<6:54 PM/12:54 AM> Beige: Sorry, popped downstairs to get some Jaffa Cakes
<6:54 PM/12:54 AM> Garuu: What is a Jaffa Cake? o_O
<6:54 PM/12:54 AM> Beige: O.O
<6:55 PM/12:55 AM> Beige: Absolutely gorgeous

“What’s with the cloak?” she asked curiously, staring down at the alicorn-in-disguise with a friendly smile.

Twilight gawked at her cyan friend, her rational thoughts grinding to a halt. ‘Run,’ her mind told her, shutting out her sense of logic and reason. Having begun to disrobe beforehoof, her cutie mark and the tips of her wings were exposed to the air, chilled by a passing breeze. In plain sight. Panicking, she immediately moved the robe back into place with her magic, hoping Dash’s slight obliviousness would play in her favor.

“Twilight? Don’t tell me Rarity’s sense of fashion is rubbing off on you. That thing is huge. If I wore that, I would be mistaken for an earth pony!” the tomboy commented from the rooftop, chuckling to herself.

The purple mare’s ears folded back, and she forced a nonchalant laugh, sneaking a look at the side of her garbed torso. “Y... yeah... How... how ridiculous...” she muttered, forcing a shaky over-smile to her face as she raked her cloak with her eyes for any hint of her wings. Not a bulge in sight, good. But she had to get away somehow. Rainbow wouldn’t understand. Her head whipped to the large dumpster she had leapt over to get into the alley. If she could distract the pegasus, she could probably jump over it and make a break for it. She would definitely be followed, but she might be able to lose the blue blur in the crowd of ponies just outside. She knew better than to try and outrun Rainbow Dash under normal circumstances, but the marketplace was popular today, and the abundance of ponies might confuse the athlete enough to shake her off. And then, Twilight would run all the way back to her house, and be out of this nightmare...

She cast a morose glance at the concrete pavement beneath her hooves, a frown spreading across her muzzle. Going home wouldn’t solve anything. This wasn’t a nightmare that she could just wake up from -- all of this was real. She could never go back to the way things were before; she was stuck like this. But... if she was careful, nopony would ever find out. ‘Wear something, never take it off in public, and don’t ever let anypony ever see you without it,’ she told herself. Right now, the only ones that knew were Spike and Rarity. They wouldn’t tell anyone.

‘Well... there’s also-’

Her ears perked as a torrent of wind blew against her side, interrupting her thoughts. Surprised, she raised her head to see Dash landing next to her and examining her outfit with a pair of rosy eyes.

The blue blur poked the alicorn’s side twice with a hoof, feeling the fabric. “What’s this thing made of? Isn’t it like, hot or something?” she asked, pressing her face against the material.

Twilight moved away, turning to face the cyan pony. Surprisingly, the fabric was extremely light and breathed well -- it didn’t trap heat. She was still sweating slightly, however, but it wasn’t due to the cloak. It was her wings. They trapped her body heat. It seemed to be a genetic device for pegasi, intended to keep the limbs warm so they would remain at peak functionality in the case of an emergency. But, it was rather uncomfortable... She contemplated how they dealt with this -- perhaps they flew often simply to cool off. Rainbow often kept her own wings raised, even when not flying. Perhaps it was her way of staying cool.

Huh... Now that Twilight thought about it, even the princesses did that...

Rainbow Dash frowned. “Twilight? Are you okay?” she asked, blinking with concern. “You’re being really quiet, and... you’re hiding in this really dark alley for some reason...” The speedster craned her neck, scanning the dank environment.

“I’m just dandy. How are you?” Twilight chimed, softening her gaze slightly to make her expression more convincing. But, she was certain she wasn’t fooling anypony. She was smiling a little too hard.

Dash looked at her again, still concerned. “Are you really sure, Twilight? I think something’s up. You look scared.”

The violet pony’s ears folded back again, and her smile vanished. “Uhh... No no, I’m fine... I swear.”

The pegasus stared for a moment longer, before her eyes widened and her expression became slightly smug. “Are you waiting for somepony special here? It’s out-of-the-way, that’s for sure...” she teased, giving a half-lidded grin and laughing to herself.

Twilight’s ears snapped back up, and she gaped. “What?”

“This place is really close to Academane... Were you supposed to meet him here?” the speedster asked, wiggling her eyebrows before bellowing with laughter. “He must be one hunky stallion!”

The appalled pony’s jaw dropped, incredulous. “W-what? No, Dash, I’m not waiting for anypony... err... ‘special!’”

Rainbow raised her eyebrows, her grin widening. “Wow, he must really be something if you’re gonna keep covering for him. Don’t want somepony stealing him?” she asked, roaring with laughter and tipping over onto her back.

Twilight shook her head fervently, her mane whipping back and forth. “No, no! I-I don’t have a coltfriend!” she insisted, her eyes widening slightly as she felt her wings involuntarily extending under her robe. She pulled them back in, holding them tightly against her body.

“Ah hah hah... Look, it’s cool if you don’t wanna talk about him,” the pegasus conceded, waving a blue hoof once from her position on the ground. “Your dress is really pretty though. I bet he’ll like it,” she commented, snickering into her hooves.

“Look Dash, the dress isn’t for-” the purple pony began, before quickly catching herself. Actually, maybe it would be better if her friend thought she was wearing the dress to impress a colt, as opposed to the alternative. What she didn’t know, couldn’t hurt her. “Uh... nevermind.”

“Wait, what were you gonna say?” Dash asked, suddenly interested in the purpose of the dress.

Twilight’s blood ran cold as she stared down at the curious expression of the blue pony on the ground. “Ahh... uhm...” she stuttered, her violet gaze darting off to the side. ‘Oh no... Why did I say that?!’ she thought frantically, biting her lip. A way for her to wriggle out of this had presented itself on a silver platter, and she had just flipped the table. Now her friend wouldn’t leave her alone until she gave her an explanation.

And, if she found out... how would the boisterous filly take it? How long until the rest of Equestria found out?

Rainbow picked herself up off the ground and looked at her friend again. “What’s the dress for, then?” she asked, eyeing the garment. “It isn’t cold out...”

Nervous purple ears folded backwards once more. “N... nothing... I just felt like wearing it...” their owner lied, smiling nervously.

“But Twilight, you never wear clothes!” Dash rationalized, raising her eyebrows, before giving a thoughtful glance to the side. “Uh, and neither does anypony else...” There was a pause. “Why are you so shifty about this, anyway?”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “Don’t you have some clouds to clear?” she snipped, gazing up at the sky for a moment.

The speed demon mimicked her friend, and gaped for a moment at the large scattered cumulonimbus, before bringing her eyes back down. “Uh... yeah, but I’ll do it later. H-hey, where are you going?”

Twilight had seized the opportunity and leapt over the nearby dumpster while her friend was distracted, beginning to briskly trot away in an attempt to outsmart her.

Unfortunately, the pegasus hopped into the air and unfurled her wings, soaring gracefully to her purple friend before touching down next to her. “Twilight, seriously, what’s up?”

“Rainbow Dash, really, just... I need to be somewhere,” the skittish pony replied, using her quick wits to weave in-between the tightly-packed flow of ponies, something the pegasus was unable to reliably emulate. Dodging static obstacles was easy for Rainbow, but when those obstacles were packed tighter than sardines and moving, it wasn’t so simple.

The athlete leapt into the air again to bypass the wall of pedestrians, coming to a mobile hover slightly above Twilight. “Need to be where? What’s the cloak for?” she besieged, bending down to speak into her friend’s ear.

“It’s none of your business, Dash. Just... just leave me alone,” Twilight requested, abruptly passing close to a pillar in an attempt to shake off her pursuer.

Utilizing her natural agility, the blue blur weaved around it with ease. However, in doing so, she lost track of her friend. She whipped her head back and forth, searching for her, before spotting and heading for a nearby dark-maned pony.

“But I want to know!” She exclaimed, her voice almost unintelligible amidst the steadily-increasing volume of chatter as the two neared the center of the marketplace.

“Want to know what?” the violet filly inquired in a relatively deep voice, turning around to reveal a purple earth pony with an oddly-coifed solid black mane and a complexion buried in heavy red makeup.

