Renewal

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

----

She was doing better, Luna thought. Twilight had been healing well, she'd only had a few episodes over the last few days while she was...

Experiencing the new memories?

Luna didn't fully understand the details. She wasn't exactly ignorant of the intricacies of non-magical healing, she was quite interested in the field. She was not, however, formally educated in medicine. Between her duties and responsibilities to court and kingdom, she'd never been able to find the time.

So she had a vague concept of what a neuron was, an idea of how they interacted. When she was told that new memories had been physically formed in Twilight's brain, attempted to overwrite different memories and then been rejected. Not by Twilight's initial memories, but by her magic refusing to be overwritten and then shunting the new memories into space immediately adjacent to the physical location they were trying to force themselves. She got the idea.

It was a bad thing.

She knew the brain was fragile, she'd... Not had an easy time mastering illusion magic because of that fact. That Twilight was recovering so well was nothing short of amazing.

That said, she wasn't certain how, exactly, to bring up the distressing news she'd been given a few days past.

Nopony was certain what had happened to the Inspiration Manifestation, it had simply fallen to the back of most of their minds during the clean up effort after... Rarity's mishap with it.

Somehow, Spike got a claw on it. Even more worrying, he'd found some method of using it.

Some flawed, inefficient and flagrantly wrong method of using it.

He hadn't even been a unicorn at the time!

It had never been used by anypony but a unicorn!

It didn't make any sense. It would have needed to be in constant contact with the drake for months and feeding off massive amounts of raw magic before it could forcibly forge a connection uninstigated by its victim.

Beyond that, a dragon's magical resistance, tethered to their very souls, would have shrugged off any such feeble bond before it could latch on and grow in strength.

Unless... Luna paced back and forth in front of Twilight's door, mulling the problem over.

No, no. It made no sense. Dark magic, by its very nature, caused harm. Much like the djinni sealed away in the royal vault, the book did not offer something without twisting it.

Perhaps... No. Speculating by herself would achieve little. Her magic gripped the door to Twilight's room.

Two alicorn's, she knew, were always better than one.

----

Twilight rubbed her head, just above her horn.

At least this was a new kind of headache.

"The Inspiration Manifestation. Luna, nopony knows what happened to that book. It disappeared some time while Rarity was... Obsessed with it." Possession wasn't quite the right term for what it had done. It had loosened the limitations on Rarity's magic, catalyzed her control and casting power by an untold magnitude and...

It sounded like the Philosopher's Stone of legend, when just the benefits were looked at.

"Where did the book come from, anyway?" The kind of power the book had offered... Magically, Rarity couldn't be said to be ambitious. If the likes of Sombra had gotten ahold of it a thousand years ago, or even Trixie or Starlight Glimmer during their... Bad days, it left a sour taste on Twilight's tongue.

"Last I recall, Twilight, it was to be held in a hidden room in our old castle, in the Everfree."

"No, no I mean, where did it come from before that?" Luna stopped pacing around the small room and sat down, a hoof on her chin.

"It was long ago... Celestia and I claimed it, before the two of us were deemed the diarchs of the land. Yes, taken as a trophy from the cursed tower of a vile enchanter. It was one of few objects that survived our anger. I believe that was why Celestia thought it best to be sealed away."

"But who was the enchanter? Something like the Inspiration Manifestation... The book is a trap. But what it does to a unicorn is almost beyond imagining. I mean, on a local level the things Rarity did were nearly on par with Discord!" Luna lowered her hoof, considering the mess she'd helped clean up.

"Yes, it is quite concerning how it draws out the inner nature of a pony, is it not?" Twilight shook her head. No, no that wasn't it!

"That's not what I mean, the book didn't drag out some dark part of Rarity! It was more like it was an addiction, every time she used it she had to use it more. What I want to know is the name of the enchanter and how they made an artifact that could boost a unicorn's power to the point they were on par with a chaos god!"

"Ah." Luna looked up, a distant look in her eyes as she traversed her own memories. "Zeb. Yes, that was his name. A black and white earth pony, though his coat was strange. All of it stripes. He too was responsible for the Alicorn Amulet... I've not thought on his evils in years."

"Wait, black and white stripes?"

"Indeed Twilight."

"Luna" Twilight couldn't much blame her, they weren't that well known even today. "I think Zeb was a zebra."

"A what?"

"Zebra, like Zecora, she lives on the edge of the Everfree."

"Another? So close? Twilight, why did you not say so sooner! I must go before she-" Luna stood and rushed for the door, barely stopping herself in time as the door slammed shut before her.

"Stop! Luna, just hold on! She's a friend!" Wild eyes met panicked ones.

"Another enchanter lives in our lands and you would have me yield? Twilight, why?"

"Because" Twilight didn't understand why this was so difficult. "She's my friend."

Author's Notes:

I couldn't recall a single instance of Luna and Zecora meeting in the show. A couple of google searches yielded nothing, no mention of any such meeting on the wiki either.
If this chapter seems a little distracted, I apologize. I spent most of my day at the hospital with my girlfriend. Her problems aren't mine to share, but she's going to be there for a few days and likely go through surgery.