Twilight made her landing around the back of the library, preparing to enter through the back in an attempt to avoid prying eyes.  Her kitchen, though vacant, presented Twilight with a residual feeling of the presence of life.  Spike must have brought something back with him, so she thought.  After sniffing her gorgeous nightshade plant (by then it had gotten very much more lively, boasting nearly a dozen flowers and woody stems that held them firmly in place) the unicorn took a quick peek around her door and saw a very young, scrawny little colt sitting on her living room sofa and clutching a camera.

"Dammit, Spike..."  Twilight said under her breath, closing her eyes and shaking her head gently back and forth.  "Children are always missed."  She finished her sentence with a semi-audible growl, stepping out into the living room and then immediately pasting a false smile onto her face.  "Well hello there, little one.  Where are your parents?"

The young pegasus jumped nearly out of his seat; he hadn't heard Twilight's approach.  "Oh!  Uhm..."  He seemed a little shy, so Twilight sat down across from him to try and make herself seem less threatening (quite the feat, honestly).

"Uhm-what?"  Twilight tilted her head down and leaned forward a little.  Her best attempts at being motherly or friendly shown across as sinister and menacing to the young and impressionable beige pegasus.  He sunk back in his chair, thinking to himself that he may have just been lured into a witch's home as far as he knew.  

"M-m-my p-parents are a-at home..."

"Well I'm sorry but I'll need their permission if I want to do this study.  Spike did tell you about the study, right?"  The shivering pegasus didn't answer right away, but Twilight kept on the pressure.  "Spike was the purple baby dragon that, I'm assuming, you met."

"Y-yes."

"Good, go home and ask your parents if you can participate in a somewhat invasive psychological experiment that involves potential loss of your most favorite object."  Twilight deliberately wanted it to sound awful so that the little thing wouldn't come back.

"Huh?"  He tilted his head to the side and sat almost perfectly still in a bewilderment.

"Here..."  Twilight quickly yanked a sheet of paper and quill over to herself with the non-effort of telekinesis, writing (as quickly as she could) exactly what she had just told him.  She made sure to mention that for 'liability reasons' a signature wouldn't be good enough and that they would need to physically show up to give permission, hoping that their lazy side would shine through just this once.  "Take this home with you and give it to your parents.  I still think you're a little too young for me to do this study with, but I guess even extreme ends of a spectrum are still valid."  Twilight paused and stood up.  Her quick speech and terrifying presence had startled and confused the younger pony; he really wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do.  "Hey, skinny, did you hear me?  Go home."

The colt nodded and stood up, almost falling off of the couch as he did so, and began slowly walking toward the door.  Twilight's patience was wearing very thin, so she simply yelled at the top of her lungs, "GO!" to get him moving.  Needless to say, it put a very potent hitch in his step, sending the pegasus almost literally flying out the door and crying as he ran home.  Twilight hadn't noticed, but that yell included what sounded almost like a second, much deeper and more raspy voice underlying her own.  

At this point, Twilight was starting to feel a little fatigued.  Not by a lack of energy (hers was completely limitless), but by an overwhelming frustration in being let down by others.  She sincerely felt that nobody else could produce the results that she wanted, and therefore she'd have to do everything herself.  Spike was nowhere to be found, however, so she simply resolved to go feed Trixie and then head out to look for a subject or two on her own.  She was hoping that the seedier parts of Ponyville would be ripe with activity, and nobody would miss a few hoodlums off the streets.

Twilight meandered back into the kitchen, removing a bowl from her cabinets and filling it partway with a nearly empty box of old oats.  She ground the oats up into a very fine powder and filled the bowl with water that she magically heated, letting it cook down during the walk back toward her basement.  Crude paste, still probably too good for Trixie, but she needed to eat and this would keep her alive.  Twilight, feeling merciful, brought along a glass of water as well, though every single movement she made was held in complete bitterness for her captive.  

With her oatmeal and water hovering behind her, Twilight entered her basement with cold, calculated steps.  She had grown almost robotic over time, now making every single movement seem calm and deliberate and leaving almost no sway of her body to miscalculation of her steps.  The tendril that she had left in front of the bookcase hiding Trixie hadn't moved, so she tore it away and laid it down on the basement floor.  Prying open the bookcase, Twilight poked her head in and scanned around for Trixie, immediately spotting her huddled up in a corner, asleep.  The air quality was atrocious in there; everything was dry, dusty, filthy, and smelled as though it had been used as a bathroom (though considering Trixie had been in there for nearly a day that wasn't surprising), so Twilight split the ceiling above her all the way to the sky.  Trixie immediately woke up at the flood of light, turning her face out to see the waning sun as Twilight hardened the earth in the immensely narrow chimney until it was nearly as solid as granite.  