Rainbow blinked in surprise, her eyes wide open, before looking up and scanning the crowd for her friend. Obviously, she had flown back to the wrong pony. This mare wasn’t even wearing a cloak! She flew higher, avoiding the increased density of other pegasi, and looked down at the crowd. She saw heads, many of them, but none of them were Twilight.

“TWILIGHT!”

---

The fleeing mare hastily pushed her way against the flow of the crowd, turning a corner away from the busy clearing. She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That was close...’ A small piece of ice still nicked at the back of her neck; she did not answer Dash’s questions, and the speedster was no doubt going to track her down now. Whatever... She’d deal with it later.

A sudden surge of liquid fire in her adductor muscles reminded her that she still needed to find someplace to stretch her wings. But, after her unpredictable run-in with Rainbow Dash, she didn’t want to risk doing it anywhere in public. It really hurt, though... The pain was unbearable. A thought crossed her mind; perhaps if she exercised her wings every so often, they wouldn’t suffer from cramps like this. But... Exercise? How would she go about doing that? She didn’t know how to fly. The only method she could think of would be to attempt to fly anyway, but it would be a stupid idea to do it out in the open, and she didn’t want to suffer multiple high-speed meetings of her head and her bookshelves.

The burning, watery pain washed over her wings again, and she let loose an involuntary whimper. The appearance of her wings came with muscles that operated them, including a few on her chest to raise and lower them. Those hurt.

After several agonizingly slow minutes, the crowd began to thin out as she approached the outskirts of the city, the area which held her house-library. She wasn’t paying attention to anything, however -- the unbearable burning in her wing muscles drowned out all external noise and restricted coherent thought.

‘It hurts oh Celestia it burns why does it hurt so much I want to stretch them out wait no there are too many ponies that’ll see me what do I do why is this happening to me it burns it burns IT BURNS!’

She felt a sudden desire to snap her wings out and tear off her cloak, not caring who would see her, not caring that she would destroy her only way of remaining undetected in public. Anything to get rid of the awful pain. She almost did it, too, extending her avian limbs until they physically raised her robe, before she caught herself and pulled them back in. She glanced around in fright -- nopony nearby was looking at her. Good, maybe they hadn’t seen.

She wanted to take off the cloak. Right here. Right now. But, the rational part of her brain told her to keep it on for just a little while longer; the density of the nearby buildings had decreased from a solid wall of signs and advertisements to the occasional occupied house. She was almost to her library.

Her sense of self-preservation was trying to overthrow her long-ruling sense of logic and reason, the two ruthlessly clashing with one another for dominance over her mind. Self-preservation brought in its cavalry, logic and reason defended with long pikes. Self-preservation set up cannons, logic and reason quickly reinforced its stone castle walls. Self-preservation’s soldiers apprehended logic and reason’s king. Checkmate.

Where was her house?!

She gazed up ahead, attempting to spot her abode in the distance. Everything out there was oddly... sharp. Normally she couldn’t make out objects farther than two hundred feet away, but they now appeared crystal-clear to her. Unfortunately, focusing on something off in the distance rendered her oblivious to things close-by, and she walked straight into a passing colt, almost knocking him onto his back.

“Hey!” the beige pony yelled at her, regaining his footing and narrowing his eyes.

Twilight muttered an apology, before leaving with haste -- she didn’t want to attract any attention. Eventually, the soft green flora of her home came into view, and relief washed over her. “Finally...” she moaned, her wings twitching with anticipation under her cloak.

She broke into a gallop, responding to the almost magnetic pull of the shelter and safety of her own house. There weren’t nearly as many ponies out here as there were at the marketplace, but there were still some, and she had to dodge and weave in-between them to avoid a collision. Building after building passed by in a multicolored blur, their details indistinguishable to her. Eventually, she skid to a stop in front of the door to her house and briskly opened it to let herself in. Closing it behind her, she telekinetically gripped the cloak she wore and violently tugged it over her head, throwing it against a wall with a whump and letting it land in a soft heap.

Now free of the constricting garment, she snapped her long wings out to her sides, extending them as far as they would go, and a little farther. She grunted from the simultaneous exertion and relief the action brought, gritting her teeth as her wing muscles moved as far outward as they possibly could. ‘Ahh... Yes...’ she thought, breathing deeply, her knees buckling beneath her.

Her body felt as if it had been dunked in pleasantly warm water after a moment, and she closed her eyes, relishing in the enjoyable feeling. After what felt like hours of holding her wings tightly against her sides, stretching them out brought an immeasurable amount of relief. A small voice of worry spoke up in the back of her mind, telling her that somepony could easily just look through her window and see her ‘glorious’ avian limbs, but at the moment she didn’t care.

Suddenly, a horrible, rigid pain began to replace the pleasant warmth, and she gasped, pulling her new limbs back to her body as her eyes shot wide open. She lost her footing and collapsed on the floor with a cry, whimpering as her new supracoracoideus muscles suffered from the worst Charley Horse she had ever experienced. “Ow! Oww! Oww!!” she yiped, crossing her front legs over her chest and holding it tight in a futile attempt to alleviate the paralyzing sensation. She lay there, panting in agony for a few minutes before the pain finally ebbed away.

That was not enjoyable. That was horrible. Regardless, she picked herself up from the floor and shook herself off, trying to push the memory of what had just happened out of her mind. Her ears turned this way and that, expecting a noise that would indicate the presence of her library assistant. Minutes passed, and yet she heard nothing. There was no one here... she had the entire house to herself.

She looked up at the carved indents of the ceiling, then at the wood paneling of the floor. Having so far taken the day’s events as they came, she found she finally had some time alone to... contemplate. She lowered herself slowly to her haunches, and looked behind her at the large wings that graced her midsection. She shut her eyes tight and took a deep, shaking breath, before exhaling and opening them again. Regardless of how much she wanted to believe it, all of this wasn’t temporary. It wasn’t a joke. She actually had wings... and... by the looks of it, she would have them for the rest of her life...

“I... I-I have...” she stuttered quietly to herself, her mind reeling. She closed her eyes, tearing her gaze away from the twin masses of feather and muscle on her back. “I-I can’t...”

Pacing her breathing, she set her jaw and steeled herself. ‘Say it!’ a part of her demanded. ‘Say it!!’

“I-”

Whimpering pathetically to herself, she gave her back one final cursory glance. She extended her wings a little, and gulped. The feel of ruffled feathers... her feathers sliding against each other as the wings were lifted... The gentle brush of her secondaries against her sides... The slight discomfort after her violent muscle cramp... The phantom weight of the unfamiliar limbs, twitching slightly to maintain her balance...

She flicked them, shaking her head. There was no denying it. She needed to just accept it. “I... I have...” She cleared her throat, feeling the extra weight on her shoulders shift as she did so. “I have wings!”

The purple mare immediately flinched at the words, ears laid flat against her head as her statement faintly echoed back to her from the wooden corridors. A dreadful silence once again flooded the library after the outburst, giving way to the ever-present ringing in her ears and amplifying it to be as loud as a siren. She sat in place, shutting her eyes tight and shaking her head at the floor as her mind processed the information. She still didn’t want to believe it. The fact itself was strangling her. So far, she had been playing along with her change because she had been forced to, because she had no way to prove that what she was experiencing was false. She had tried to remain hidden because she had to, she requested the dress from Rarity because she had to, she lied to Rainbow Dash because she had to. Everything she had done so far had simply been the most logical option.

But now, to hear it from herself, the truth finally began to set in. It was one thing to accept it and act accordingly, but it was another thing entirely to truly believe it.

She slowly rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “I have wings now...” she muttered to herself, her mind still reeling. “I have wings... Why do I have wings...?”

She knew there was no logical explanation for it. She’d searched for one, but nothing made sense. She had grown two additional limbs. It had happened, and as far as she knew, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She was, essentially, a... a freak. Who else had a horn and wings? The princesses did, but they were immortal goddesses, and nopony questioned it.

She was just a unicorn. Not a princess, not a goddess, not immortal. She wasn’t supposed to have wings. Everything she knew had a scientific explanation for why it worked the way it did, but this just made no sense at all!

