Sorry this took so long. Graduation was coming up and classes were heavy. Also, as the chapter title says, this is an unedited version of the chapter. I will update it when – or if ever – it's edited.

~XOXOXO~

Chapter 2: The Lesson

Light in Equestria shimmers!

Light in Equestria shines!

Midnight Shimmer watched from her bedroom window at Twilight Sparkle singing in a chariot and waving at cheering ponies. She stood beside the long periwinkle curtains that matched her coat. A breeze blew in and the curtains grazed over her body, making her into a silhouette. She was commanded by Princess Luna to stay in her room until Twilight's Coronation was over.

"Why?" She remembered asking Luna.

"Because my sister says so," Luna replied.

Once Celestia gave the final word neither Luna nor Midnight could do anything about it. She didn't like the fact that she had to listen to Celestia when Celestia wouldn't listen to her. She glanced over at Celestia and Luna on the balcony. She was surprised that Luna looked pleased at Twilight becoming an alicorn and didn't understand that. She focused back on Twilight and her singing.

"How dare she…" Midnight said while resisting the urge to tear the curtains off the window. "How dare she use my name in her song!"

She ran from the window and out of her room, ignoring the squeal Ebon made when he was startled awake. She galloped all the way down winding stairs until she reached the great hall where Celestia's throne was. The location of her room was hidden by magic and only the two princesses had access to it. The hall was empty except for a few guards who told her to stop. She didn't listen and kept running until she broke the number one rule and bolted out of the castle.

She was finally free from the castle walls. She would have craned her head toward the sky and let her skin soak in the sunlight, but her thoughts were focused on Twilight. She thought of Twilight's singing and how it made the air poisonous to her. The sunlight on her back might as well have been rays that made her coat bleach and her skin peel. She pushed past ponies, ignored their horrendous remarks about her, and managed to step before Twilight and her friends after Twilight landed back on the ground from her quick flight around Canterlot. All six ponies, as well as the crowd, stared at Midnight without saying a word.

"This isn't fair," Midnight said. "You took my place."

Twilight blinked. Celestia and Luna flew down to take their places beside Twilight as if they were protecting the new princess. This action surprised Midnight and it made her want to back away, but she stayed her ground.

"What are you doing outside?" asked Luna.

"I want everypony to know the truth," she said.

Celestia stepped forward. "Midnight Shimmer, because you have violated the policy of the kingdom by exposing yourself, I thereby banish you from Equestria."

"What?"

Celestia and Luna's eyes glowed white and their horns touched. A ball of light grew on the tips of their horns, and the ground began to shake. Twilight's eyes also glowed while her horn, glowing with purple magic, touched the two princesses'. The ball of light grew bigger and glowed brighter until a ray of three different colors flew in Midnight's direction. She tried to deflect it, but despite her years of study, she knew her magic wouldn't be strong or fast enough against three princesses.

The ground beneath her cracked and opened into a dark chasm. She slipped and fell in while screaming and gazing up at the crack she fell from. The chasm closed and she was surrounded by darkness. She continued to fall and thought about grabbing something. She reached all around her, but there was nothing but the void. She thought of manifesting something to break her fall, but she wasn't sure where the ground was or if there even was one. She thought she would fall forever until her back hit something hard. The crashing sound echoed and faded and she figured she hit the bottom. She rolled over and looked around. There was nothing but darkness and her horn made a small blue light.

"Hello?" She called.

There was no answer except for the echoes of her own call. She walked ahead and slowly went into a gallop when she heard voices up ahead. She kept running until she saw six ponies gathered in a circle and talking amongst themselves. She stopped and observed them. They were Twilight Sparkle and her friends. She took a single step and they all turned to face her. They broke their circle and Midnight took a fighting stance when they were approaching her. To her surprise, they all walked past her and talked amongst each other as if Midnight was not there.

"Stop ignoring me," she said while trying to grab Twilight's wing, but her hoof went straight through as if she were an apparition. The ponies continued to walk, talk, and laugh to one another. They soon vanished in the darkness as they moved away from the light of Midnight's horn.

"Wait!" She called. She ran after them, but their trotting and sounds of laugher were gone. She ran faster in hopes of finding them, but her legs began to slow down. The darkness began to grow around her, but she realized that the glow on her horn was just weakening. She stopped when the light was gone, sat on the ground, and began to sob. She sobbed for a while, accepting the fact that she was alone then realized what was happening. She looked around even though she couldn't see anything. She took a deep breath and stood. "Okay, Princess. I get it."

The darkness around her melted away as if black tar covered the walls of her room and was sliding off to the floor. She looked around to see a dense forest with the moon shining bright in the night sky. It formed a black pool in front of her, and Princess Luna emerged from it. "Well done, Midnight Shimmer," she said. "You faced your fear of the dark."

