Twilight found herself wandering the dimly lit halls of her subconscious mind in a introspective quest of her own, contemplating the innumerable bookshelves surrounding her as she ventured deeper into her self.

The librarian turned backwards to inspect something she felt something pressing lightly against the back of her neck, finding to her great surprise two plush dolls resting on her back. The larger one depicted an alabaster alicorn with a chromatic mane that contrasted drastically to the purple dragon sitting next to it. Twilight, not one to dwell on the creations she subconsciously brings forth in her dreams, did nothing more than smile at the silent plushies before she continued to tread the corridors of her conscience's library.

She didn't know why, but she couldn't shake the feeling of unfamiliarity that began to consume her as she trotted onward, the shadows of unknowing creeping up on her from the dark recesses of unexplored hallways. Her head began to throb painlessly once again as she walked, incessantly pulsing just behind her skull as she grew lightheaded, but a shake of her head cleared away the jumbled mess gunking up her thoughts.

Twilight didn't know when it exactly began, much less why it happened in the first place, but the library cataloging her conscience began to shift drastically around her as she continued her never-ending forward march. Books escaped their shelves and flapped away into the cyan sky that was once the roof to the library, slowly morphing into beautifully feathered birds in their flight. The bare mahogany bookshelves themselves groaned lethargically as they twisted and turned until they were glorious trees lined with bright emerald leaves, rustling an imperceptible melody. The lavender mare stopped for a brief moment to observe the ground, where the filthy dust lining the floor began to sprout into soft green grass that tenderly caressed her hooves as a gentle summer breeze blew through the exact depiction of the Royal Gardens of Canterlot, bringing with it the scents of flourishing life and the distant sounds of children at play.

Familiarity arose in Twilight's heart the second the youthful laughter reached her sensitive ears, the joyous giggles growing louder and louder as she approached a peaceful clearing among the dense foliage of the mystifying gardens. There, secluded from a world that refused to understand their difference from the common aristocratic rabble, their humble natures and individuality, frolicked a purple dragon hatchling and a young lavender filly.

Twilight's arrival at the young companions' secret oasis garnered no attention from the children of her memories, as if she were nothing more than a silent ghost observing their role-playing game. Spike was righteously suited with a set of metallic bracers, armored leggings, matching boots, and a chestplate depicting the Celestial Sun emblem; he was a shining mimicry of a Royal Guard clad in his silver armor. Filly Twilight was the polar opposite to the guardian dragon; her ebony satin cloak with its hood tucked away boasted its intimidating features as another summer wind blew through the clearing, the silver trimmings lining its edges guiding the viewers eyes to the necrotic skull emblems emblazoned on the areas her cutie marks should be, and the onyx tiara with a scarlet bloodstone gem centered on it completed the notoriously infamous appearance.

Nostalgic reminiscence graced Twilight's expression as the euphoric sensation brought about by her beloved foalhood memories blessed her hyperactive mind. She recalled the specific memory unfolding before her with all the clarity of a perfect diamond; it had been a relatively peaceful summer when she and Spike had come up with the idea of challenging one another with a role playing game, and she was more than happy to experience the unique thrill of being the antagonist for once. All in all, it was a day she never forgot considering that it took a personal visit from the Sun Goddess herself to convince them to retire to the embrace of slumber for the night, and even then they continued to spar all the way to their tower.

"I'm gonna get you, Shadow Queen!" Spike's righteous exclamation snapped Twilight out of her nostalgic musings, herding her attention back to the battle taking place before her.

"So, you want to play the hero!? Very well, but how do you plan on getting past my shadow bolts!?" Filly Twilight's faux malevolence was intertwined with her rhetorical retort, betrayed slightly by the childish excitement tinging her tone.

With their taunts spoken and the ever present silence of their secluded clearing present, Spike charged forward with a war cry that pierced the noiseless void, stomping his way towards the makeshift wooden platform he and Twilight had attached to a tree. The lavender Queen of Destruction let loose a barrage of pitch black lighting spells that honed in on the dashing dragon to render him immobile, all of which he successfully managed to evade up until he was caught off guard by a stray bolt that had collided against his side, leaving him helplessly paralyzed on their battlefield.