She frowned as she recalled her initial perception on Pinkie Pie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’. ‘Sometimes a pony just has to accept things the way they are,’ a voice inside her head whispered. She let out a pained sigh. Maybe this was just one of those things in the world that couldn’t be explained. Things like this made her twitch, made her fur stand on end. Nothing happens without a reason. But right now, she had wings, and that was just the way things were. She would just have to learn to... deal with herself.

She still possessed her horn, implying that in some way she was still a unicorn, and yet she had somehow acquired the gift of the pegasi. Was she somewhere in-between? So far, she had assumed by deduction that she had become an alicorn, the only known pony race that naturally had both a horn and wings. At the time, it had seemed like a logical assumption. But weren't alicorns meant to embody all three of the pony races?

'Keep it together, Twilight; it's no good making assumptions. An alicorn has the qualities of the unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies. I only know for certain that... I now have two of them. Unless I start exhibiting... whatever earth pony qualities an alicorn exhibits, all I know is that I am a winged unicorn.

'Am I the first...?'

She opened her eyes, taking a deep breath. Even if she wasn’t an alicorn, she still couldn’t say that she was normal. She shook her head to clear it; there was no more use fretting about her sudden change of species. So, she was a winged unicorn... A pony of magic, and... flight. Flight? Winged ponies, usually pegasi, were often given training at an early age to teach them the skills required for proper aeronautics. She had not received training as such. She didn’t have wings ‘at an early age’. If she was going to learn how to fly, apparently she would just have to teach herself. Standing, she flapped her wings experimentally -- that was easy. The hard part would be flapping them enough to counteract her weight against the pull of gravity. Her wings were large, which meant that they possessed more surface area and would displace more air, so she might have a slightly easier time than a pegasus. But... she didn’t need to fly. She levitated a book off of a nearby shelf to prove a point to herself, but instead of opening it, simply put it back. She didn’t really feel like reading.

She felt her wings shift involuntarily, their purple feathers rustling. She didn’t need to fly... but... some exercise would be nice. Spike had always bugged her about how she never did anything active, and she herself gradually realized that she was rather physically unfit. Besides, she didn’t want another cramping episode, and... she might as well get used to having wings. If she had them, she might as well learn to use them.

Exercise... The obvious method would be to attempt to fly. What better way to work certain muscles than to use them for their intended purpose? But... She looked back at her wings. Well, if it meant they wouldn’t ache any more... She sighed. Of all the things she wanted to do, flying was pretty low on the list. But at least it would get rid of the cramps, as they were probably due to disuse. She took a breath, and telekinetically gripped the curtains on the front window, pulling them together to block any wayward glances that would happen to be cast her way.

She then spread her wings, raising them up into the air. How did the pegasi do this? Well, they always started with a few strong flaps to get them off the ground, right? She faced forward and took a deep breath, before bringing her wings to the floor in a powerful downstroke. She felt weight being taken off of her front hooves, before her upper body rose into the air. It felt almost like rearing up on her hind legs, except... lighter, somehow. She flapped again, harder. The sudden upward thrust tilted her backwards, causing her to rear back a little farther than she intended. With a surprised squeak and a futile wiggle of her forehooves, she toppled and landed in a heap on her back. She lay there for a moment, blinking, before releasing her breath in an angry huff to move her mane out of her eyes. She felt her cheeks burning up from embarrassment, regardless of the fact that nopony was present to witness her blunder. She rolled over and rose to her hooves, preparing herself for another attempt.

She flapped more this time, and experienced the same result, in addition to sending herself sliding backwards into one of her bookshelves and causing a few titles to fall onto her face. The quietest of growls escaped her throat.

Third time’s the charm. Perhaps pegasi actually leapt into the air during their takeoffs. She’d always seen Rainbow Dash do that. She coiled herself, focusing her mind on her bent limbs before bucking at the floor, launching her body upwards. She flapped her wings frantically, managing to keep herself aloft for a second or two before she tilted backwards and careened straight into another bookshelf. She hit it hard, the jarring impact causing her vision to briefly flash white, before she fell to the floor in a heap of lavender feathers.

“Owwww...” she moaned, rubbing the back of her head with a purple hoof. At this rate, she’d have a major concussion in the next half-hour. Her ears perked as she heard a strange creaking noise, before the bookshelf next to her leaned forward and smashed her against the floor. She screamed in pain, her voice echoing throughout her house, her body trapped in-between the two-hundred-pound piece of furniture and the hard wooden floorboards beneath. She instinctively kicked at it, trying to get it off of her, and managed to push the storage unit up enough for her to slip out from underneath. She collapsed on the floor next to the fallen bookcase, panting from both physical exertion and a sudden ripping pain in her back.

She groaned miserably, reaching up to feel the aching area in-between her shoulder blades. It... it felt... She brought her hoof in front of her face, her eyes widening at what met her gaze. Part of the fur on her hoof was matted and stained a deep red. She blinked a few times, her attention steadily being drawn to the area of her back that stung in the cold air. She had injured herself, and she was bleeding... She placed her hooves on the floor and pushed herself up, her injury sending out a sharp jolt of pain in protest. Spike wasn’t here, so she needed to treat the wound herself. She grunted and whimpered simultaneously with each step as she headed into the kitchen, her eyes scanning the room for the cabinet where she kept her medical supplies.

‘There,’ she thought, spotting the white wooden cupboard on the wall. She opened it with her magic, and telekinetically grabbed a roll of sterile white medical gauze, before gripping the seam and pulling outwards. She found it... difficult to both hold the gauze and unroll it at the same time. She panted as she focused, her magic threatening to flicker out. This was more difficult than she remembered it being... she had always been capable of holding and manipulating multiple objects simultaneously, but her magic just seemed to not want to obey her today. ‘Come on... Come on...’ she thought, slowly and carefully wrapping some of the bandage around her torso. She turned her head to see what she was doing, and her eyes widened as she beheld the wound. It looked like a laceration, an ugly, jagged red gully that ran from halfway down her midsection to just below her neck. Thankfully it wasn’t very deep, but it still bled, staining the fur around it a deep crimson. It was most likely caused by a sharp part of the bookshelf digging into her back, and oh Celestia, it hurt.

A sharp clattering filled the otherwise silent room as her magic suddenly flickered out, the bandages dropping to the floor. She simply stared at the medical supply, incredulous. ‘That’s never happened before...’ she thought, completely baffled. Her magic had never just given out like that, for as long as she could remember. She focused on the roll, gritting her teeth and shutting her eyes tight as she called upon her magic. It... Why wouldn’t it...?

After a few seconds, her horn lit up, and the medical supply rose into the air once more, although the amaranthine aura around it was faint and weak. What was going on? Why was using magic so difficult? She felt like a foal again, back when she still studied profusely on how to tap into her own inner powers. Nowadays, her magic just came to her. But now... it wouldn’t work!

She hissed a breath, focusing on her respiration and trying to calm herself down. Her magic had always been weak when she was frustrated. She couldn’t concentrate when she was all riled up. Maybe if she just calmed down, everything would become clear. She slowed her breathing, taking deeper, longer breaths, until the pounding in her chest stopped. ‘Be calm, Twilight...’ she told herself, letting her eyelids slide shut.

After a few moments, she opened her eyes again, refocusing on the bandages. Levitation was... slightly easier now. She continued wrapping them around her midsection, completely covering the laceration that ran from her neck down, before pulling it tight. ‘Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.’ She fixed it in place with some medical tape, before storing the supplies back in the cabinet.

Well... flying was out of the question now. She sighed in discontent. She knew this would happen. She knew she would hurt herself. That’s why she didn’t want to do this in the first place.

A desultory thought crossed her mind. She had wings now... and she felt like her magic was weakening. Was she turning into a... a pegasus? She gaped at nothing in particular, before shaking her head with a crude smile. That’s ridiculous. As ridiculous as her turning into an alicor-... ‘Oh, right...’

She frowned, before dismissing the thought. It was probably nothing. She resisted the urge to scratch the wound on her back -- she didn’t want to exacerbate it, regardless of how very much it itched. She yawned, her eyelids heavy. She was still tired... Icy fear had been keeping her awake almost all day, but now that she was in a safe place... maybe it wouldn’t hurt to rest her eyes for a few minutes. After all, she’d only had three hours of sleep to run on. She painfully cantered to a cobalt-blue couch in the front room and tentatively laid down on it, tucking her wings in and resting her head on a soft pillow. No one could bother her here... No one could see her here... She was completely safe. Just a few minutes...

