It was hopeless. Twilight had tried everything, from Starswirl's Translation Spell to Higgleberry's Guide to Translating Ancient Languages. Each and every symbol here seemed to be its own symbol, completely unrelated to the others. Twilight groaned and hit her head on the desk in frustration. Her last candle went out, only leaving the moonlight stretched across the book's pages. As she moved her eyes away from the oaken wall and back to the book, she saw the lettering shimmer to life. Figures moved around on the old pages. Twilight looked in both admiration and horror as she gazed at the shifting symbols, their lines now forming a... a contract.

It took Twilight several moments to realize that nothing had changed about the lettering in any way, shape, or form. She understood what it said, but it was not in modern tongue. Nor, for that matter, was it in a newly translatable manner. She could just read it, and that was that. She closely examined the contract in its entirety. It read:

She read it multiple times before the meaning set in. And with that blood. An urge, no, a compulsion to cut open her front legs overwhelmed Twilight's senses. She felt her joints wobble. Her mind was clouded with horrific thoughts of a knife, no larger than her hooves, digging its way into her sweet lavender heels. She struggled, she used her will, she wanted the terrifying urges to stop. She screamed before she finally snapped out of it. She awoke in Sugarcube Corner's kitchen, far from her initial destination.

"Who's there? I have an apple pie, and I'm not afraid to use it!" a shrill voice from the dark questioned.

"Pinkie?" Twilight responded, moving towards the voice. A sharp pain ran through her legs. She looked down and her stomach flipped. It would seem she didn't snap out of it fast enough, for a cake knife had already found its way into her front-most foreleg. Pinkie couldn't see this, Twilight thought to herself. It would horrify her. Twilight turned her hoof slightly left and kicked the knife under the counter as Pinkie walked into the kitchen with a pie, bleary eyed. She dropped the pie and its contents spilled on the ground.

"Why are you in my kitchen?” grumbled Pinkie from under a mass of frizzy hair. “Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Oh... I must have been sleepwalking!” Pinkie still looked suspicious. “With the munchies! Boy, am I hungry! You don't mind if I have one of these, do you?" Twilight levitated a bag of chips over and chomped down on them with an expression of glee (and, she hoped, honesty).

"Okie-dokie-lokie... just don't trail that blood everywhere. It'll shock ponies." Pinkie Pie casually poked the puddle of blood and tasted it. “Tastes just like Granny Pie's recipe.” Pinkie Pie went upstairs to sleep, leaving Twilight wide eyed and confused. Twilight stopped her eating and teleported back home, unnerved by Pinkie's comment. She felt woozy. Twilight wobbled back to bed and found herself looking over the book, where only one line now remained.