Twilight fluttered her eyes open and looked around the room; she had been sleeping but didn't remember having a dream.  She stood up and felt her stiff joints crack as she tried to move, making her groan and try to catch her balance.  She looked down to her mattress, immediately noticing the amount of blood on the sheets and towel.  It seemed to her that she should have bled out by the looks of the furniture, so she rushed to the bathroom.  As she passed by her windows she could see it was still night time, so she tried to stay quiet to avoid waking Spike.  Her mirror reflected a very sick looking unicorn, and it didn't take long for her to begin a rattling cough that sprayed blood into the sink.  As soon as she could, Twilight gasped in a deep breath, only to feel the same burning in her lungs as before and sink into a wretched cough once again.  She could feel whatever fluid it was that was in her lungs move with the hacking, so she tried to balance breathing through her nose and attempting to force it out of her between periods of convulsion that she could scarcely control.  Even though the cause of her cough seemed to be almost out, the action itself seemed to get worse; she could almost feel her ears being buffeted by the echoes of the loud, guttural hacking in her bathroom.  One final cough and whatever it was came out, splattering the sink with blood and causing Twilight to close her eyes and take deep breaths.  She heard, however, a very strange skittering, and opened her eyes to see the malformed tail of something as it crawled down her drain, leaving a bloody streak along the white porcelain sink.  

She backed away, feeling immediately like she was going to vomit from thinking that something alive just came out of her lungs, and indeed gagging at the prospect.  It didn't take too long for her to realize that she stepped back way too far for her little bathroom, though; she looked around to see a very dark, brick tunnel.  She thought that she might be in a sewer system (thankfully it didn't smell like it), but she couldn't identify the environment beyond speculation.  Since she hadn't anything better to do, she started to walk forward and explore this new place without any notion of danger.  Every clop of her hooves on the concrete floor sent a loud echo through the halls, eliminating any kind of comfort she thought she could take in stealth.  The only thing that broke over this echo, however, was a rather familiar chattering from inside a hole in the wall.  She couldn't identify the sound even though it appeared to be something very simple, so she walked toward it regardless.  She looked down inside the hole and didn't see anything; the chattering stopped as she got close, however.  

"Hello?"  Twilight called out into the hole.  Her instincts told her to speak, even though the emanating sound could only be coming from some small rodent.  "Is anypony the--"  The unicorn was interrupted by the feeling of her lungs filling up with fluid again.  Whatever it was seemed to have come from the hole, but she still had no idea what was happening to her body.  Inside of her chest, as she struggled to breathe, she could feel an unnerving wriggling that made her think something had invaded her.  In the throws of fear she fell over onto her back, clutching her chest and coughing madly again.  She managed to bring herself onto her side, and interestingly felt a few hefty pats on her back.  This all brought her back into consciousness, showing her that she was only dreaming, although the coughing was all too real.  Spike was hitting her back to help loosen whatever was in her lungs, and Twilight had managed to sit up on her knees to get a slightly more comfortable angle.  She grabbed the towel and coughed into it a small spray of partially dried blood, clearing her throat and lungs of the stuff before taking a very long, rattly breath.  

"Are you okay, Twilight?"  Spike stayed by her side, not taking his claws away from Twilight's back, but gently rubbing them up and down instead.  She had always done this for him when he was young and got coughing fits at night.

"Yeah..."  Twilight's speech was already weakened from the fit, but her heavy and difficult breaths interrupted it further.  "Yeah... I'll be fine.  Thank you."

"I think maybe you should go to a doctor soon...  You just coughed up a bunch of blood."

"It's probably just from the bleeding sinuses, Spike.  I went to sleep with a bloody nose so I most likely just breathed it all in, it's nothing to be worried about."

"If you say so..."

Twilight cleared her throat and tried to swallow, the metallic taste of blood sticking to the back of her tongue.  She cringed and checked to see if she was still bleeding, rubbing her foreleg up against her nose once more and seeing only the brown flakes of long-since-dried blood.  "Could you go get me a glass of water, please?"

"Of course, be right back."  Spike ran off to fetch the drink while Twilight checked the time: 4:17 AM.  She sat back on her bed and examined the pillows, mostly dried blood that had clearly fallen off of her muzzle, but the occasional small stain of crimson still showed up.

"Wull these are ruined..."  Twilight pulled the pillow out of the pillowcase and sighed as she looked it over.  The bloodstain had permeated all the way into the feathers as far as she could tell, so the thing had to be thrown out.

"Here you go."  Spike stepped back up the stairs and handed Twilight her water, which she happily gulped back after clearing her throat again.  

"Thank you, Spike.  Are you still tired?"  Twilight slowly drank from the glass after her first few gulps, sipping on it and sitting back next to the dragon.

"Not really, why?"

"I'm just gonna go take a shower and get ready for the day early...  I don't really wanna go back to sleep."  Twilight tried to suppress the memory of that nightmare and get a fresh start.  "Besides, we're both up early, we can do something together today.  It's been a while since we've gone out and done anything fun hasn't it?"

"Yeah, you're right.  What do you wanna go do?"

"I dunno...  Just walk around Ponyville and see what captures our interest."