---

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, her ears perking at the sound of her front door opening. As it was followed by a second sound, the door closing, she lifted her head off of her pillow and scanned for the source of the noise. Standing in front of the door was a small purple-and-green dragon, carrying a large black vest designed for a racer pegasus. Oh, it was Spike. She blinked at him, but her assistant seemed to have yet to notice her. She blinked a few more times, wiping her eyes with a purple hoof. Oh, right... She was trying to catch up to him before he bought that thing. He sure had taken a long time... Twilight had been out for a couple hours, but upon her return, he wasn’t in the library. She took a deep breath. Maybe he was just held up by something.

“Spike?” she croaked, her voice somewhat raspy from the position she’d been lying in for some time. She scanned the room with her eyes for a clock, but quickly abandoned the task when she couldn’t find one.

The dragon turned at the sound of his name. “Oh! Hey Twilight, I didn’t see you there. I-I got the vest you wanted,” he greeted, grinning and holding up the racing attire for her to see.

Twilight cast her gaze to the magenta cloak lying against the wall opposite from the door, and she sagged a little. “Uhm... Yeah, about that... You see, I wanted the vest to... to hide my wings, not show them off. I was going to tell you to get a different one, but I couldn’t find you,” she replied, turning to face him again.

He froze for a moment, blinking. “...Oh... you... So you aren’t wanting to fl-” He clapped his claws over his mouth. “Uhhh... Nevermind. I’ll just put this somewhere.”

The purple pony shot him an incredulous glance. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. I-I didn’t say anything,” he replied, briskly walking around a corner with the vest. “I’ll just...”

Twilight simply lay there, blinking in surprise for a moment. Spike was oddly skittish today... And what was he going to say? Did it have something to do with the vest?

“Spike?” she called, gently rising to a sitting position on her couch. She received no answer, but after a half-minute, the dragon in question returned through the doorway, freezing again upon sighting her.

He ran his eyes up and down her figure. “Twilight, what happened? Are you hurt?”

Oh, right... the bandage. Her injury. “Uh... I just hurt myself. Don’t worry; I already fixed it,” she answered, smiling as she attempted to stand up. She winced as the gouge on her back sent another electric jolt of pain through her, and she grunted, falling back to the couch on her stomach. “I-It’s nothing...” she forced through grit teeth.

Spike ran to her side and placed his hand on the bandage covering the wound, inspecting it. She had wrapped it around her wing joints, since she didn’t want to bind the feathered limbs to her body (they were uncomfortable enough as is), and as such the bandages were haphazardly wrapped and had lost their tautness over time.

She frowned. “Don’t touch it, Spike...”

“Twilight... These aren’t going to do much if they aren’t tightened properly. Here, let me,” he offered, undoing the straps around the pony’s midsection and neatly sliding them off, discarding them into a nearby wastebasket.

Twilight winced as the cold air stung her wound, but kept still so the dragon could work. She wasn’t very good at medical practices; that was her assistant’s forte, so it was no surprise to her that she screwed up.

“Ouch... I’ll be right back,” he empathized, darting to the kitchen for a moment to fetch the same roll of gauze that his older sister had used previous, before returning and beginning to gently wrap it around her midsection. He applied the medical strips in an X-shape, with one set of bandages extending from the front of her left wing to behind her right, and another vice versa. He bit the gauze to rip it off, and then fastened it with the medical tape. “Okay, there, I fixed it.”

She shook herself gently, trying the integrity of the straps. They were comfortable, and they didn’t slide around. “Thanks, Spike...” she breathed, smiling at her assistant.

“No problem!” he chirped in response.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Now, Spike? What were you talking about earlier?” she asked, curious.

Spike’s slitted green eyes darted left and right nervously. “Talking about what?”

“With the vest. What were you saying?” she elaborated, her eyebrows furrowing slightly at her assistant.

“I... I... I wasn’t saying anything. I swear,” he insisted, waving his hands in front of his face and shaking his head, his expression distraught. “Just forget it.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the dragon, who grit his fanged teeth in trepidation, before she sighed quietly and looked away. “Okay, then...”

“So...What happened over there?”

She looked at him again -- he was pointing a purple index claw to the fallen bookshelf that she had crashed into earlier, the very same object that had carved a laceration in her back. “Uhh...” she mumbled, lighting up her horn and telekinetically gripping the wooden furniture. She tugged upwards, intending to set it upright, but it refused to budge. She grunted in concentration, before releasing her magic, remembering that it was weak at the time. She couldn’t lift heavy objects without intense focus, and even then, she could only do it at her peak strength. That bookcase weighed two hundred pounds; there was absolutely no way she was going to move it.

She tried to stand up again, before another stab of pain grounded her, forcing a loud whimper from her throat. It sounded almost like the bay of an injured dog, and her cheeks flushed, embarrassed of that sound coming out of her mouth.

Spike gently rubbed the back of her neck to soothe her. “Twilight, just... stay here and get comfortable, okay? I’ll get a blanket for you,” he requested, exiting the room to fetch the aforementioned fabric.

Twilight heaved a sigh. She couldn’t even stand up now, and it was all because she had attempted to fly. She absent-mindedly wondered if some of her blood was still on the bookcase that had fallen on her, and turned her head to the furniture in question. She thought she could see a faint red streak on the floor, but dismissed it.

Her assistant returned momentarily with a large blue comforter, and draped it gently over her, tucking the sides under her legs. It was very soft, smoothly outlining her body and wings. “Alright Twilight, that cut on your back wasn’t very deep, so in a couple of days it’ll heal up. It might leave a scar, though...” he informed, trailing off. “...How did it happen, anyway?”

The purple pony shifted nervously, before casting another glance at her inanimate assailant and the faint red streak on the floor. “Ahh... I...” she mumbled, worried. The stain of blood on the wooden floorboards was actually from her scraping her back against the paneling as she dragged herself out from underneath the bookcase. She shuddered at the memory, her ears folding. Should she tell him what happened? She was trying to fly, but hit a bookcase so hard that it caused it to fall on her. Knowing Spike, he might interpret it as her wanting a... a tutor. In flying. ‘Hey guys, you’ll never guess what my newest student is!’ Yes, all of Equestria would love to know what the hypothetical tutor’s newest student was. Not who, what.

Unfortunately, Spike’s gaze followed her own, and he began walking to the fallen bookcase. “Was it something ov-” he began, but abruptly stopped short and gasped upon sighting the crimson stain on the floor. He whipped his head in-between the red markings and the winged unicorn lying on the couch. “W-what happened?” he besieged, panicked.

“It... it’s nothing, Spike,” Twilight reassured, trying to get up again. Another stab of pain, another whimper and another collapse. ‘Stop it!’ she yelled inwardly at herself, her temples hot with frustration. Each time she whimpered, it destroyed the ability of her statements to convince her housemate that she was fine. But it was unintentional, and she couldn’t help it.

Spike ran back to her, placing his claws on the back of her neck. “I-I don’t think it’s nothing, Twilight. There’s blood on the floor, and you keep whimpering when you try to move,” he concluded, his eyebrows upturned.

Her cheeks burned. Of course, it was her whimpering that tipped him off. Grrgh! She decided to try and change the topic. “So Spike, you didn’t seem very surprised this morning at me suddenly having wings,” she began, looking at her assistant as she remembered how this horrible day started. He was only mildly bewildered at her changes, as opposed to... to... to Rarity. Her ears folded as she recalled how the unicorn had thrown various objects at her, thinking she was an impostor. Now that she thought about it, it was rather strange behavior for the white mare. Well, it was also rather early in the morning; the fashionista hadn’t even finished curling her mane when Twilight had arrived at her house. Perhaps she was just being overly cautious -- nopony ever came into the Boutique before it opened without a good reason. And again, it was very early in the morning... Twilight was not a morning pony, and sometimes acted out of conduct when faced with a strange problem in a premature day. Perhaps her alabaster friend was the same way. She shook her head dismissively; She’ll ask Rarity about it later.

Spike shrugged. “It’s not really that strange to me. Dragons are the same way -- we don’t have wings when we’re born; they usually grow in later,” he explained.

