If there was one thing Princess Celestia forbid Twilight to be with, it was chocolate. Well, large amounts of chocolate to say the least. Twilight was able to curb her chocolate addiction in Ponyville, but she often caved in and ordered a few chocolate muffins just enough to keep her from suffering withdrawal symptoms. Her study sessions often came with her face covered in chocolaty goodness. Celestia made sure that her friends watched her chocolate intake in secret, going as far as having records of Twilight's purchases in Sugar Cube Corner. Of course the Princess forgot to account that Twilight would always be in close proximity to the ticking sugar time-bomb known as Pinkie Pie.

Twilight trotted into Sugar Cube Corner happily; she was anticipating a dozen of chocolate cupcakes that she would eventually eat. It mostly depended on her study habit, short sessions ended with one or two of the pastries gone, and longer ones caused the box to disappear and any other evidence of the cupcakes. Twilight eyed the bright colors of the inside of the bakery while she waited at the counter, ringing the bell every once in a while for service. Twilight stood there for a quiet two minutes, waiting for either of the Cakes or Pinkie Pie to show up.

A huge burst of Chocolate fudge came out the door and engulfed Twilight with the liquid cocoa. Twilight cleaned herself up with her magic as well as having a sample of the fudge.

"Pinkie! What happened!?" Twilight asked a large pile of chocolate shaped like a familiar pony.

"A little baking mix up. Nothing dangerous though." Pinkie answered, before shaking off the candy from her body.

"What did you mix up? Dynamite and birthday candles?" Twilight teased as she helped clean up the mess, and licking the stained spots every few minutes.

"No, laundry detergent and flour." Pinkie answered cheerfully, causing the unicorn to spit out the mouthful she had.

"What were you even trying to make?" Twilight asked while brushing her tongue with a toothbrush she conjured up.

"I'm making the most delicious chocolate cake that anypony has ever seen!" Pinkie continued, Twilight giggled to herself at the ridiculousness of the situation.

"And what exactly is the cake for?" Twilight asked.

"Jeez you and your questions. I'm making a cake for Choco-con 2013! Apparently Sugar Cube Corner's booth is one of the more popular ones, so I'm ready to deliver." Pinkie answered with her tone getting cheerier by the word.

"Choco-con?" She asked confused, but not turned off about the idea.

"Yes Chocolate Convention! From the wonderful ponies that made Choc-tober Fest!" Pinkie Pie explained to her unicorn friend.

"And when is this 'Choc-tober fest?' " Twilight inquired, looking for more information about the conventions.

"April."

"But that hardly makes any sense, why would? Never mind." Twilight quickly dismissed the failure to have clever wordplay with the  convention's odd name. Pinkie payed no attention to the pun; in fact she didn't even get it and returned Twilight's question with a glassy eyed glare.

        "Anyways I'm preppin' up to make the best cake ever. This is the first year I'm going alone since the cakes have their foals." Pinkie Pie explained.

        "If this is going to be anything like the MMMM incident I'm not coming." Twilight answered.

        "What? No it's not going to end up like that," she answered "anyway I think I covered the solve a mystery stage of my life."

        "Well that's good. I guess,"

      "I need to cross the 'have an adventure with Twilight' bullet off my list."

      "But you had several with me."

      "But not one with just you and me."

      "I don't think I should." Twilight defended.

      "Please? I don't want to go alone." Pinkie begged.

      "I mean I'm so busy these days." Twilight shut down.

      "They've included some free first class train tickets."

      "That really sounds tempting and all but I just can't."

      "I'm part of a really important booth so we can  get all the chocolate we can carry." Pinkie Pie bargained.

      "Fine. But only because I'm you're friend and I would hate for you to go all by yourself." Twilight agreed and was met with a cannon ball of pink to her side. Pinkie followed up with an uneccesary amount of thank yous.

      "All right Twilight. This won't be that bad, right?" The librarian chuckled to herself uneasily.

~Squiggly!~

Thunk!

Twilight awoke abruptly to the sound of a pebble colliding against her bedroom window. She groaned to herself before opening the window with her magic. Two seconds later another pebble flew through the window and landed on her wooden floor. The pebble slowly rolled on the floor, and it seemed to have projected its noise just to annoy the magician. Twilight sat up on the bed and finally faced the window; only to be met with another pebble to her face.

"Twilight! Did I wake you up?" Pinkie asked innocently. Twilight repressed her need to strangle her endlessly bubbly friend.

