, it does unpredictable things." Then, as if she were struggling to find the right words, she continued, "I feel responsible for the events that transpired during your test two days ago. Had I foreseen your magic going out of control, I would have supervised the test myself."

That had been two days ago? Huh. "But there's no way you could have known that, Princess. I don't even know what happened!" she shrank back when the last sentence came out sounding demanding. She wanted answers, but this was the Princess, the ruler of Equestria!

Another bit of silence passed, and then the Princess mustn't have taken too much offense, because she then said, "You have more power than I have ever seen in a Unicorn, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight was taken aback by that.

"I wish I had the answers you seek, but not even I am sure what happened. Your magic flared -- I could feel it all the way down on the street --, and when I got to the classroom where the test was taking place I found you flinging spells all over the place, turning your parents into potted plants--"

Twilight's eyebrows rose.

"--levitating the supervisors, hatching the dragon egg and then making the baby dragon grow uncontrollably until it broke through the ceiling... And you, in the middle of it all, trapped in a field of your own magic. I managed to calm you down and out of that state, but I fear I was too late. You fell unconscious, and while your active spells were reversed of their own accord as soon as you stopped sustaining them, we couldn't wake you up."

Twilight didn't know what to say. Had she really done all that? Wow... She was torn between incredulity (but it had to be true, the Princess would never lie -- she was the Princess!), fear (...what else was she capable of?) and amazement (turning a book's pages with simple levitation had nothing on multiple simultaneous transfigurations, holy molly!).

The Princess continued, in a gentler and less dreary tone, "I've had specialists in neurology and spell damage come over, as well as an ophthalmologist. If everything goes well, you won't have to stay here more than a day or two for supervised rest."

Twilight knew the Princess was trying to console her, and apparently this wasn't something she could answer her, but she couldn't shake off the need to ask -- not to the Princess specifically, but since she seemed to be in an answering mood...

"Do you-" her voice broke and she tried again before she lost her courage, "Do you think I'll be able to see again?"

The Princess remained silent for a few moments, and then spoke in a more obviously pacifying tone, "I don't wish to give you false hopes, Twilight Sparkle--"

Twilight felt her shoulders droop with her spirits.

"--but I don't want to kill the ones you already have either. I'm not a doctor," she stated. "I'm afraid you will have to wait for the specialists to look at you and give you their prognoses.

"But no matter what happens, I will do my very best to help you," she abruptly promised in the most serious tone of voice Twilight had heard out of her so far.

"...Huh?"

"You passed the test, Twilight Sparkle." Twilight could hear a smile in the mare's beautiful voice. She hadn't realized before that smiles could be heard.

"You hatched the dragon egg, and a place in my School for Gifted Unicorns is now yours. You have earned it." She paused, as if she debating whether to say the rest. "A place as my personal protegé is yours as well, if you wish it. You have impressed me greatly, and, I don't mean to brag, but I can teach you control and precision beyond what any of the School's teachers know."

Twilight was speechless.

Princess Celestia went on, "Special arrangements would have to be made, of course, but rest assured that there's no hurry. Your entry to the school can be postponed until the next period starts, or even the one after that, or you can choose not to attend altogether, if that's what you'd prefer. The same goes for our private lessons. These choices are yours, my little pony, and I'm not taking them away from you."

Twilight couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Despite everything, she had made it in. She had passed. And the Princess wanted to teach her herself! Was she dreaming?!

"So... What do you say?" she finally prompted when Twilight didn't say anything for a while.

Unthinkingly -- and later she would be so embarrassed by her forwardness -- she lunged in the direction of the Princess and hugged her with all her might.

"Yes! Yes yes yes! Your protegé?! Oh, thank you, thank you so much! I won't disappoint you, I promise! I will study so much and work very very hard! I will work hard at school too and I'll learn everything I can and thank you thank you THANK YOU!"

She felt the Princess's warm body shake as she chuckled.

Twilight felt something soft but firm press against her back, and she sent her mind fumbling to match the feeling of it with the objects she knew.

She felt quite foalish when she belatedly realized it was a wing.

The Princess let it rest against her back for a moment, and then withdrew it to lean back and away. Twilight let her go with a little disappointment, but sat up attentively, tilting her head back even though it didn't make much of a difference now.

"I know you will work hard. I've heard that you are top of your class."

She had? She pictured the Princess talking to her teachers at school. Oh, goodness. What else had they told her?!

"But don't worry about it for now. You need to rest." And then her voice turned a little playful, "After all, there is a certain baby dragon you have yet to meet, isn't there?"

Twilight's mouth hung open.

A dragon. The egg hadn't been just a test -- she had brought a dragon to this world.

The Princess then started walking away from her bed.

"I have to depart now, Twilight Sparkle. I wish it had been under happier circumstances, but I'm truly pleased to have met you. I will visit you later this week to see you again, if that is all right with you?"

Twilight responded automatically, "Yes, of course."

She heard the receding clops and then the door closed softly with a click.