The winged unicorn gaped slightly, her mouth forming an understanding ‘o’. “...Really? I didn’t know that. It wasn’t in any of my books,” she replied, blinking. She really didn’t have many books on dragons, and she knew for a fact that she had none on draconian anatomy.

A moment of silence passed between them, Spiking beginning to awkwardly tap his claws together. “Uhm... so... What made that big cut on your back? Was it that bookshelf? Did it fall on you?” he asked, meeting his sister’s purple gaze.

Twilight remained silent, looking into her housemate’s emerald-green eyes. Her ears folded behind her head. She didn’t want Spike to get the wrong idea. Perhaps she could bend the truth just a tad...

“Y... Yes. I was...” she began, her eyes flicking about as she looked for an excuse for the bookshelf to have fallen on her without telling him what had actually happened. “I...”

“You were...?” He echoed, blinking.

The winged pony bit her lip. “I-I was trying to...”

Spike scratched his chin, glancing back at the bookcase, before eyeing his housemate. “Did you knock it over?”

Twilight looked away. “I... Well... Kinda...”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Really?” He turned again to size up the heavy bookcase. “You must have hit it pretty hard to knock it over. What were you even doing?” he asked, a scaly eyebrow raised.

Twilight’s wings rustled involuntarily under her blanket, the quiet sound of the plumage near-deafening in the silence of the library. She ducked her head, ears back, refusing to meet Spike’s concerned gaze. “I...”

A silent moment passed between the two, and she grimaced. She really didn’t want to talk about it... Her attention was suddenly drawn to her avian limbs, and the sensation of their feathers brushing over her sides. ‘Hang on, why am I doing that? Is this some kind of nervous pegasus tick?’ Her ears perked up at the sound of claws clacking against wood.

“Twilight,” Spike began, drumming his fingers on the wall. He reached up and laid a hand on her crest, grinning. “You didn’t try to fly in here, did you?” he teased.

The purple mare flinched in fright. “...N... No,” she lied, slowly turning her head to face her inquirer, who playfully raised his scaly eyebrows.

“Are you lying to me?”

Twilight swallowed with trepidation. How did he know...?

“It’s alright, Twilight,” the dragon said, chuckling outwardly. “I understand -- you want to learn how to fly.” He moved his hand to the soft quilt that covered her right wing, smiling in approval. “Don’t want to let your wings go to waste, right?”

The violet pony frowned sadly. “I... Th... They were hurting... I-I just wanted to...” she whimpered, casting a glance back at her feathered limbs as she fumbled for words. “I... I...”

Spike seemed to be ignoring her. “Just... be careful, okay? That cut on your back looks like it hurts,” he empathized, casting a concerned glance her way. “I can put some mats all over one of the rooms so you can practice without hurting yourself again, if you’d like.”

She blinked a few times, slightly befuddled at the dragon’s support. Mats actually seemed... kind of nice. If she were to fall down while flying, the mats would cushion the force of the impact, instead of letting her body slam against the hard wooden floor. Practice... She would have to practice. But at least she wouldn’t break a bone while doing it. Her expression relaxed, and a small smile graced her lips, her eyes glowing. “Thanks, Spike.”

The reptile simply smiled back in response. “Don’t mention it. I’ll set them up soon, when you’re feeling better.” He pulled the blanket a little farther forward on Twilight’s body, tucking it under her fuzzy purple chest. “If you want to learn on your own, that’s completely fine, I just need to cancel with Rar-” he began, before abruptly stopping, blinking surprised eyes. “...N-nevermind.”

Twilight gave him a curious look. “What?”

“It-it’s nothing,” Spike answered, his slitted pupils darting left and right once more. “Get plenty of rest, okay?”

“A-alright...” she conceded, resting her face on her pillow.

He smiled approvingly, before leaving the room without another word.

She laid in silence, deep in thought as she rested. For once, she wished that there was some sort of noise present. Silence... was actually unnerving. She preferred some kind of noise; something constant and unchanging, like the light pattering of rain, and the occasional boom of thunder... She liked rain. The sound it made on her windows... The dim lighting... The way the air smelled... It relaxed her. What she wouldn’t give for the local weather pegasi to schedule a little drizzle right here, right now...

“Twilight? Your, uh, feathers are still all over the record room,” a voice called from nearby.

Twilight raised her head to look -- Spike was leaning around the doorframe, gazing at her curiously. Her... her feathers? Oh, right, her little ‘session’ that morning... They definitely needed to be cleaned up. If one of her friends were to stop by her library, they would see the plumage all over her carpet, and she wouldn’t have any way to explain it.

“I was going to throw them away, but... do you want to keep them? I mean, they’re pretty big.” He chuckled. “At the rate you preen them, you’d never run out of quills again!”

She gaped at her assistant for a moment, before her eyes narrowed into a hostile glare. “Not funny,” she growled through her teeth, preparing herself to stand upright, before thinking better of it. She could tell that her housemate was restraining himself from laughing, despite his expression being mostly blank -- his cheeks were slightly raised, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. She growled again, louder. “It’s not funny, Spike!”

“Okay, okay, it’s not,” he surrendered in appeasement, raising one flat palm. “But do you want me to keep them?”

Twilight sighed angrily. “Yes, whatever, keep them.”

He nodded once in response and disappeared behind the doorway, his light footsteps indicating his travel away from the room.

The winged unicorn laid on her pillow once more, closing her eyes. This was stupid. This was all stupid. The wings, the feathers, her supposedly having turned into an alicorn, everything. She was perfectly content with just being a unicorn. But no, some higher power decreed that she not have that luxury. Now, she was stuck as some... some hybrid, something in-between a unicorn and a pegasus. Maybe an alicorn; she wasn’t entirely sure yet.

She growled angrily and stomped weakly at her pillow with a hoof, remembering Spike’s rude joke about her feathers. Use her own feathers as quills? Seriously? That would be way too obvious. Well, actually, most ponies would probably assume that she had a pegasus friend with a coat color similar to hers. Maybe she was just over-thinking this... Her assistant had always told her that she was a very clever pony, and that most other ponies’ wits weren’t quite as quick as hers.

‘Twilight, that’s hardly fair,’ she quickly berated herself for that line of thought.

She raised her head and cast an exhausted gaze at the two wings on her back, lighting up her horn to lift up the blanket that covered them. Her feathers actually were pretty big... They were about the same size as the quills she often used, if a tad longer. The dragon’s suggestion was insensitive, but... it might actually be practical. It would be one less reason for her to leave her house.

She let go of the blanket and returned her head to her pillow. She could already feel her limbs twitching with pent-up energy. Was she going to have to just lie here for the next two days? Wasn’t there something she could do that could help heal the wound? Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to speed up the natural pony healing process with magic. Many had tried, none had succeeded. Magic could not control the actions of individual cells, such as their divisions. Magic could supposedly conjure new cells, but the operating unicorn would have to copy the patient’s genetic code; every single chromosome, every strand of DNA, with one hundred point zero percent accuracy. If one nucleotide was different, the natural cells would attack the conjured ones. Power would do nothing, and the level of precision required was simply beyond the ability of any pony.

Unicorn nurses and surgeons simply held and worked their tools with common telekinesis. Some were even clever enough to make their tools out of magic. Magic could temporarily disable certain nerves to alleviate pain, and it could blanket-kill bacteria when absolute precision wasn’t necessary. But it couldn’t force the body to heal any faster than its normal rate, no matter how great the unicorn’s control over magic.

Still, there were other methods of healing besides magic. Zecora would probably be able to-...

She frowned. ‘Nevermind...’ she thought, sighing into her pillow. She guessed she was out of commission for the next few days. Might as well just lie here, and...

A knocking at the library’s front door interrupted her thoughts. It was calm, it was smooth, but it was hastened. After a moment of contemplation, her muscles tensed up with fear. “Oh no...” she whispered to herself, her head shooting up from her pillow to view the house’s entrance. She was still in the front room! Fortunately the door was locked, so maybe she could-

“Twilight?” a familiar tomboyish voice asked from behind the door, followed by a few harsh raps on the wood. “Are you in here?” it asked again, muffled by the wall.