"No, I've been up all night because I caaaan't wait to go," she answered sarcastically.

"You too!?"

Twilight Sparkle sleepily followed the bouncing earth pony that had seemingly endless energy despite it being four in the morning. Twilight cursed to herself about the coldness of the air as she trotted behind Pinkie towards the train platform.

"Tell me why are we boarding the train at four A.M?" Twilight asked; almost regretting the decision to attend the convention. The pink pony didn't answer, and instead ran inside the station.

"Pinkie! Wait up!" Twilight chased after her friend until they got to the right platform, and just as Twilight expected the whole area was empty. The flickering lights of station presented an eerie atmosphere and gave the unicorn chills, or it probably was the freezing steel floor. Twilight sighed to herself and sat on the nearest bench.

"When is this t-train coming?" she stuttered from the coldness of the bench.

"Eight-thirty!"

~~

Twilight finally was able to get her peace . She kept herself as far away from Pinkie Pie as the train's compartment would allow her to. She ignored her friend's ramblings hoping that she would not want to end up killing her friend before the trip was over. She was anticipating the the convention, hoping to get as much as the chocolate she could carry. At a reasonable pace of course. She tried to think of the last time she had been near a large amount of chocolate.

It was Twilight Sparkle's fourteenth birthday, and she seemed to more alone than usual. Her parents hardly had enough time to visit her and the same went for her older brother. She only spoke to the princess on a weekly basis to establish what she was learning. Her birthday dinner probably was the only time she could have a chance to even talk to the princess other than just her education. The teenage unicorn tried her best to pry information from various service ponies.

"So it's not access to stronger spells?"

"I'm required not to answer." The stallion guard said curtly.

"Of course you aren't." Twilight said slightly disappointed; she had been asking several ponies all day the moment she overheard that Celestia was planning something.

"Not even a hint?"

"Nope."

"Riddle?"

"No."

"Really obscure lymeric?"

The guard decided it was better off to stop talking to the filly. He kept his post, ignoring the pouting filly in front of him. Twilight slumped on her haunches and sighed as a last attempt to get him to spill the beans. The unicorn let her head hang low as she gave up onthe guard for any hints. Celestia appointed them for a reason.

Twilight continued to ask the servants, eventually she lost track of the time and was greeted by the sunset outside the nearest window.

"Crud, it's 5:30! I'm gonna be late for my own birthday dinner!" Twilight scolded herself for being careless. She rushed towards her room to get herself halfway decent looking before she goes to see the princess. She multitasked by styling her hair and looking through her wardrobe at the same time she was calculating the quickest route to her destination. The lavender pony stumbled; wobbling on three legs as she tried to slip on a dress that was given to her by her parents.

Twilight hauled herself towards the dining room, her efforts to look good for her celebration in vain as she ran through the countless halls of the castle. She occasionally bumped into objects if she turned a corner too quickly; causing her to swear silently to herself. Twilight made the mistake of running through the court yard; hoping it would cut down her time. Unfortunately her mane wasn't ready to handle a strong gust of wind. Her mane blew wildly in the wind; her mane covering her eyes. Twilight shrieked and hopped on her hindlegs; her back was pressed against a sculpture of Starswirl the Bearded. Her dress was caught against the chiseled cape, and she pulled away unaware of what had happened. When she heard the cloth ripping she knew it was too late.

"Oh come on!" Twilight watch the dress rip; some of the seams splitting at connection points. After the incident, her dress was ripped enough to expose her cutie mark. She groaned at the fact that her parents were probably waiting for her. She could only speculate the looks of shock or even disappointed looks on her parent's faces.

"I might as well not show up," she said to herself.

Twilight burst through the door; startling the ponies that were waiting inside.

"Twiley! I thought you weren't going to show," a familiar voice said from the table.

"What? I wouldn't miss my own birthday party right?"

"Twilight dear, you're not looking too good." Twilight's mother, Star Sparkle chimed in.

"What do you mean? I feel great." Twilight lied; putting a lackluster effort in convincing her mother.

"And your dress! What happened?" The older mare asked. Star Sparkle wondered how her daughter was able to ruin an expensive dress in such a short timeframe.