"No, I didn't," she replied while seeing the dark pool underneath Luna get smaller and smaller until it vanished. "I just realized that it was a dream."

"I congratulate you for that as well. You can decipher what is reality and what is not. Now, you can better control your manifestations by getting rid of the fear that dark magic can conjure."

"I'm not sure I buy that. We've gone through this so many times. I've got used to you giving me dreams like that."

"Yes."

"And whenever you give me an illusion that everypony should be afraid of I'm not afraid of it because I know it's not the real thing."

"Yes, go on."

"But how is that helping me? How am I supposed to face the real thing?"

"Practice."

"But can't I practice with the real thing?"

"Is that what you really want?"

Midnight took a moment to think about it. All this practice was good, but she was starting to get bored of it. If somepony was afraid of spiders then they don't practice getting rid of their fear by always being exposed to plastic spiders. It was a start, but eventually they would have to move on to the real thing. The thing was that Midnight didn't know if she wanted to face the real thing yet or if ever.

"Except," Luna continued. "I don't think I can conjure up your real fear. The darkness was the closest I could make to it."

"Why?"

"Your real fear is…difficult."

"You know what it is?"

"Of course I do. Sometimes you dream of it, and since it is my duty to go into your dreams I can see your worst fear."

The air rippled and made the sound of a gong. Midnight looked at the ripple like she's never seen it before, but knew very well what it meant. "Do you really have to go now?"

"Yes, you are waking up." She spread her wings and flew away while speaking to Midnight, her voice echoing through the forest surrounding them. "When you experience that fear again just think of me."

Midnight tried chasing after Luna, but the forest around her began to sway from a sudden wind. The trees bent to the ground and blocked Midnight's path. The wind picked up and leaves blew off the trees, making them giant bare trunks on the ground. Dark clouds flew over the moon and the fading light reminded her of the darkness she just escaped from. "Princess, don't leave me alone!"

~XOXOXO~

Midnight's head shot up and her eyes were wide open. She looked around her room and saw Ebon asleep and perched upside down on the ceiling. She looked down and saw that she fell asleep while studying. She was reading about summoning. She went to her window when the curtains made a sudden sharp ruffle. She saw a sliver of shimmering purple mist fly by her window and over the houses of Canterlot. Midnight smiled and wondered if she'll ever be able to jump into other ponies' dreams like Luna. Of course Luna didn't visit her dreams every night. Sometimes she would have no dreams and Luna would make one up as a practice session for her fears. Other times she would be too busy with other ponies that Midnight would have a peaceful rest. She walked away from the window and went to her shelf to get another book. She leafed through it and discarded it. She looked through another one, navy blue magic surrounding its outline, but she discarded that one too. She wasn't really looking for anything in particular; she just wanted to find something boring so that she could go back to sleep. "Maybe I should go back to the book on my desk."

She returned to her desk and read paragraph after paragraph of a book she read about six times now. She read out loud, "One spell in particular must only be used during the hours of twilight…"

She stopped, closed the book, and used her magic to throw it across the room. Surprisingly, this didn't wake Ebon. She threw books across her room so many times to the point where the little bat was used to it. She paced her room and looked around the walls, mind racing and thinking about her dream. She should have ran out of her room and confronted Twilight instead of staying indoors on the day of the coronation. She stopped pacing at the thought of being surrounded by a crowd and possibly all of Equestria. Even in her dreams ponies she didn't know gave her dirty looks and said horrible things.

Her face softened. "Maybe Princess Celestia is just protecting me, protecting me from the outside because everyone sees me as a reject." She remembered her dream and how Twilight and her friends walked passed her as if she were made of air. "Twilight can be happy and advance as an alicorn just because she has friends? Is the princess depriving me of the same advancement by giving me no friends? She probably thinks of me as a reject too. But how does that explain everypony looking down on me?"

She looked up to see a cloak hanging on her wall. She used her magic to take it down and wrap it around herself. She pulled the hood up and looked in the mirror. It fit nicely, yet it was old with some small holes and tears. There were a few stains on it and it even smelled of mold. All this didn't bother her, getting a new cloak was the least of her problems. She went to one of her drawers where she kept all her poetry and rummaged to the bottom of the pile to pull out a map of Equestria. She found out where Twilight was transferred to a long time ago and calculated the distance between Canterlot and Ponyville. "I'll have to tell Luna that I'll be working on a weeklong project and that I must not be disturbed, not even in my dreams. I'll tell her to tell Celestia too."

She stood in the middle of her room. The hood of the cloak fell as she looked at the ceiling. "Wake up, Ebon. Once dawn is here, we're taking the first train to Ponyville."