Spike casually walked into the room in response to the noise, obviously to answer the door, before halting upon hearing the doorknob click back and forth as somepony tried to open it. “Oh... Were you expecting somepony?” he asked to Twilight with a nonchalant shrug.

“Spike? Is that you? Let me in!” the pony outside demanded, her voice cracking.

Twilight felt like she was frozen solid. ‘Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,’ a betraying voice in the back of her head whispered to her. She whipped her gaze to her bipedal assistant, pleading with her purple eyes. “Spike... Can you cover for me? Just pretend I’m not here. Tell her I’m not here!” she whispered in panic, before laying several pillows around her midsection with her teeth and pulling her blanket further up onto her body with her telekinesis. She doubted this would work, pretending to be just a lump of cloth on the couch, but then again, Rainbow wasn’t the sharpest knife in the box of crayons. She pulled the quilt over her head, and attempted to be still.

The sound of claws on wood circled around her, heading to the front door. She felt her lungs burn as she tried to control her breathing, trying to be silent and unmoving. Her wings quivered slightly under her blanket.

The sound of her little brother’s footsteps ceased for a moment. They still sounded too close. He couldn’t be at the door yet. Had Dash left? Had... had she found another way in?

Knock knock knock... “C’mon Twi, open up!”

‘Nope, nevermind...’

“Twilight, she’s going to find out eventually,” Spike pointed out, not bothering to lower his voice by much. “She’s your friend, you know. Why don’t you just show her now?”

The concealed mare snapped her head up, throwing the blanket off of her face and glaring incredulously at her assistant. “Spike, are you serious?!” she growled, almost breaking her whisper. “She... she can’t find out! If ponies find out, they’ll think I’m some sort of freak! You can’t tell her!”

Spike turned his head to look at the door, before casting a final, concerned glance Twilight’s way and heading to it without another word.

She quickly ducked her head and brought the blanket back over her, tucking it neatly to disguise herself as an oddly-shaped throw pillow. ‘Please, Spike...’ she thought to herself, shifting nervously to get into a more comfortable position.

She heard a scaly hand grip the steel pin of the lock, before a very sharp clack rippled through the air as the lock mechanism unlatched. The door opened, allowing a brief gust of wind to pass into the room. She clutched the blanket tightly with her hoof.

“Hi, Dash!” Spike greeted, his toes tapping methodically on the floor as he pivoted back and forth on his heels. “What brings you here?”

“Spike, have you seen Twilight around? I’ve been looking for her,” the athlete began, her wings making light flapping noises as she hovered just outside the doorway. “Also, why were all your windows completely locked up?”

A nervous bead of sweat rolled down Twilight’s forehead. ‘Spike...’

“Uh... I don’t know,” the dragon replied, obviously playing dumb.

The hidden mare quietly exhaled in relief, taking care to make absolutely sure she wasn’t moving. She didn’t want to give herself away.

“Hey uh, I heard you saying something before you opened the door,” Rainbow announced, her hooves tapping the concrete patio as they touched down. Her wings rustled as they folded against her sides. “Is somepony in there with you?”

Twilight almost flinched, cursing inwardly at her assistant’s inconsiderate audacity. ‘Darn it, Spike! D-don’t tell her!’

There was silence for a moment. “...Uhh... I was talking to...” Spike began.

Twilight’s blood ran cold, and she grit her teeth. ‘NO!’

“...to... to myself. Yeah, I was just rambling. I talk to myself when I’m thinking,” the dragon lied, tapping his claws together.

The winged unicorn exhaled again in relief, but she could feel herself trembling with anxiety. She shut her eyes tight and concentrated on holding still. Spike was just about pulling through for her so far, but it would all be for nothing if she blew her own cover.

She felt another gust of wind penetrate her blanket as the front door closed. Dash was inside now. ‘Spike, you idiot...’ she thought angrily, realizing that this meant she would have to keep hiding until the cyan pegasus left. And her little disguise wasn’t exactly well-ventilated -- She could feel herself beginning to sweat.

“So... Do you know where Twilight is? I need to talk to her,” Rainbow vocalized, suddenly very close to the purple pony’s location. “I saw her at the marketplace today, but she bolted before I could ask her something.”

Twilight held her breath, her tremors threatening to return.

“Ask her what?” her housemate asked in reply, the claws of his feet tapping the floor as he approached the couch alongside the tomboy.

“Well, she was wearing this really big cloak, and... Wait... That’s it over there, by that wall. Is she here?” Dash rationalized.

A few extra-colorful words ran through the lavender pony’s mind. She had left the cloak there. That was stupid! She should have hung it up! She mentally smacked herself on the forehead. Spike’s soft, clacking footsteps trailed to the wall that held the purple garment, and a rustling sound indicated that he had picked it up.

“Whoa... So this is the dress that Ra-” Spike began, before abruptly stopping. “Uh... It’s a really pretty dress.”

Twilight blinked multiple times underneath her blanket. What was with Spike today? Did... did he know something that he wasn’t letting on?

“Ehm... I’ll just go hang this up in the record room,” the dragon announced, his feet tapping as he left the room with the dress. Soft clopping followed him.

Hold on, the record room...? Twilight threw her head up, her face twisted with fright. Her feathers were still strewn all over the floor in that room! ‘No no no no no no no no no no no no!’ she thought as she hastily climbed out of the pillows that buried her, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out from the ripping pain in her back. If any ponies were to suspect something from seeing her preened plumage, it would definitely be Dash or Fluttershy. They probably preened their feathers too, and as such, probably knew what the results were. She was done for.

Unless... unless she could do something about it before they got there. Multiple options presented themselves to her. She could try casting her invisibility spell on the feathers... No, that was too hard. Something was up with her magic, and she couldn’t even see her target. She could... try to just move them somewhere, she guessed. But again, she couldn’t see her target. She could cast a sealing spell on the door so neither of them could open it... Once again, she couldn’t see her target, and sealing was a difficult spell, relying either on knowledge of the inner-workings of a door lock, or just sheer brute force. The only viable option that remained was to teleport into the record room from where she was and lock the door from the inside, and perhaps take care of her feathers once there. Teleportation was difficult too, but... she’d just have to try. If she didn’t, then this would be the end of her secret.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply and concentrated on the image of the room that her two friends were headed to. She called upon the small amount of co-operative magic she could muster, and focused on the teleportation spell, imagining her body traveling across a line of energy from her current position to her destination. Her horn burned at the slow input of energy as opposed to the usual quick injection, and she grunted as she tried to pull enough magic out of her body for the spell.

Just a bit more... Just a bit more... She didn’t feel like she had quite enough magic built up in her horn to cast it correctly. But it would have to do; She couldn’t muster any more than this. Besides, her two friends must have reached the record room by now. She was out of time. She took another deep breath, and activated the spell. She felt her body violently being jerked in one direction, almost as if she had been lassoed with a rope and pulled with the force of a full-throttle freight train, through a curtain of blazing oil. Wait, that last part wasn’t supposed to happen...

Her eyes fluttered open. She was standing in the middle of the record room, in the center of the slew of lavender feathers. She looked around -- the plumage previously formed a thin ring, but it appeared to have been spread out by the wind. She shifted; her fur felt like it was stiff. She turned her head and examined herself. Several parts of her, namely her extremities, were burnt black. Her hooves, the tips of her ears, the tip of her tail... All burnt. The tips of several feathers on her wings were burnt as well, but the rest seemed to be unharmed. Fortunately the wound on her back seemed to have been spared, but-... Wait, where was the bandage? She looked at the floor beneath her; there was a pile of ash at her hooves with the occasional white strip mixed in. She sighed dejectedly; She had messed up the spell. She knew that she needed more power. She had learned from experience that a teleportation spell cast using an insufficient amount of magic caused heavy burns on the passengers.

“...she might have gone to get groceries. You said you saw her at the market, right?” Spike asked from the hallway, the sound of his voice causing Twilight to flinch. Her ears folded as she remembered why she was here, and she quickly tried to close the door with her magic. It didn’t move. She had used every drop of whatever was left of her magic for that teleportation spell. Inhaling sharply, she cantered over to it -- the wound on her back screaming in protest -- and nudged the door closed with her snout. She bit the pin-and-socket locking mechanism, and moved it into its proper position, the device clacking in confirmation.