"Let us just appreciate that she is here and get started." Celestia dismissed the previous conversation. Twilight nodded and mouthed a thanks to her teacher. She trotted over to the nearest empty seat; the seat was at wing's reach of Celestia and adjacent to her parents that chatted amongst each other. She was right next to her older brother and she almost wished that she sat next to her parents. She knew Shining had a tendency to be a bit rough with her at times. Her BBBF was unaware of the fact that he might've been too rough on his little sister.

          Shining was the conversationalist of the family, he was able to keep the dinner interesting and alive instead of having it turn into a deathly quiet meal. They talked about several different subjects. Including Twilight's academics and Shining's guard training. Twilight often answers the questions they asked her with simple one or two word answers.

Shining would occasionally direct the conversation to the birthday filly, but she would remain silent. Twilight hated being the center of attention, she was antisocial and a complete opposite example of her brother. He was more strength and weaker at spells, while she flourished in magic and was atleast... Fit enough to pass for healthy. When ever Shining sent the conversation to her, she would feign chewing on her meal or act like she wasn't paying attention. She put a hoof to her chin and lazily stuffed forkful after forkful of her salad.

"And then he turns to me and says, 'Shining! I you're going to be useless, you might as well be a Wonderbolt!' " As Shining Armor finished his monologue, the ponies around the room laughed while Twilight chuckled lazily; out of politeness of course since she didn't hear a word until the last sentence.

        "Twilight, Sweetheart? Are you okay?" her father asked, Twilight nodded and acknowledged her father's question with a simple "yeah, I'm fine."

"Let us go right ahead to desert." The Princess suggested, the ponies nodded and Twilight still kept her head fixated on hher half eaten-meal. She didn't want to seem ungrateful, but she didn't see the point of her birthday. she figured it was her natural cynicism that followed her around. There was also the destruction of a new dress that she had liked. Twilight payed no attention to the chef that magically pushed a cart with a cake on top. The chef levitated the caked, and set it down carefully in front of the birthday filly. Twilight looked up and finally noticed the full extravagance of the cake.

It was a dark brown, and it had a fudge frosting.  Twilight had birthday cakes before, but she has never seen one with chocolate. She wasn't necessarily eager to dig in to the dirt colored desert. Twilight's parents hardly gave her any sweets; she only got them on special occasions like her birthday or the time where she was taken under Celestia's wing. Her parent's were strict when it came to their children's health. As a result, Twilight never had the experience of having a cake this unhealthy. Twilight eyed the cake cautiously, looking towards her parents for a sign of approval.

They looked back at her; her mother nodded. Twilight looked at the chocolate cake uncertainly, she looked on the top of th cake to see thirteen lit candles positioned in a circle around a miniature unicorn whose horn was lit up as the fourteenth. Twilight's mother led the others to sing a traditional birthday song while the newly appointed fourteen year-old smiled; clearly not knowing what to do while they sang.  The unicorn blew the candles out as the wrapped up the song, and sprouting a chorus of cheers and hollers. Twilight cut herself a generous piece, hoping it would perk her up from the bad events earlier.

The cake was soft and sponge-like. The chocolate fudge on the inside melted on Twilight's inexperienced tongue. She couldn't help but savor the completely new sensation of cocoa. She munched on the piece that happened to have her cutie mark in chocolate. Her family and teacher served themselves their own pieces, but their was still more than half of the cake left.

"I was surprised to hear that Twilight has never had chocolate before." Celestia mentioned to her parents, they agreed to her statement both sharing on how they were able to keep her and her brother away from too much sweets.

"I can't believe I was missing out on this!" Twilight yelled through her mouth filled with cake.

"Twilight, remember your manners," her mother scolded. Twilight apologized after swallowing her mouthful of cake.

Twilight continued to eat while her family talked to each other. The princess left the room after bidding Twilight a farewell and another happy birthday. Celestia reminded Twilight to meet her at the Castle's library to receive her secret gift. The purple unicorn slouched in her chair. She stroked her stomach and realized the calorie intake she just experienced. Twilight didn't care and thought one meal of one day wouldn't be so bad.

~~

"Twilight."

"..."

"Twi?"

"..."

"Twilight! Wake up!" Pinkie pulled the bed sheets from under the sleeping mare. The unicorn rolled off the bed and hit the ground with a thud. She woke up angry and stared at her pink friend with an intention to hit or atleast seriously injure.

"What?!" Twilight growled, obviously not pleased with her rude awakening

"The train's stopped." Pinkie Pie answered truthfully.

        "And why is that?"

"The track is gone!"

~~