It had been a month since the Crystal Empire had been saved and Twilight was pacing alone in the darkness of her treehouse. She'd sent Spike off on a search that would keep him out for hours. Once clear she was alone, she made appear a book she'd found in the restricted section of the library back at the empire, having hid it from sight with a strong spell.
It was curiosity that had crept over her and caused her to… borrow it. She had every intention on returning it, and with the ponies cheering and beginning to live their lives once more, she doubted they'd come anywhere close to seeing it had gone missing.
Ever since that first trick, that first ebbing of dark magic through her horn, she was intrigued. What was it that made it so very bad? It was powerful and taboo, and that might have been what made her so inclined to know all she could. She wanted to learn all there was to magic, every spell. And that meant she had to know the dark magic as well, right?
She'd sensed it as the obviously logical thing that the princesses knew of the darkness magic, she simply guessed they never used it. It had been the first magic casting of the that spell to find the staircase that had injected the first instance of poison into her brain.
Twilight pulled the book out and used her hoof to click into the lock and open it. Once open, she lifted it up and began reading every word. As she began, the words seemed to lift off of the page and seep into her very soul. She finished the first chapter and pulled away to cast one of the spells she'd learned. It was a simple spell, a repeat of the one Celestia had showed her. It caused the area around her to darken and the jagged formations of rocks she'd seen before appeared.
In seeing her success, she cast another spell and the rocks were destroyed just as Celestia had shown her in Canterlot. "Ha-ha!" Twilight exclaimed and stomped her fore-hooves in glee. Over the course of the next few hours she went over spell after spell. Some of them were simple uses of dark magic to do things light magic could. However they all required her to think on the worst thoughts she ever could to channel the energy needed.
She let out a startled noise when Spike walked in empty-handed and exhausted. "S-spike! You're home… Oh look at the time." She looked up to the clock and her eyes went wide. Look at the time indeed. It had only seemed a short while, but 7 hours in fact had passed. She used her magic to keep the book hidden behind her as the tiny dragon kept trying to shift to see.
"Twilight… What's that?" He asked, stretching his neck up to try and look above the mare.
"Ooh nothing. Nothing. It's NOTHING! Why don't you go onto bed. You look tired." He gave her a sly questioning crook of his eyes and she only beamed from ear to ear.
"Alllriiight. If you sa-" Yawned and stretched up his arms whilst heading towards his bed. "Say so…"
The purple unicorn breathed out a heavy sigh of relief and dropped the book back in front of her once spike had headed up the stairs. "Finally…" Or not finally close enough. A sudden spark of confetti behind her made her jolt up and topple into a pile of book.
"Oh! Hi Twilight! You're excited! You should be excited, are you excited?!" Pinkie sped out her words as per usual, bouncing with each exclamation point that rang in her voice. "Because I'm excited! I'd say I'd never been so excited but there have been a lot of times where I've been excited but this is one of those times!"
"Pinkie. What is there to be excited for? Did my package I sent finally go through?" Twilight did her best in keeping the book hidden beneath her while she sat rather humorously awkward to keep her rump and tail hiding the stolen text.
"Oh no! That thing had to be sent back! Derpy spelled everything upside down and it went to the SOUTH POLE instead of the NORTH POLE I don't know WHAT that pony was thinking." Pinkie shook her head in disbelief before gasping out. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TODAY IS?!" Squinted one eye and widened the other towards her purple furred friend.
"You took a bath…?" Reared her hoof back towards her chest and backwards.
Pinkie gave a face and shook her head. "Nope! Wrong again. Geeze, Twilight! For such a smarty pony you're on a roll to wrongstown!" She trotted her hooves a bit in excitement. "Today is the three week celebration for the celebration of returning home from saving the empire silly! I even invited some of the crystal pony friends I made!'
"Oh, right. THAT celebration…" Rolling her eyes the purple unicorn couldn't help but find it a bit amusing. The celebration to celebrate a previous celebration. Classic Pinkie. The end portion of the earth ponies sentence registered in her brain. "You invited Crystal Ponies?!" A tinge of fear dripped out of her voice and expression, what if the ponies asked questions and found the book?