"Hello, Trixie.  Care for some food?"  Twilight tossed the bowl inside, letting it skid across the floor and nearly spill its contents halfway between the doorway and Trixie.  She set the water glass down nicely just to make sure she didn't break it, but otherwise Twilight didn't particularly care whether Trixie got what she wanted or not.  The chimney that she broke through only served so that she didn't suffocate, otherwise offering little in the way of light.  

"Oh, thank you!"  Trixie sincerely cried out, dashing forward and burying her face in the bowl of oats.  It wasn't much, but she had been absolutely starving.  Twilight didn't even respond, instead just shut the door and re-wrapped the tendril of earth.  The light blue unicorn was a little too busy with her meal to care; her environment was dreadful and the only light that ever poured in felt as if it would burn her eyes out, but the warmth of the oats filled her belly up and gave her just that littlest inkling of hope that everything would turn out okay in the end.

Twilight didn't bother sticking around to make sure Trixie could keep down the food that she was given; she figured that Trixie wouldn't let herself starve for too long.  Twilight didn't want to go out hunting for bodies in broad daylight, though, so she came to the decision to wait until sundown.  In the mean time, she figured she ought to go take a look at her inscriptions and possibly her prisoner one more time.

Twilight's basement, changed as it was, still served the same function, unlike its inhabitant.  Twilight trotted deliberately down the stairs, keeping her eyes fixed on the bookshelf that she had used as a permanent template and immediately turning it to greet her as she closed in.  The backing, still covered in hoof-carved runes and still presenting an intimidating inscribed monolith, showed off its secrets to the inquisitive unicorn.  The fact that her understanding of everything had grown so substantially left her with a single, irritating fact: she couldn't truly understand the language in front of her.  As such, she simply scrolled over it with her eyes, picking out patterns (some of which were false, and some real) and trying to decipher the whole thing at once, though she still struggled to come to any direct conclusions.  

Need help with something, Twilight?  Iago's raspy voice dug into Twilight's mind once more, this time seeming a little more intrusive than the others, though that could have just been due to his absence for so long.

Not particularly, I know what this stuff all does, but I can't quite figure out what it means.  Twilight's response was definitely distracted; she hadn't stopped scanning over the runes even to answer her teacher.

That's not surprising in the least, you weren't meant to understand it.

I beg your pardon?  This got Twilight to quit reading and listen intently.

The language you see before you isn't quite like your written pony languages.  The order of the words doesn't matter as far as spacial organization goes, and the grammar is beyond something you or I could ever fully understand.  It's very ancient and very magical, and I suspect it's actually an old dragon dialect.

So how do you know what this means?

Before Celestia had the great library burned I managed to paw my way through a few of the books lying therein.  One of which was an immense lexicon of an old wizard's travels throughout the lands beyond your shores.  He brought back with him the knowledge of dozens of cultures and the magical wonders that belonged to them, one of which was the inscription you see before you.  I spent years analyzing it, just as you are now, but found only one thing: it's absolutely incomprehensible.  You could switch any of those 'words' with each other and it would still function, I only have it written out that way because that's how it was copied down in the tome.  I like uniformity, Twilight, surprises don't suit me well.

So you're just abusing a bunch of words that seem to have an effect without any knowledge of how they work?

No, you are abusing a bunch of words that seem to have an effect without any knowledge of how they work; I'm teaching you how to abuse them.  That language has been not only lost to the ages, but to the mental capacity of the remaining creatures.  I suspect it would be physically impossible for our minds to process that kind of organization, it's as if it's all written in three dimensional space, while you write in two dimensional space.  

I don't suppose you've any other spells from this language.

I'm afraid not, though it's not particularly difficult to emulate this process, at least in a less efficient manner.

We'll have to crack this someday, I rather like the notion of being able to use words as a source of power.  One problem at a time, though, which portions of this are which?  As Twilight replied in her mind she reached over and picked up her scalpel, hovering it by her horn and tapping the back end of the knife against it.

The first seventy-eight words are the basis of the inscription, from what I've found.  This is the reason it's ordered the way it is, but you can rearrange the words as much as you want and still get the same effect.  Without those first seventy-eight the inscription won't produce anything whatsoever.  From there, the next hundred and twenty-four words are the portion that actually binds the subject's mental faculties to their phylactery.  As Iago spoke inside Twilight's mind, she used her scalpel to carve boxes around the separate areas that were being designated.  If she couldn't understand the patterns, she'd at least have a legend.  The next section allows for the exercise of free will, those sixty-one words can be removed to create a more or less mindless being, but I prefer the addition of the final section of eighty-nine words that allows for the direct mental control of the subject without relinquishing consciousness.

What else?

That's all.

No it's not.  There's still a lot of text left here.

Yes, one hundred and sixty-six words that don't seem to perform any true duties.  I've actually removed all of them and got the same visible effect as with the first three hundred and fifty-two.

They have to do something...  Why else would they have been in there?