Twilight Sparkle laid back down, her pillow soft and inviting against her head, and her mind began whirring with the possibilities and excitement.

She didn't notice when she fell asleep.





The next day, Twilight was looked at by various doctors, but each inspection and test they ran on her came back with the same conclusion: Her eyesight was gone and it was permanent.

One of the doctors told her, with a small vocabulary that frankly rubbed Twilight the wrong way, that the damage had extended from her eyes, through the optical nerves and to the part of her mind that processed those electric signals, but that it was hard to tell just where exactly it had originated.

Hours after that, a specialist in magical damage seemed astonished when he examined her.

He didn't seem to believe that Twilight had done the damage to herself -- the damage was too fine for an out of control magical burst, and Twilight couldn't possibly have enough precise knowledge of the nervous system to not have damaged other parts of her brain --, but agreed with the medical doctors that the damage was permanent.

When Twilight asked him why he was so certain, desperate to poke at his logic and find a hole, he gave her a very interesting answer that served well to distract her from her own anguish at the verdict.

"Destruction is far easier than healing and creation; you could smash a vase to pieces in seconds, but then it would take you hours or even days to put it back together the way it was, but the fine cracks would remain there, for anypony to see if they look closely enough.

"If you decided to forgo hoof labor and instantly restored the vase to the way it was with magic, the memory of the shattering would remain within the vase, as any pony mage worth their salt would be able to notice.

"The past simply cannot be undone.

"The body of a pony is far more delicate than a vase, so there is only so much magic and medicine can do when restoring it back from damage and illness. It is the body's own metabolism which does the healing, after all -- magic only enhances and accelerates the natural process."

He then started grousing about the lack of appreciation for real academics and how he should have been given that grant all those years ago to fully delve into the topic of imprinted memories on inorganic structures after indirect magic exposure, but, nooo, Jade Inkwell from the Art Department had to have that new Modern Art exhibition in Manehattan and had more conexions than anypony had a right to, never mind all the important research that had to be done that year, and from there he went on to expound on the deplorable state of politics in higher education.

Twilight was absolutely fascinated and listened with all her attention to one of her new favorite ponies.

All too soon, the specialist had to leave Twilight to attend to other business, but not before she agreed to look him up should she delve deeper into her magical studies -- which she fully intended to do.

With a sinking feeling of dread, Twilight realized that, had he not given her his name (Quick Mind), she would only ever have his voice to go by if she ever wanted to find him.

Despite her best efforts, the dam holding back the full reality of the situation finally burst.

Her blindness had so far been nothing more than a particularly frustrating annoyance, but now that she realized how much it would limit her in the future, a flood of thoughts containing all the things she could no longer do assaulted her mind.

She could no longer see how new ponies looked like -- hay, she could no longer even see the ponies she knew already!

She would have to tell everypony apart by nothing but their voice, or maybe their size if she hugged them. She couldn't go around hugging everypony, though, that would be weird.

...She could no longer read. (She quickly shied away from that horror before it could consume her.)

She had no idea how she was going to walk around.

Her hospital bed gained a new dimension of dread: it now seemed like a prison that kept her trapped, but safe from the even worse Unknown Abyss beyond its edges.

Rebelling against the idea of being so helpless, she moved over to the edge of the bed, and, carefully, slowly, got off it. She kept lowering her back legs until her hooves connected with the floor with a soft clop. First one leg, then the other. She then lowered the rest of her body to stand on all four hooves.

Now that she was standing next to the bed, she wasn't sure what to do. She was still a little tired despite sleeping well the previous night, but her nerves gave her a boost of energy.

Taking her resolve and working it like iron into steel, she slowly walked in the direction she remembered the door being, all the while afraid she would unexpectedly crash into a wall.

Her steps were short and tentative, with deliberate pauses in-between.

Forget sudden walls; what if she ran out of floor and she couldn't stop herself in time and she fell down down down...

She shook her head to free herself of that silly illogical thought and kept going.

From one moment to the other, she noticed she could hear her breath more loudly than before, and when she reached forwards with a foreleg her hoof softly hit something, which she guessed was the door, given the kind of hollow sound.

She lowered her head to the floor but heard nothing. The hallway outside the door was deserted.

Feeling adventurous, she raised back up and searched with her hooves for the door handle. She found it and pulled it down. The unlatching noise made her jump back a little, now second-guessing her actions.

She debated going back to her bed and waiting for her family to visit her again or maybe for a nurse or a doctor to look for her...

Or she could go now and see if she could still move around and function in this world.

The fear of being punished for breaking the rules battled it out with the fear of being forever helpless and bound to a bed.

She was a good filly, and good fillies didn't break the rules... But she had to know that she could still do things like before.

In the end the desire to move won, if only just.

Besides, she would just walk a little in the hallway to stretch her legs and feel her way around, and then she would go back right to her room. Nopony would ever notice she had been gone.

She swallowed back the guilt she felt at misbehaving -- nopony had specifically told her to stay in the room, so it didn't count, right? -- and opened the door, ready to brave the world beyond.