"Ha, you lose, Sir Spike! Now the world shall be mine forev-AHHH!"

Time seemed to slow at that very moment, letting the dread sink into the enigmatic minds of all whom witnessed the unfolding catastrophe; the flimsy platform supporting the unicorn filly crumbled to pieces under her weight, sending her on a one-way trip to the Afterlife as she plummeted towards the unforgiving ground with enough force to snap her neck should she fall headfirst.

Unknowing horror flashed across both of the Twilights' features as Death's plans were put into effect. Behind the immediate shock of witnessing the tragic event before her, the Twilight looking on as everything happened couldn't hold back the torrent of stupor-induced questions that flooded her strained mind. Something was horribly wrong with what she was seeing, something she couldn't yet explain; she remembered nothing about her fall, nothing about the life-threatening scenario she was suddenly thrust into in her past. Her inquisitions, however, went ignored for the time being as she oversaw a reality she had yet to discover.

"TWILIGHT!" Lungs that had yet to produce their first bout of emerald flames strained painfully as the young drake they belonged to released a shrill cry of dominating fear. His emerald eyes followed his best friend's form as she plummeted to her demise, the very site forcing his underaged body to push itself past its limitations. In a moment of adrenaline-infused determination, Spike overcame the stunning spell's effects through sheer willpower and bolted towards the screaming filly. Mere seconds before her life's tale came to a gruesome end, the sprinting hatchling hurled himself underneath his lifelong companion, grunting out of his breathless pain as he took the brunt of the impact in exchange for her survival.

Traumatic tears of dread streaked down the little filly's clenched eyes of amethyst as sobs wracked her trembling body, the memory of her near-death experience being burned permanently into her subconscious mind as she slowly broke down into a heap of ragged breaths and sniffles. Fear dominated her mind, snuffing out everything she loved as her terror towards the world around her pierced its corrupted roots deep into her very being; nothing in the world was right anymore, nothing could ever hope to share the burden she was now forced to carry in her mind.

Little Twilight was wronger than she had ever been in the past.

The huddled lavender unicorn flinched as she felt two small arms wrap around her neck, pulling her into her winded draconic savior's embrace as his soft sob answered her own. He understood her pain, knew the burden of terror weighing down on her for he too had nearly lost everything...nearly lost the one filly he loved the most in his entire life, in every sense of the word.

In that moment of joined suffering, filly Twilight understood. She understood that she would always have someone there at her side to keep her safe of the terrifying trials the world would put before her, to selflessly share her pains in her most desperate of times without so much as a second thought, to love her unconditionally in a world that refused to understand them; Spike would never leave her side, never give up the fight if it meant it would keep her out of harm's way, and she needed to be strong for him as well.

Cheeks stained with tears born both of crushing despair and uplifting joy nuzzled against each other in a shared moment of affection, letting blushes bloom to life through their heat. They spoke to each other through the subtlest forms of contact, be it a comforting hush nearly imperceptible to one another or a gentle purple claw stroking a mane of violet, simply laying amidst the secluded clearing as their sobs died down to give birth to a peaceful silence.

Seeing that the worst of the day was over, Spike and Twilight pulled away from each other to look into each other's slightly reddened eyes, neither of them willing to break away from the hug just yet. Swallowing her dying fears and her lingering pains as a sniffle escaped her, Twilight broke through the silence first.

"T-thank you, Spike...you saved my life you know?" The little unicorn swooped in underneath her lifelong friend's chin to nuzzle into him once again, relishing the feeling of safety she found with him before she continued, "You're the best person to ever come into my life, Spikey-Wikey...I love you."

Twilight, the mare of the present, looked on as the duo of companions shared their sacred moment, feeling somewhat privileged to be able to relive such a critical moment of her young past, even if it was a moment she was only now remembering. From her spot at the oasis' edge, she could see everything going on between her past self and the young Spike, the defeated fear and the blooming friendship. Something flashed over the purple drake's expression when the filly nuzzling against him finished her heartfelt testification, something the older mare had been seeing very much from him the past couple of days back in the real world; pained apprehension.