Pinkie nodded quickly. "YUP YUP YUP! I even invited that librarian lady! She was so nice!"
"THE what?! PINKIE HOW COULD YOU?!" Twilight held her jaw down, her ears held back. When the pink pony began to give her a confused 'What are you getting at?' look Twilight coughed and shook her head. "N-nothing. It's nothing. She just has to be busy with running the library. Lots of books coming and going now that everyone is back to normal.
Shaking her head with bemusement she gently tapped Twilight on the top of her head. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about that. Pinkie's got it ALLLLLL under control. She wanted to come and said something about wanting to talk directly to you~" With that having been said, Pinkie hopped up and sprung into a trot out the door. "I've got to go invite more people, we're having it at Sugar Cube Corner because parties are THE BEST there!" She stopped halfway in the door. "And calm down, you're being as bad as lemonade without sugar… Which I guess is just sour lemon water. Which could be good I guess… But it wouldn't taste sweet and amazing like Lemonade. WE'RE HAVING LEMONADE!"
Twilight was quick to slam the door shut while frantically finding a very good hiding spot for the book. It wasn't like she could keep that spell going. And if she constantly made the book appear and disappear, everypony would get suspicious. "What do I do? What do I DO?"
"What is with all the commotion, Twilight?" The tiny dragon asked having been prematurely awoken before his nap even got started.
"Nothing. Get back to bed!" She glared and a sudden spark of black came from the top of her horn. She gasped when Spike took a few steps back. "Just go back to bed, now."
Spike's eyes went wide with concerned curiosity, but he did as asked. An angry Twilight meant an unhappy day for Spike. Once in his bed he curled up and poked out through the crack in the door to try and spy on his best friend.
The purple unicorn grabbed a cloak and wrapped it around her self before shoving the book onto her back beneath the fabric, and trotted off out the door into the everfree forest. She needed to find a clearing, somewhere away from anypony else.
She found one 15 minutes or so into the deepest part, a place where only the softest of light shown through the canopy of trees. In the middle was a stump from an old oak. This is where she set the book and opened it up to the page she'd previous been on.
"For the magic to hold, to be at it's strongest, you must hold you heart, from people found fondest." Twilight tipped her head. "What does that mean? And it's not what I need, I don't need this to take hold…" She began to laugh quietly. "Not like I'm going to use just this magic. I'm just learning it to know it."
Continuing to read she quickly lost track of time casting demi spell after spell. It wasn't until she could barely see the words and had to make light with her horn that she heard hoofsteps and it made her slam the book shut and look around. "Who's there?!"
Out from the darker portion of the clearing a familiar cloaked zebra stepped out. "Fearing darkness I do see, when it nothing but ole me." The black and gray figure tipped the hood of the cloak off and smiled softly. "What brings you here, dear Twilight. Know what business you have I might?"
"Oh, Zecora! H-hi." Put her cloak back on and shoved the book back onto her hind quarters. "It's nothing. Just a little bit of light reading… In the dark… In the forest…" Twilight gulped as Zecora only stepped closer. Following suit Twilight stepped back until she bumped into a tree and the book slipped out and in front of the zebra.
"A book I see, what can it be." Went to touch her hoof to it but Twilight used a levitation spell to shove it back under her cloak. "Keep your steps true and your heart clear, or into darkness you may pass I do fear." The zebra took off the direction back to ponyville. "Do not fret, for if you keep your friends close, things won't happen that you'll regret."
Once the zebra was out of sight Twilight breathed a heavy sigh of relief and followed on her own direction back to Ponyville. She had a party to attend to. What did that zebra know anyway? All she had were those silly potions and charms. That wasn't real magic. Real magic was done with your will, with powers. She glared up at the direction she'd gone and for a second her eyes flashed green and the tip of her horn bubbled with the black and purple orbs.
Twilight dropped her head and the magic faded. It was tiring this magic, maybe the party would give her the strength to keep practicing and learning.