Once again, Spike could not find Twilight. After her caffeine crash the previous day, Twilight had slept most of the day away, only to finally awaken in time for dinner. After a very silent meal, she had slunk off, asking not to be disturbed. Now night had come and gone, and Spike was starting to get concerned. She wasn't back at her conspiracy wall. In fact the whole thing had been torn down and, judging by the pile of ashes, incinerated. Nor was she in her room, the library or any of her other usual haunts. Worried and concerned, Spike returned to a side hallway where he'd found the new presents. He hoped that the birdsong might clear his mind, or give new insights as to where Twilight might be, or... anything really.

He sidestepped around the geese, who squawked protectively over their eggs. With a shimmy, he nestled himself between the barrel of the pear tree, and the giant crystal sphere. One of the hens pecked at his feet briefly before he shooed it away. He loosened one of the rings from the dirt, and started mindlessly spinning it around one claw. "Oh Twilight," he muttered, "where are you?" The ring began picking up significant speed before his claw slipped and it went spinning off down the hallway. It hit a crystal pillar and reversed course, landing snugly between the giant crystal sphere and the wall. Sighing, Spike got up and walked over to retrieve it. As he reached down to grab it, he noticed something odd in the surface of the sphere.

It was a solid blue, much like the walls of the castle it now resided in. What surprised him, was the small purple section near the wall. It was roughly a six-pointed star, not unlike Twilight's cutie mark. Tentatively, he reached out to touch it. As claw met stone, he felt it depress somewhat. He kept pushing until it clicked. A moment later, the sound of a scratchy recording came from within the orb.

Welcome to the Sphere of Solitude. It began in a morose, even depressed tone. What you are hearing is a pre-recorded message made by one Twilight Sparkle. If I have activated this spell, then a situation has occurred where either 1) I feel so ashamed as to hide away, 2) uncontrollable events have occurred which I have completely failed at analyzing, predicting, or understanding, or 3) the quesadillas have finally made their move and are invading Equestria. Due to limited recording space, for further instruction please refer to "User Interface Guide for Sphere of Solitude" located in the personal library of one Twilight Sparkle, unicorn residing at Tower 314, Marigold Lane, Canterlot.

Spike remembered this spell. It was originally Twilight's final project for her Crystallurgy class, which she'd expanded and modified after an extremely embarrassing miscast in front of Celestia and several nobles. She'd been in a very dark place and decided the best way to handle it was to hide herself away until everypony forgot about the incident. It had taken Celestia hours to reassure her and coax her out of it. Spike stood up resolutely. He wasn't going to let Twilight lock herself away, not again! Celestia might not be around, but Twilight had something better now. Friends who cared about her and her well-being. He dashed off to gather them, hoping that they'd be able to help lift Twilight's spirits in this time when she most dearly needed it.

"You sure she's in there?" Rainbow Dash asked as she flew around the orb, which had been rolled out into the main hall.

"Definitely," Spike confirmed. "Twilight made this spell. There's no way it could be active without her being in there."

"Isn't it rather... cramped?" Rarity asked, as she mentally measured the ball and estimated now much interior space it could have.

Spike shook his head. "No, there's a few spatial enchantments woven into it. There's a good-sized sitting room on the inside."

"Well, she can't stay in there forever. Right? She has to come out sometime." Applejack asked.

Again, Spike shook his head. "You don't understand, you weren't there back when Twilight made this. She was still young, and wanted to be able to disappear and stay gone long enough for everypony to forget her embarrassing mistake." He began ticking off items on his claws as he listed them. "There's enchantments for fresh air, a self-renewing fireplace, a perpetually rebrewing teacup, a book which can transform into a copy of anything she's read before. It's gyroscopically stable so even it being rolled won't affect her. Technically, she could stay inside for weeks."

"Goodness," Rarity exclaimed, "That's quite a piece of spellwork. And how old did you say she was when she made this?"

"Thirteen." he replied, "She only ever used it once before, and that took Celestia herself to get her out. If she feels so bad as to get it out again..."

"Oh my," Fluttershy murmured, "I didn't realize the birds were wearing down on her so much. Oh, I should have taken some in when she asked. I could have made room by giving them my bed. Oh, bad Fluttershy, bad!"

"I don't think it was the birds that did it," Spike interrupted, "She's been handling most of this pretty well-" he paused as some of the finer details of yesterday's rant came back to him, "Uhh, mostly anyway. But something must have happened between when she said she solved it yesterday and when Rainbow Dash brought her back here passed out."

All eyes turned to the pegasus in question, who had taken a perch on top of the sphere. She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Yeah... I might have an idea what this is about. Twilight broke into my house and uh... she..." She trailed off as she gazed everywhere but at the ponies looking at her. "Let's just say she thought I was pranking her with all this stuff, and somehow came up with a really weird and badly reasoned idea as to why. She was really confident and didn't take it well when I poked a bunch of holes in her argument."

"Well what in tarnation did she think it was that made her so embarrassed that she locked herself up!?" Applejack demanded with a stomp of her hoof.

"It's... really better if I don't say. For Twilight's sake."

"I really wish there was some way to talk to her," Fluttershy redirected, "Even if it's only to make sure she's okay."

Rarity smiled as an idea came to her. "It's fortunate then that she made her hideaway out of crystal. Allow me a moment and I'll find a harmonic focal point in it's structure." She began walking around the ball, her horn alight.