"I love you too, Twilight, even more than I let on most of the time." A smile grew on his face even though secluded pain swirled behind the surface of his teary eyes, " You mean more than the world to me, and if you weren't here to tell me that tomorrow can always be better, I'd give up hope on everything."

Both Twilight's felt the familiar sensation of a warm blush tingle their cheeks as Spike's kind words of love touched their reclusive hearts, planting the seeds of something neither one of them fully understood at their young age. Spike leaned back into the hug, tightening his grip on the little filly as they simply basked in the aftermath of the day's events, the last tears of unknown pain and unbridled joy being shed.

The lone tear streaking across Twilight's cheek as she saw the two little companions fade away began to shake violently as a quake began to build up underneath her hooves, ravaging the peaceful serenity of the oasis as the memory itself degraded. For no more than a second, everything stood still after the earthquake reached its end, not a single soul making a sound other than Twilight and her frightened breaths. Then, before she could comprehend what was happening, everything around her burst apart and dissolved into a chromatic downpour falling infinitely with nothing but her screams of terror filling the void of nonexistence.

One by one, the multi-hued droplets swirling in a vortex around Twilight began to reshape themselves as if they had a mind of their own; pinks turned into wide heart-themed banners and ribbons that strung themselves up upon the walls formed by the whites, which then went on to form square tiles underneath the lavender unicorn that finally gave her some footing. The remaining colors went on to recreate a scene Twilight herself was well acquainted with, including various fillies and colts wearing wide smiles as they exchanged letters and personal gifts with one another; all around her was the classroom that she had attended for so many years during her foalhood before going on to train personally with the Princess of the Sun herself, and there huddled up in her favorite corner, far far away from everyone else and their judging eyes, lay a lavender filly lost in the world created by the book cradled in her hooves.

She vaguely recalled the date itself, considering that every Hearts and Hooves Day went the same for her during her time at Canterlot; she would arrive at her appointed classroom with a good pastime book to find that it had been transformed into a ballroom-like chamber filled to the brim with heartstruck colts and fillies, all of which didn't even take the time to feebly taunt her as they usually did, too distracted by their love affairs to care. Then, after her teacher would give the final "okay" and leave the foals to their devices, she would trudge over to her trusty corner and delve into the world of literature to numb the pain of society's rejection towards her. Never once had it been any different, she never got a single card, never even got the tiniest of hints that anyone ever found her interesting.

All she could ever remember from her Hearts and Hooves Days back at Canterlot was that they always went the same, with her seeing nothing other than the vivid pages of her beloved books and the reassuring expression of her loyal draconic companion whenever she reached the top of her tower to sleep of the day's disappointments. She learned how to tune out that part of her past, eventually, seeing how it held nothing but a lesson she already learned and pains she no longer felt.

Twilight could have never guessed she would strike a gold mine hidden somewhere in the deepest caverns of that very same torturous past, but she was about to receive an opportunity most would never even get the chance to experience for themselves in their entire lifetimes, all thanks to the one thing that garnered her all of her arcane fame.

Unicorn horns, as every educated unicorn themselves should know, are used to bind their owner to the collective arcane fields surrounding them at all times, allowing them to harness and refine as much of the infinite raw energy existing within them as they can. Little more is known about the abilities horns posses, leaving many of their abilities undiscovered, and it was one of those abilities that had granted Twilight her immense memory-dream lucidity. As the horn remains innately connected to the residual magical fields in the world, it manages to register the physical plane itself to a certain extent, capturing nearby sights and sounds overlooked by the unicorn and engraving their information into the wielder's subconscious mind. Said information, however, is far too delicate to be processed by a unicorn's mind immediately, remaining locked away in the wielder's mind until it is discovered, and Twilight had just stumbled upon a sensory snippet herself.

"Come on, Spike, you can do this. Just walk up to her and give her the letter."