My best explanation is that the wizard simply inscribed directly from what he saw in an old tome; from the flavor text around the runes I came to the conclusion that he didn't know exactly what they meant either.  It doesn't matter though, there are easier ways to raise the dead as puppets, and all they serve to do is intimidate anyway.  I've given up on this subject: it's not worth my time.

Alright, well I'll just keep it around regardless.  The unicorn scratched a large box around the perimeter around the final stretch of words, including a question mark along the side as a nostalgic glimpse into her inquisitive, literary-critic past.But how do I apply any of this?  Twilight completed her segregation of the different sections of text, admiring and puzzling over the work from a few steps back.

There are a few ways of doing so, the first is the recitation of an incantation that will, when heard by the victim before their death, create a solid, stable link between themselves and the object that you're using as a phylactery.  The second is more...  Quick and dirty I believe is the expression.  You simply smear a small amount of the victim's blood on the phylactery object before killing them.  This, while functional, will not result in a very stable connection and can sometimes lead to... unexpected complications.

What kind of 'unexpected complications'?

In severe cases one or more of those sections of text won't actually function, which could lead to premature death of the subject at any point, or a loss of control, mental faculties or other such things.  Basically you have to soak the object in their blood and hope that their will isn't very strong if you want to use blood control effectively.

Good to know.  Thank you, Iago, I'll get that incantation from you a little later, for the time being I think I'm going to just relax and take care of a little personal business.

As you wish, Twilight, I'm happy I could help.  Don't be too long, though; it's never too soon to take up the crown and rule over this land.

Oh I know, you don't have to worry about how I feel on that subject.  I'll get Celestia off the seat of power when I can.

You can now, you just aren't willing to.

Alright, fine, I think it's better to put that back a little while longer.  What's so bad about that?

She's a threat and you're letting her continue to be one, that's what's so bad about it.

With all due respect, I'll decide when I go assault my former teacher and mentor.  You may have a long standing grudge with her, but I'm just indifferent enough to take my time and make sure everything goes right the first time.

Iago wasn't exactly happy with this response.  As a matter of fact, many of Twilight's responses had been irksome as of late, but he'd kept his anger leashed to certain special information that he held.  There's always a line, however.  Twilight immediately crumpled to her knees, feeling a sharp pain in her chest like someone was stabbing her in the heart.  The agony radiated through her entire body, as if every single one of her nerve endings was being assaulted beyond its capacity to actually detect pain.  Twilight tried to scream, but couldn't get her lungs to move.  She tried to stand, but found her back legs paralyzed and her forelegs only able to flail miserably.  She tried to take a breath, but her windpipe felt as though it were being squeezed shut by a pair of immense, clawed hands.

You do not speak down to me like I'm some parrot on your shoulder.  I created you, Twilight Sparkle, and I can destroy you with as little as a thought.  You exist because I allow it, and you do what I tell you because I demand it.  Iago's voice gave the aura of an ancient, terrifying wrath, sending it through Twilight's crippled and tortured body as if it were the very thing causing the pain.  Every time he emphasized a point, Twilight felt a throb of pain unlike anything she'd ever experienced before jolt right through her body.  Consider this your only warning, and I'm giving it to you because I like you.  If you fuck up again I'll destroy you.  I won't kill you, you only wish you could embrace that release, I'll break you into a thousand pieces, put them back together again, and then break each one of them into a thousand pieces.  Your very essence is mine now, and I'll not have an uppity little thrall cast such asinine slurs against me.  Do you understand?

Even Twilight's thoughts felt crippled, she couldn't think or speak, but she let out a whimper as if to answer.  This, however, wasn't satisfactory, and for the first time since her pact with Iago, Twilight felt a severe, permeating fear invade her self-proclaimed perfection.  I asked you a question.  Do.  You.  Understand?

With this, Twilight's thoughts were allowed to flow once more, and she answered silently within her own mind.  Yes!

Good.  Finish your work, you egotistical little wretch, and then talk to me again when you've learned your place.  With this, Iago released whatever it was that he had done to Twilight, prompting her to immediately take a long, gasping, pained breath and curl into a ball.  Twilight's body shivered as it came back into her control, causing her eyes to mist up and nearly break down into tears.  Every single fiber of her being had been touched by the painful finger of Iago's wrath in that one attack, and Twilight immediately realized the depth of her commitment; this wasn't a second-thought, however, and she still had no regrets, but she knew to keep her thoughts in check from then on.  Iago was the power source and she was the channel, not the other way around.  The unicorn stood up and fixed her hair, taking a deep breath and wiping the tears away from her eyes.  She wanted to pretend that had never happened, but it would always stay with her.  

Dominance is a primal, bestial notion, but when you give something the illusion of power and then immediately take it away, it tends to take retribution out on those weaker than it.  For as sophisticated as she'd become Twilight still had animal tendencies, as well as many weaklings to exercise them with.