“Hello?”

Her voice, small and tremulous, was swallowed by the darkness. There was nothing around her, nothing in any direction- not a glimmer of light, no walls, no ceiling, no floor.

“Hello?” she called out, raising her voice now in the hopes of being heard, but there was no answer, not even an echo.

“Is anyone there?”

Silence.

Twilight bit her bottom lip, turning slowly in place, her small hooves making not a noise. She could see herself, though just how or why she could with the world being barren of any light was beyond her. It was a disquieting sensation, but the little filly didn’t feel afraid- there was something inexplicably comforting about this place.

Twilight liked to sleep by the light of the moon or with a nightlight on to chase away the worrisome mystery of darkness. Here though, with nothing but darkness all around, in a place she did not know, she felt... warm, somehow- like being held by her mother and father, or being wrapped in the fluffy familiarity of her blankets and snuggled up tight against the chill of a winter’s night.

She called out again, louder, braver, but still there was no answer. Frowning now, the filly began to walk. There was nothing to walk towards and nothing to walk away from, but there was little else to be done, so she walked.

The darkness was solid enough underhoof, though just what it felt like was hard to really discern. Even stranger was the slope that had appeared in a world without shape or contour. She found herself climbing upwards, then down a gentle gradient, like she had crossed over a small hill. Driven by a spontaneous thought, Twilight stopped and tried to dig at the ground with the tip of a hoof, but it left no mark that she could see or feel.

She raised a hoof to walk onwards, but hesitated as a memory flared to life- a memory of what happened before this darkness. She had been at the examination, standing at the center of the lecture room’s stage. In front of her was a hundred seats, empty save for the shapes of half a dozen judges watching from the very top of the amphitheatre. Their expressions were disdainful and disinterested. Her parents had been there too, so hopeful and excited for her, watching their daughter trying to earn a place at one of the most exclusive and prestigious schools in Equestria.

Watching her try.

Watching her fail.

Twilight hung her head, a tear glittering in the corner of her eye.

She had tried so hard, given everything she had to show her worth. It was supposed to be a special day for her parents- a proving of their pride that ended up as nothing more than a pathetic fizzle of sparks. No doubt every other student in the school had passed the test without even breaking a sweat. They had probably strolled right into the room, cracked open that egg with a breezy toss of their mane, then strolled right back out, accompanied to the applause of the judges.

Then there was Twilight Sparkle: some stupid little foal who had no idea what she was getting into.

Magic.

Honestly, what was she thinking? To be as beautiful as Celestia? To command a power as delicately and gracefully as she could? What a stupid dream.

Magic.

Twilight let out a breath that was more than half a sob and fell to the ground, setting her face firmly into her hooves to hide the unbidden tears that had started to fall.

She had been there a long while, though just how long she didn’t know. She brushed the backs of her hooves across her cheeks, doing her best to sweep away the tears, though no amount of rubbing could banish the puffiness in her eyes or the ache in her heart.

Still the darkness prevailed: cold now, and less comforting than it had been. It felt hollow, empty- like it was a great space that needed something to fill it, or something to care for it...

Magic.

Twilight spun in place, her eyes wide. It had been a voice; she was sure of it-- no more than a whisper, but a voice nonetheless.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” She started to run now, little hooves pounding fast and hard on the formless earth, but with nothing to see, time lost all meaning. She ran for hours, days even, or maybe it was just for a few moments, calling out to whatever was there in the dark, but all she could hear was her own hard breathing.

She slowed to a stop now, turning in circles, head twisting this way and that, searching for that voice, straining her ears hard to hear whatever might have been there...

‘Magic...’

The little filly stood stock still, every hair standing on end, her eyes wide and focused straight ahead.

She had been at the exam, must still be at the exam. She didn’t remember leaving, didn’t remember being told she hadn’t made it, didn’t remember anything except for those disdainful faces and then...

Then she was here, in the dark.

She turned her head slowly, peering into the endless gloom, breathing hard now, every nerve electric as her mind spun. Was this part of the exam? Was she supposed to do something? Pages and pages of magic theory flipped through her mind’s eye- she had spent so long reading, staying up well past her bedtime for so many nights getting ready for this. There must have been something...

She blinked as a picture floated into focus, one of tidy script written with a flowing design upon yellowing paper. Sage Wisdom’s ‘Equilibrium’...