Good. The door was closed and locked now. They couldn’t get in, and they couldn’t see. She smiled in relief for a moment, before her expression shattered upon realizing that she couldn’t get out. She swore under her breath. Why didn’t she think this through?

“Ohhhkay, that was creepy. You sure your house isn’t haunted, Spike?” Rainbow asked from behind the door, slightly muffled. She must’ve thought the door had closed by itself.

“I have no idea, Dash. There’s nopony else here. And even if there was, that pony probably wouldn’t be in the record room...” Spike lied, trailing off. “Uh, Rainbow, I think you should leave.”

“Wha-... why? What did I do?” the technicolor mare sputtered in response.

“Nothing, I just need to... be alone right now. Thanks for stopping by, but I really need to you leave. No offense,” the young dragon explained nonchalantly.

Twilight, who currently had her ear pressed up against the door, smiled softly. Her little brother was pulling through for her. Oh, thank Celestia, he didn’t decide to blow her cover... Her eyes grew soft. He really was her number-one assistant.

“Uh... Okay... Can you tell me when Twilight gets back, so I can talk to her?” The blue speedster conceded, her hooves clopping as she turned around.

“Err, yeah, I’ll tell you.” Spike shuffled awkwardly. “See ya’ later!”

“A...alright... See ya’...” Rainbow mumbled quietly, sounding rather sad as she walked away.

The lavender pony frowned with concern. She hoped that her housemate would later convince the pegasus that she hadn’t been outright kicked out of the library, because Dash often became mopey when she felt disowned. She would have done it herself, but... She looked back at her slightly-singed wings. ‘Not now...’

A moment passed in complete silence, until the front door thunked as it closed. The faint sound of wings beating reached Twilight’s ears, indicating that her friend had finally left. She let out a shaky breath in relief, sitting back on her haunches and leaning against the door. Rainbow hadn’t found out. She was safe.

A clearing of the throat came from behind the wooden slab. “Twilight, are you in there?” Spike asked, knocking on the locked door before gripping its knob and turning it left and right. “Can I come in?”

Twilight gripped the pin of the lock with her teeth, before pulling it out, allowing the dragon to enter.

He gazed up at the mare with concern, preparing to speak, before his eyes snapped open as he beheld her singed form. “T-Twilight? You’re burnt... What happened?”

The purple-and-black pony frowned. “I... I tried to teleport in here without enough magic,” she confessed, her eyebrows upturned. “I-I didn’t want Rainbow to see the mess in here.” She gestured to the slew of feathers on the carpet.

“O-oh! I-I’m sorry, I completely forgot about this!” he frantically apologized, immediately bending over and beginning to pick up the shed plumage feather by feather with his claws.

Twilight’s smile returned, and she bent down to nuzzle the dragon’s cheek. He had pulled through for her... Maybe she could completely trust him, despite his blunt suggestion that she should come clean with all of her friends. The fins on his cheeks felt oddly fleshy when pressed against her own face.

Spike smiled bashfully and pushed her face away with one claw, chuckling to himself. “Don’t worry Twilight, I’ll get all this cleaned up... Just make sure that when you preen again, it’s not over carpet. It’s hard to get your feathers out of carpet,” he commented, and the two shared an awkward chuckle.

---

Multiple tomes of different sizes and lengths zipped back and forth across the room, held aloft by a strong deep-red magical aura. Many different titles adorned their covers, from “Pony Genetics: An Overview” to “Ancient History of the Princesses”. The purple winged unicorn in the center of the swarm of texts skimmed over each and every book in no particular order, placing them in their respective places on the shelves only to pull them back off for another read-through. The answer had to be here somewhere. To her knowledge, the only library in Equestria that surpassed her own in quantity was the library of Canterlot, but she couldn’t really go out in public right now, so her best bet was right here in her own house.

The bandages wrapped around her torso shifted as her wings twitched to maintain her balance. Spike, after seeing what her misfueled teleportation spell had done to her previous bandages, had wrapped her in a fresh new set, with a large amount of antibiotic ointment. Well, after a bath, which was not an enjoyable experience for her, especially with the wound on her back. The soap stung every time it washed over the cut, but the bath was probably necessary; she couldn’t walk around with parts of her fur burnt black. And besides, skin breaches needed to be washed, to prevent infection. It didn’t feel too nice when her assistant scrubbed her back with a large brush, though. In addition, the heavy feeling of wet plumage was a new and not-too-welcome one.

Regardless, the pain in her back was mostly numbed by the ointment, so walking wasn’t too difficult of a task. Her magic had returned to her as well, being just as efficient as before, if not slightly moreso. After an entire morning without it co-operating, it seemed to have come back with gusto -- it was somewhat easier for her to perform everyday tasks than it was, say, a week ago. She had begun her reading session some time previous, finding that she could levitate maybe one or two books. Over time, she began to psychokinetically hold seven, then fourteen, then twenty. And soon enough, her entire library was airborne. Amidst the cyclone of books, a few other objects were floating around, such as chairs and candles.

Right... The books. She had been searching her vast collection of tomes for a long period of time, scanning each one for even the slightest hint of what caused her changes, with little success. Unicorns didn’t just grow wings. There had to be some explanation for it... To hay with Pinkie Sense, this was happening to her, and she wasn’t going to just let it slide. She grunted with frustration. Every book she looked through didn’t give even the slightest lead to her answer.

‘A History of Pony Genetics’... No. Glass Beaker? Who the hay is that? Pony races are determined by two alleles, and depending on the mother and father genes, the alleles are determined by three- Urgh! Why isn’t it here?! ‘The Princesses: a Monologue on the Beings That Guide the Sun and the Moon’... No!’

She rubbed her temples with her hooves, attempting to calm herself. She was getting angry. She couldn’t focus when she was angry. “Deep breaths, Twilight...” she whispered to herself. Perhaps her massive magic usage was giving her a headache... Or maybe it was her lack of sleep. Or both. She opened her eyes and glanced at the window on the wall. It was... getting dark. How long had she been at this?

‘I... I need a break...’ she thought miserably, beginning to shelve the hundreds of titles floating around her. She stared blankly at the floor beneath her as the books slid into their proper locations, and by the time the last one was in place, her vision had begun to swim. She deactivated her magic, the amaranthine aura around her horn dissipating, and yawned widely. She wanted to sleep. Her body wanted to just collapse on the floor, curl up, and nod off. Right here...

Her ears perked up as the sound of knocking filled the room. Another visitor? Great... Spike had already fallen asleep in his basket, so she couldn’t rely on him to get the door. She simply remained quiet for a moment in hopes that the pony at the door would assume the library was vacant and leave. Didn’t she switch the sign on the window to ‘CLOSED’ earlier that day? A quick glance at the sign in question told her that she indeed had. Whoever was at the door, it wasn’t a customer...

“Twi? Are you in there?” a thick, accented voice drawled from behind the door, laden with concern.

Twilight sharply gasped, her ears folding behind her head as she froze solid. ‘Applejack...’ she thought, recognizing the voice. This wasn’t good... The apple farmer knew her better than other ponies did, and seemed to be very proficient at detecting when somepony was lying to her.

“Twilight? Ah don’t think you’re out somewhere... Ya’ll never leave your house after dark, except fer when you’re at one of Pinkie’s parties or some’n special like that. And Ah know Pinks ain’t havin’ a party tonight. Are you in there? Is... is everythin’ okay? I wanna talk to you about... about some’n.”

She swallowed. Applejack seemed oddly worried about her. She remained quiet; regardless of the orange mare having good intentions, the hybrid pony absolutely did not want AJ to see her. Maybe she would just leave...

“...Twi...?” Applejack called, knocking on the door again.

The purple mare shifted awkwardly, the feathers on her wings brushing against her torso. Maybe... maybe she should let her in. Her eyes drifted over to the closet which held the cloak Rarity had fashioned for her. She could just wear it... Applejack sounded like she had something important to say.

She took a deep breath and opened the closet door, telekinetically gripping the garment within and bringing it to her. She wrapped it around her, fastening the button-clasp on the front and making sure the fabric fit snugly.

She gulped with trepidation, before softly cantering to her front door and taking psychokinetic hold of it. She opened it slowly, revealing her friend, who gazed back at her with concerned green eyes. The orange mare wasn’t wearing her Stetson hat... Apparently she really was worried about something.