"Thanks, but I don't think it'll work," Spike said sadly, "She designed this to be impenetr-"

"Found it~!" Rarity trilled. Her she focused her magic on a particular point on the sphere, visually identical to the rest. Casting her gaze about the room, she grabbed a vase from a nearby pedestal and placed it's base on the area she identified. "Here. Speak into this and I believe Twilight should be able to hear us and hopefully, us her."

Spike approached slowly, torn between trusting Rarity's talent with gems and trusting Twilight's talent with effective spellcasting. "Twilight, can you hear me?" He finally ventured.

Meanwhile, Twilight was curled up in a cozy armchair near a roaring fire. A cup of tea sat on the end table beside her, full and steamy. A peaceful smile stretched over her lips. All thought of mysterious presents and mistaken intentions lost in her book on complex waveform equations. She was just starting to get into a particularly riveting Farrier Transform when she was startled by a voice echoing from all around her.

"Twilight, can you hear me?" it said. Though the voice was unmistakably Spike's, it had a strange echoing quality and seemed to reverberate from all directions at once.

"Spike, it that you? How did you manage to get your voice through my Sphere of Solitude? I designed it to be impenetrable!"

"Rarity found a uh... what did you call it again?"

"A harmonic focal point, darling." Rarity's voice chimed in with the same ethereal echoing quality.

"Yeah, that."

Twilight groaned. "Why is Rarity there?"

"We all are, Twi." Applejack chimed in. "Well, us and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash anyway. We're worried about ya."

"Whatever for?" Twilight asked to the walls of her lounge.

"Um, because you're so embarrassed that you locked yourself away inside a crystal ball and cut yourself off from all your friends and family?" Fluttershy's voice offered.

"What, do you mean the thing with Rainbow Dash?" She asked. An awkward cough echoed back in reply. She sighed. "I'm not in here because of that. Did I make a mistake? Yes, I was too eager and made logical assumptions I shouldn't have. Was I wrong? Yes, so... very yes. Was I embarrassed? Of course I was, who wouldn't be after accusing her friend of being madly in love with her?" A sound almost like a fashionable unicorn gasping and a speedy pegasus falling off a large sphere echoed through the chamber, but Twilight ignored them. "I'm in here... because of this."

Spike stepped back from the speaker-vase as he felt the familiar rumble of a message coming through via his fire. In a burst of vertical green flame it materialized. Rarity picked it out of the air with her magic and began to read.

Dear Ponyville friends,

Super-duper sorry for not being available, but I am currently unable to accept any new party requests until after Hearths Warming. Starting this afternoon, I'll be heading back to visit my family for the holiday season and won't return for two weeks. Please redirect any emergency party requests to Gummy, located within.

Happy Holidays Everypony!
And may you always be in the Hearths Warming Pixie's favor!
-Pinkamena Diane "Pinkie" Pie

"I found this tacked to the outside of Pinkie's door at Sugar Cube Corner." Twilight's voice echoed out. "It's dated almost a week ago."

"So what?" Rainbow Dash asked impatiently, "What's Pinkie being gone have to do with you being in the ball of boring?"

"'Sphere of Solitude'," she corrected, "And I'm getting there. After my failure with Rainbow Dash I reassessed all my potential theories with a clear head. I came down to only one possibility."

"And that was?" Rarity prompted.

"That Pinkie was doing everything in order to convince me that her mythic Hearths Warming Pixie is real." Twilight responded, "But when I went to confront her, I found that note. So it couldn't have been her! So I decided to run a test. I activated the Sphere of Solitude to cut myself off from the world. If the gifts still showed, even in here, then I could concede that there may be some sort of mythic gift-giving creature involved. If not, then it's clearly the work of a pony. So once the gifts show up tomorrow, I'll have my answer."

"Uh, Twilight?" Spike interrupted, "It is tomorrow. Almost lunch, really."

Her ears perked up. "Oh?"

"Yeah, and there was a bunch of stuff piled outside your ball."

A loud cheer echoed out from the vase into the main hall. Suddenly, the whole sphere began to glow brighter and brighter. Three ponies and a dragon backed away as they did their best to cover their eyes. A moment later, the sphere was gone, and a triumphant Twilight stood in it's place. "Then I-" She was cut off, however, when the vase (no longer supported) dropped and smacked her on the head, knocking her to the floor.

"Twilight!" They all cried as they rushed to her side. She gazed back at them woozily.

"Did anyone get that pegasi's license number?" She mumbled incoherently.

"She needs medical attention!" Rarity exclaimed as she looked about. "Where did Fluttershy go?"

"I'm here!" she called as she ran back into the room, her coat dotted with large white feathers and damp patches. She immediately began looking over Twilight's wound. "She should be okay, it's very minor. Spike, could you go get some ice please?"

He nodded and ran off. Twilight mumbled again and Fluttershy leaned in to listen. One of the feathers fell off of her head and landed on Twilight's face. "Flutter..." she mumbled, "Why are your flying fluffs all white?"

"What?" She noticed the feathers stuck to her for the first time. "Oh! These. I ran away when the ball started glowing, and found a group of seven swans playing in tub in the bathroom. They were so cute and they- Twilight? Twilight?!"

But her story about the swans would go unheard, as the purple alicorn had passed out completely.