Twilight jumped at the sudden appearance of a purple baby dragon at her side, his high-pitched voice catching her attention instantly as it snapped her out of her introspection towards her past. He seemed so young to her, more so than he was in the memory about the incident at the Royal Gardens, and a soft pink envelope rested between his claws as he stared intently at the lavender filly Twilight herself had been looking at not too long ago.

'When was this?'

She had so many questions she wanted answers to, their collective need to be answered pulsing against her skull as she tried to clear her mind to concentrate on the newest scene unfolding before her. Assumptions towards who Spike planned to give his card to were everything she could base her answers of at the moment, and that only left her as the possible recipient for what she could only guess was a love letter. Although she was abashed by the sudden realization that someone actually planned on doing something for her on Hearts and Hooves Day, a fact that crushed any self-degrading doubt lingering in her past memories, the newest revelation only brought forth yet another question.

'What happened...why didn't he give me the letter?'

The answer she so desperately sought for this specific question, however, was one that brought no sense of accomplishment with it once it was given to her.

She could do nothing but watch as a trio of foals she knew all but too well blocked off the little dragon hatchling's path just as he began to make his way towards the oblivious lavender unicorn in the corner of the room, the very sight of their malicious expressions and sadistic grins instigating a burning glare that would have been able to bore holes into their heads through her pure ire if they weren't just figments of her memories. Twilight was forced to watch them taunt her lifelong friend mercilessly and incessantly, shattering each and every innocent hope and dream he had conceived up to that day with their devilish jabs, setting the seeds for psychological fallout with every sharp syllable they spat at him.

They were the ones responsible for the damage done to his fragile mind, responsible for the thorny roots of apprehensive doubt that plagued his subconscious up to that very day. She marveled through the ill-conceived, stinging pang of guilt that struck her for having overlooked such a monumental problem in his life, and it only worsened when she thought about just how long he had to have been repressing everything.

Twilight couldn't think at the moment anymore, too absorbed by the sight of the dragon hatchling she had called her friend her entire life was levitated and left helpless by a blue aurora that went on to hurl him out of the classroom before shutting the door behind him, locking him out. The white colt of the impish trio shredded his heartfelt letter, an act that caused Twilight to try and shock him out of unrestrained anger to no avail, the thunderbolt simply phasing through his body before he and the two fillies walked away from the scene of the crime.

Resisting the urge to make glue out of the troublesome threesome, Twilight broke into a mad dash towards the doorway separating her and the abused dragon hatchling, not willing to acknowledge that she would be unable to do anything to change the past even if she tried to do so. Just as she was about to reach the sealed doors, however, the floor underneath her shattered into a million pieces, sending her tumbling into the darkness of nonexistence once again.

They ambushed her unrelentingly, the memories, the visions of a past she thought would be best to be left behind to make way for the future. It was always Spike at her side, watching over her just as protectively as she liked to believe she looked over him, but with this new chance to look closely at the tiny details in a new light came a disturbing realization she had so obliviously overlooked in the past.

They were drifting apart...slowly, subtly.

Years of her life flashed before her in what seemed like minuets, but that was more than enough to notice every tiny change that took place between her and her companion. Whether it was Spike finally asking her to quite calling him by his pet name, or his request to have a bed to himself, the affection between them began to waver and die out little-by-little. Twilight, although she chose to ignore the unheard whines of her subconscious to avoid acknowledging the rift forming in their relationship, suffered on the inside each time an act she had grown so attached to was forcibly ripped away from her.

She buried hopes and dreams she didn't even know about before they had a chance to flourish, locking away her affectionate self to numb the pain of those very same affections being denied, just like Spike had.

'We've been doing the exact same thing all this time...locking away who we truly were because we were afraid to take the plunge into the unknown, keeping up a lie that granted us a false of closeness with one another.'

Her internal musings put together the pieces of the puzzle as she floated in the empty void of nothingness left behind after her nostalgic journey was completed, clarifying what she had come to understand from her experience.

'I've always held Spike in my heart...I guess I was just looking at how I saw him from the wrong perspective all along. What we share isn't mere friendship; this is the sole reason I never sought out anyone else, the source I draw my strength from to make sure nothing would ever stand between him and I, this is something more...'