Applejack smiled. “...Hey Twi’. Can Ah come in? Ah need to talk with you...” she greeted, before her smile melted back into a small, concerned frown.

Twilight gestured for her to enter, backing up to allow the farmer’s passage, before closing the door.

Applejack trotted to the rug in the center of the room, before seating her haunches on the floor, gazing with worry at her friend. “Twi’... come here for a min’ or two,” she requested, her eyebrows upturned. What was she so worried about?

The purple mare followed suit, sitting on the rug in front of her friend, her wings twitching slightly under her cloak.

“Twilight... Ah know this is gonna sound ridiculous, but... While I was sellin’ my apple products at my stand in the marketplace today, I heard some ponies talkin’ bout a... a really strange purple pony, or some’n,” the farmer began, her irises moving by minute amounts as she flicked her gaze to Twilight’s horn, then to each of her sides.

Twilight’s blood ran cold, and her ears folded back for a split second, before she quickly snapped them back up to avoid betraying her fear to her friend. “Uh... uh huh...?” she replied, her voice quivering slightly.

“They said she looked like a normal pony, just with a horn and wings. Ah asked them what the pony looked like, and the description they gave me... It matched ya’ to a T. Just, you know, without the wings. Ah know, crazy, right? But...” Applejack’s green eyes grew softer than the clouds in the sky. “Sugarcube... Were they actually talkin’ about you? Did somethin’ happen...? Are ya’ll okay...?”

…

Twilight simply stared at her friend, trying as hard as she could to not let any part of her body betray her emotions. She kept her face stoic, although she knew that hints of fear still lined her expression. She forced her ears to stay erect, and fought to keep her body from trembling. “I... I... I don’t know what you’re talking about...” she lied, her voice quivering audibly. She knew she hadn’t convinced the earth pony; AJ’s expression grew ever more gentle and concerned. Wait... she heard about her from... rumors? ‘No...! Ponies are already talking about me...!’

“Twi... why are ya’ wearin’ that dress?” Applejack asked softly, eyeing the garment.

The robed mare jumped slightly. “ I... I have a... really nasty injury under this, a-and I don’t think you want to see it...” she explained. It wasn’t a lie, although she did have bandages underneath the garment, so the wound wouldn’t quite be visible if she took it off. But it was irrelevant; the bandages did not cover her wings.

AJ brought a hoof to her mouth in shock, gasping quietly. “What happened, sugarcube?”

Twilight scratched the back of her head with embarrassment, her face red. “I... uhh... I kind of hit one of the bookshelves pretty hard earlier, and it... fell on me,” she explained, gesturing to the now-righted piece of furniture. “Turns out they’re really heavy, even without all the books,” she added with a weak smile.

Her friend gave a light, sympathetic chuckle, her mood immediately, and perhaps intentionally, brightening. “Y’all alright now, though?” she asked, concern still present in her voice.

The lavender filly glanced at her own back. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said, smiling brightly at the earth pony. “It’ll heal.”

The farmer continued to give her a concerned smile, her eyes flicking back and forth by mere centimeters at her friend’s torso.

Twilight could tell that she wasn’t concerned about her back... Her green orbs gazed at her sides, where her wings were. Did she know...? Applejack had apparently heard rumors, rumors which were true, but... Did she actually know?

‘No... she can’t know...’

“Twi’... are ya’ sure you’re alright? Is everythin’ okay?” The hatless pony asked again, her voice soft, comforting, understanding. “If there’s anythin’ ya’ need, I can help...” Applejack gazed at the violet filly with the most sympathetic expression Twilight had ever seen from her.

Twilight calmly met her friend’s eyes, trying to maintain her reassuring smile. “I’m fine, Applejack. Really.”

An orange hoof scuffed at the wooden floorboards. “...I don’t think so, haystack. Ya’ll look sad, and... scared. Ah can see it in your eyes...” its owner muttered, her own eyes gazing up at her friend from her tilted head.

The pony in question remained silent, her small smile vanishing from her expression. She looked at Applejack unwaveringly, a part of her wanting to simply come clean and revel in the comfort of a friend who understands, but the majority of her demanding that she stay quiet. Her face betrayed her emotions for a brief moment, before she reeled them back in, almost wishing that she could explain her entire dilemma with only her eyes. A silence passed between the two, dotted only by the clock face quietly ticking on the wall.

“Sugarcube...” the applebucker whispered in a soft tone, almost pleadingly. She cast her gaze at the floor in defeat and stood up, trotting quietly to the front door. “No matter what happens... If... If ya’ll ever need somepony to talk to... Ah’m here, okay?” she continued, casting a sad look over her shoulder.

The winged unicorn watched her friend as she walked away, her lower lip quivering slightly. Now, more than ever, she just wanted to run to the farmer and collapse in the embrace of an understanding friend. However, she remained quiet out of better judgement, watching as her earth pony friend pulled the front door open. Applejack turned one last time, flashing her friend a smile that was friendly yet still concerned, before taking her leave. Silence filled the library soon after the heavy wooden door clunked shut.

Twilight exhaled deeply in relief. It was a hollow victory, deceiving her friends... especially when she wanted nothing more than to just come clean with them. She wanted to have somepony who understood what she was going through... somepony to lean on...

She shook her head sadly, her ears folded. Of course, she had plenty of friends. Friends that were supposed to take care of one another, friends to console and confide in... but... After seeing how Rarity and Sweetie Belle initially reacted, and how... how nosy Rainbow Dash had been, it simply felt like too much of a risk.

‘...Well, Rarity was tired... It was early in the morning... but...’

Friends drift away when circumstances change... Was this the catalyst? Was this going to pull apart her friends...?

‘Twilight, keep it together!’ she inwardly scolded herself. ‘You’re over-thinking this! What kind of friends would they be if they just left you? Besides, that’s... only two bad reactions, out of everypony you know. Hasty generalizations are inadvisable,’ her inner scientist recited.

It was a fair point; after all -- Applejack certainly had her suspicions that something was awry, but she had seemed more... more concerned than interrogative. She had seemed reluctant to pressure Twilight for information. She had mentioned that she had heard rumors about a winged unicorn, but... the orange mare had seemingly come to check on a friend rather than to chase up gossip, hadn’t she?

Her heart leapt at the thought. Even though she couldn’t yet bring herself to fully confide in Applejack, she felt like she finally had somepony who would reliably value friendships above all else. Perhaps... she could come clean with her. The athletic earth pony probably wouldn’t even care that her friend had sprouted wings. They’re... only wings, after all. So what if she was an alicorn, or a winged unicorn, or whatever it is she was now? She was still the same pony on the inside. If her friendship lessons had taught her anything, it was that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Her circle of friends had proven time and time again that friendship can overcome even the gravest of situations, and this... was simply another challenge. As long as she could tell the rest of her friends carefully, to make sure they don’t freak out, to make sure they realize that she was still the same pony, then... maybe... maybe this could all work out.

Standing, she reached up to her cloak with her forehooves and undid the clasp, letting it hang loosely from her body by gravity alone. Allowing herself a small, confident smile, she quickly whipped out her wings, flinging the cloak aside with an almighty gust.

Regardless of her injury, the action brought no pain, due to the numbing ointment on her back that deactivated its nerves. Her thoughts briefly floated to the wound; it was fine now, but... What if it got infected? She would need some professional medical help for a laceration that big. Hospitals were far too public, but... She had a few friends that were adept at medical practices. Perhaps they could help.

A few stray feathers idly floated across her vision, as if time itself had slowed down to marvel at her. Stretching her new limbs to their limits, briefly as to avoid another muscle cramp, she tipped her head back and smiled wider, her eyes closed.

Maybe...

Just maybe...

‘...Maybe this’ll all work out...’

---

“Girls, Rarity made me swear not to tell anypony, but I saw the coolest thing this morning!”

Garuu slung an arm around Beige’s shoulder, pointing off into the distance with his other hand. “Look, Beige... Friendshipping. Friendshipping everywhere.”

Beige replied unto him, “Perhaps we shall request the [Friendshipping] tag upon the off-chance of our work qualifying for Equestria Daily.”

And the two authors slapped a high-five.