In all things, balance. As above, so below; as to one, so another. True strength of magic is not through force, but equilibrium...

“Balance,” she murmured, looking around at the world she found herself in.

Darkness.

“Light,” she said, sudden realization dawning. Determined now, Twilight set all four hooves firmly on the empty ground and took in a breath. Light spells were the first things she had studied: all the better to stay up reading books after being tucked in for the night. Confidently, Twilight pictured a spark of light, pushing it outwards and upwards, willing it to reach the very tip of her horn.

A moment later she was laying on her stomach, panting hard and trembling all over. She had put every bit of magic she had into that spark, yet not a single mote of light had shown itself.

The darkness stood strong, unbroken.

When Twilight caught her breath, she stood up again and returned the spark to the forefront of her mind, but instead of forcing it to her horn and out into the darkness, she held it there at the center of her head-- a tiny spot of light, like a candle in the dark.

The Sage continued, the upper-class, slightly nasal voice she had always imagined for him murmuring in her mind’s ear.

Picture a task like the weight on a scale. For many things, it simply requires a counterweight to strike a balance, and often this can be one’s self. Lifting a pebble simply requires taking the weight onto one’s own shoulders, thus negating the weight of the pebble and causing it to rise to one’s will.

A whole world of darkness, and her little flickering light wasn’t even as bright as a candle. If she was to balance the light and the dark, she’d have to make her spark as big and bright as Celestia’s sun, and Twilight knew she didn’t have anything like that kind of power.

What if the task is too great for one body? What if the stone is many times heavier than oneself? In this case then, one must not be the counterweight, but rather, the fulcrum. Move the magic around and through rather than taking it upon yourself. This is possible through the Hermetic theorem...

For a brief second, Twilight wondered if Sage Wisdom was suggesting she set herself on fire to light the way, but the moment of madness passed as the conundrum set in. It made her head hurt no matter which way she looked at it; how could she move her light from inside to outside if she couldn’t move it?

She stood there a long time, staring straight ahead into the nothingness, but only seeing the light inside her mind. She could almost see it there in front of her, like a distant candle amidst the dark... Twilight blinked, her brow furrowing.

“As above, so below; as to one, so another,” she murmured, focusing inward now at the spark of light, surrounded as it was by its own darkness.

A voice in her ear, soft, sounding somehow like her mother and the Princess at the same time. “As within, so without.”

Twilight didn’t have to somehow force her light outwards, she just had to chase away the darkness that was already inside. She thought of the glowing lamp her father lit for her on dark nights, thought of warm, sunny days where even the shadows were few and far between, thought back to the day where she had decided to study magic...

The sun rose above the heads of the crowds, rising behind the perfect and noble form of Celestia, wings casting gentle shadows upon all of those gathered before her. She pushed aside the night to make way for the day, filling the world with warmth and light and love...

Twilight refocused on that little spark at the center of her mind, used it to push away the darkness with its light, spinning it this way and that without moving a muscle to leave a trail of shining light in its wake like a snake scaled in living fire. She gave chase to the shadows, lashed out with the glittering mote to harry the gloom, spun a web of shimmering threads all around herself.

She moved without moving, danced like the elated filly she was, but only within. Her joy and confidence grew with every new streak of light that strengthened her web, grew with every breath she took. She could feel her hair standing on end, felt the electric excitement crackling in every nerve. She wanted to shout with glee, wanted to jump and dance as she worked the magic inside.

She wanted to sing.

The lattice around her was a confection of liquid gold, shining with its own living light. She floated at the very center of it, warmed by the glow, holding in her hooves the tiny mote that she had built it with. It was tiny, little brighter than a candle, and only good enough to read books by beneath the warm covers of her bed, yet that tiny spark had built her a fortress. The smallest thing, doing such a great work...

The filly closed her eyes to the darkness outside and breathed gently onto the spark within, like one would when coaxing tinder to flame. It flickered; a living thing stirring, waking, growing. First a mote no larger than a seed, now a ball of liquid light wide as her hoof, all held in the intricate lattice of gold. It grew into a sphere that swallowed her small body, holding her at the very heart of this newly blossoming sun. Its light was as soft and warm as her mother’s embrace, and just as that would lift her heart, so too did this chase away every last shadow inside. She left warm and happy, felt the sheer love of life filling every vein, electrifying every nerve,

When Twilight opened her eyes again, the world was full of stars.

The sky stretched to the horizon, painted with the glittering diamond dust of stars beyond count, all swirling and drifting in a dance that would never end. Comets were grand flares frozen in time, hanging there in the endless sky with their tails stretching far behind them, marking their paths through the cosmos.

The earth at her hooves was soft, like that of a grass-strewn field, yet this grass was like nothing the filly had ever seen before. It glowed, as if it took in the starlight and reflected it back, like shards cut from living moonlight, rippling in an unfelt breeze upon the rolling hills like waves upon the sea.

Twilight could only stare; her eyes wide, jaw agape, slowly turning in place to take in all of this alien world.

“Where am I?”

The answer came from behind her: soft, motherly and warm. “In a safe place.”

They rested there- one tiny, the other tall- in the ghostly grass beneath the starry sky.

She had a tired voice, though no less gentle for it, “This is an old place, forgotten a long time ago.”

“It kinda feels sad...”

A quiet laugh, musical in the quiet air. “It is. It’s been here a long time, all alone without light or love, until you came.”

“But why is it alone? It’s so pretty...”

“The one who cared for it had to leave.”

“Had to?”

The two watched stately galaxies turn far above, their great bodies alive with the flicker and shine of stars. The answer was slow in coming.

“Yes. Something bad happened a long time ago, something that made her forget what was good and beautiful in life.”

Twilight nudged a blade of pale grass with the tip of a hoof, watching how the light rippled on it like water on a pond. “I don’t think I could ever forget this place. What happened?”

Another breath of silence as the question was weighed. “Have you ever had a dream so real, that when you wake up, you aren’t sure if you are still having it?”

“Mhmm. I dreamt I was eating cake once,” said Twilight, grinning sheepishly, “I thought I was eating one big as I was, on top of an even bigger cake. When I woke up, I tried to eat my pillow.”

The taller pony giggled, a musical sound. “How long did it take you to realize something wasn’t quite right about it?”

“Feathers don’t taste very good.”

Another little laugh, joined by the bell-chime titter of the filly.

“Well, the pony who took care of this place began having dreams like that, night after night. But where your dream was just silly, hers were bad dreams that made her feel awful, like no one loved her, not even her sister.”

Twilight frowned a little, nibbling on her bottom lip as the words sank in. “But, she would wake up, right? Her sister must have been there, and her parents?”

The slow shake of a head, “They tried to help, but whenever she slept, she dreamed that they were all lying to her, then laughing behind her back. It went on like that for so long that by the end, she didn’t know when she was asleep or awake, or what was real and what wasn’t.”

Twilight tried to picture her brother acting that way, tried to picture her parents acting like anything but the wonderful ponies they were, and just couldn’t see it. It would take a nightmare beyond anything she knew to ever make her feel they didn’t love her.

“Why did she have to leave, though?”

“The nightmare became part of who she was, took over her every waking moment, even as it ruled her dreams. In the end, she turned on her sister and everyone else she knew. It snuffed out the light of warmth and love and loyalty that was supposed to be at her very center. Without it, the stars burnt out one by one until there was nothing left. When she saw this, the older sister had to do what was right.”

Twilight prodded gently at the blade of grass held between her forehooves, “Couldn’t she have helped her somehow?”

The taller pony shook her head slowly, her starry mane glittering, an echo of the sky. “It was the only way. The nightmare was too strong and had taken over her life, asleep or awake. If she hadn’t been stopped, it would have come to this place, and that would have been very bad indeed.” The pony shifted her weight slightly, touching one silver-shod hoof gently to the ghostly grass Twilight was examining. Its glow seemed to brighten at the touch. “Look closer...”

Twilight did, and...

And nimbly ducked the swipe of the angry manticore, its great face twisting into a snarl as its claws slammed into the trunk of an old oak, rending huge slashes through the bark and flesh beneath. The monster was ten times her size, rage burning hot in its eyes, but she wasn’t scared.

She was never scared. Not ever. She was the fastest pegasus in Equestria, and even dragons knew better than to tangle with her!

The monster leapt at her, faster than any striking snake, but she had already ducked beneath it, rolling to one side with her wings tucked tight to her body. The manticore tore into the patch of ground where she had been standing then turned to try and follow her, but she was already aloft, her wings- the strongest wings of any pegasus- were driving her upwards like she had been shot from a cannon, like she was strapped to a rocket.

She came back down an instant later and struck the manticore like a bolt of lightning, driving it into the ground hard enough to leave a crater.

An instant later, was was being hoisted up onto the shoulders of a dozen ponies that she had saved, all of them cheering her name.

“Lightning Dust! Lightning Dust! Lightning Dust!”

Twilight blinked, finding herself back in the strange land of stars and rippling grass, with the tall, dark pony resting beside her. She was grinning.

“What was that?” asked Twilight, giving her head a little shake.

“A dream. Somepony’s dream, somewhere in Equestria.” The elder pony nodded her head towards the gently rolling hills of rippling light. “All of these are dreams: from now, before, and even after, if you know where to look. Every last blade of grass is a glimpse into a pony’s hopes and fears.”

“Even mine?” Twilight sounded unsure.

“Yes of course.”

“Oh…”

A soft wing the colour of a midnight cloud draped across the little filly, drawing her in close. “Does that worry you?”

“No,” said Twilight, biting her bottom lip, “Well, not that. It’s just… I don’t think my hopes are going to get me anywhere.”

“Whatever do you mean, my little pony?”

It all came out in a rush- the dazzling display at the Summer Sun Festival, the sudden inspiration to turn to magic, the effort and endless nights she had put into studying and practicing, then her parents somehow getting her a chance to attend the greatest magic school in all of Equestria… then her fear and wretched failure at the simple task she had been given. By the end, Twilight was bravely trying to keep her tears from falling, her voice quavering with emotion. Through it all the regal pony had listened in silence, eyes turned down to the gently swaying ghost grass all around them.

“And now,” said Twilight, angrily scrubbing at one eye with the back of a hoof, “I won’t get into the school, and my mom and dad will know they have a useless pony for a daughter…”

“Hush now, don’t speak like that,” the motherly voice chided gently. “What makes you think you have failed, Twilight Sparkle? That you fell for their silly little trick?”

“S-silly?” Twilight sniffed and looked up to the gently smiling alicorn. “But…”

“Twilight- that dragon’s egg has never been hatched. It’s been the same trick for ages; the egg was found in a mine, long petrified: it’s impossible to hatch. They give it to young unicorns to see just how hard they’ll try.”

“Oh…” The grin on the older pony’s face was infectious, and Twilight found the despair in her heart fleeing from its warmth, a shy smile returning to her young features again along with a slightly embarrassed blush.

The pony with the star-flecked mane continued, “And just what makes you think you are useless? Look out onto the starry sky of this lost place, Twilight Sparkle. Do you really think a useless pony could ever rouse the stars, or draw out the dreamgrass?”

Never a boastful filly, Twilight just blushed a bit brighter and turned her eyes to the ground, nudging at a blade of ghostly grass with the tip of a hoof. “I guess not…”

One little ear twitched as a friendly nose bumped it. “Never sell yourself short, Twilight, no matter what happens. You are a very special pony, as you will see… Now, it’s time to wake up.”

The filly blinked and looked up to the kindly, smiling face, mouth opening to ask what she meant when she felt the wing gently lift from her back, to be replaced with a golden-shod hoof, white as driven snow, touching her shoulder.

She turned to look at this new pony and…

And felt her hooves gently settle onto solid marble. Here was the amphitheater with its empty seats and few judges all in disarray. There were her parents, and there the cart, in pieces, with an odd little bundle settled amidst the debris. And, standing above her, all radiant in white…

The pony with the starry mane lay upon the hill amidst the ghostly grass, staring up at a starry sky that she had not seen in an age. Even now, they were dimming and winking out, bereft of the goodness and warmth of the little pony that had called them. The dreamgrass was fading away with them, the darkness swallowing the hills all around.

“You are very special indeed, Twilight Sparkle, and though our meeting is already fading from your mind like a dream, mayhaps one day you will remember this and remember me for who I was and not what I had become...”

The image of the night’s princess vanished with the last of the stars, yet all was not dark here in the lost place.

There, one tiny mote of light where there had been two ponies moments before- a tiny sprout of something emerging from the unearthly soil, a tiny tendril of something that sprouts a single leaf, delicate, shimmering softly in white, and upon it a star in glittering violet.

A single spark...

Author's Notes:

Written long ago, only now just completed. Inspired most definitely by this song and PMV, and almost a prequel to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV_0n5gp1fE