"Sounds like fun to me.  Maybe you can show off some of your new tricks that you picked up, as long as you don't give yourself another nosebleed."

"Oh I don't plan on getting another one of those...  That really sucked."

"looked like it did, anyway while you're in the shower I'll go make some breakfast or something, what do you want?"

"Uhm..."  Twilight still wasn't hungry, and she had actually noticed something very 'off' with her body by that time.  Just to appease the dragon, though, she asked for a glass of orange juice and a piece of toast, claiming that she was still feeling sick.  Spike shrugged and agreed to get those things for her, still very worried about the unicorn's obviously degrading health but not knowing how to directly intervene.  

Twilight slowly entered her bathroom again, instinctively checking the walls for any sign of 'dreamlike' qualities, and not finding anything at all.  She stepped into her shower and stood back, focusing on the knob for the water and trying to use her newly acquired telekinesis ability to turn it.  It took an intense level of focus, one that she assumed would be ordinary to a regular object that she hadn't practiced on moving, but she was finally able to twist it gingerly over into the warm zone.  It took a few seconds for the water to warm up, but she had learned from past readings that cold water helped to get dried blood stains out of fabric, so she figured it would work just as well on her face.  

Twilight's time in the shower was far from practically spent; she stood under the water as it warmed up and simply took to enjoying its comfort without even trying to wash herself.  She still felt weak from the rough day prior, and subsequently knew the spire of earth was still out there right next to the library.  Twilight knew that it would be a total eyesore to anypony that might come walking past, so she did her best to clean herself up and try to rejuvenate her tired muscles just in case somepony showed up on her doorstep wondering what's been going on.  She had no idea what she wanted to do with Spike that day, but she figured she'd just let him pick it out.  She spent several minutes with her eyes closed, balancing on her hooves and letting the hot water wash over her, only coming out of the trance once the fluid started to cool down noticeably.  Her water heater was a little old, so she only got about a half hour worth of hot water from it.  Without actually washing her hair or coat she stepped out of the shower and went about the long process of drying off.  She always kept two fresh towels ready because her mane itself tended to hold onto water like a sponge, so she could easily saturate one if she tried to use it solo.  She used her non-horn based telekinesis to clumsily lift her hairbrush, feeling herself getting stronger and more coordinated with it each time she used the ability.  With her hair in a satisfactorily brushed state, Twilight stepped down to meet Spike in the kitchen.  She snatched up her breakfast with her telekinesis, almost spilling the glass of juice as she brought it to her lips, but got the hang of it eventually.

"You look a lot better, Twilight."  Spike chowed down as he spoke, eating quickly through a very large plate of pancakes that he had whipped up for his own breakfast.

"Thank you, Spike.  I think I'll be fine, just worked myself a little too hard yesterday so some time off will be great.  Speaking of which: do you want to go out and watch the sunrise?"  Twilight finished up her orange juice and very gingerly nibbled on her toast; she desperately wanted to go back up and continue her book, but she managed to will herself away long enough to spend some quality time with her number one assistant.  If he was less worried about her, she could get more done, so it was prudent in the long run; so she figured, anyway.

"Sure I do.  That'll probably be fun."

"It's supposed to be beautiful.  If you can get up high enough then you can watch the first light of dawn break through the Everfree Forest, which Fluttershy has told me is 'magical'."

"We'll have to do that then, though we should leave soonish if we want to get even close to the mountains."

"Who says we have to go near the mountains?"

"You said we had to get up high enough..."

"I also learned a few new tricks yesterday, and I wanna try them out."

"Well alright...  Just don't hurt yourself again."

"Oh I promise I'll stop if it even feels like I'm coming close to that again.  I hurt myself because I did it wrong though, and now I know how to do it right, so I don't think I will anyway."

"Even so...  What do you plan to do?"

"You'll see...  Just promise me you'll keep perfectly quiet and still while I do it alright?"

"Against my better judgment, I promise, Twilight."

"Good, then take your time eating, we'll only need to go out into the back yard for a little bit to do this."

"You're not even going to finish the toast?"

Twilight looked down and shrugged at the half-eaten piece of warm bread.  She walked over to Spike and kissed him on the head, trying to divert his attention to her lack of appetite. "Thank you for making it, I'm just not hungry is all."

"I really find that hard to believe, Twilight..."

"Well believe it, I'm just not hungry.  I could be sick, or I could be perfectly fine and just not have an appetite for some other strange reason... I dunno. What I do know is that I'm just not hungry."

"Alright, alright.  You've made your point.  I'm hungry, though, so if you don't mind I'll take the toast and finish these babies up."

"Take your time, Spike.  Just come meet me outside when you're done."  Twilight moved toward the back door, exiting and closing it shut with a slightly over-powered bang (she was still getting used to her new telekinesis).  The unicorn looked up at the spire of earth that she had accidentally created and circled around it.  The earth itself was actually very smooth since she managed to compress it down into solid rock; it didn't sway or move with the wind at all which was surprising for how thin the thing was.  Twilight looked up through the branches and tried to determine the tip, figuring that she should probably fix it while she had the chance.  She took her usual stance, repeating every step that she went through yesterday to attune herself with the earth.  The signals were there, but they weren't quite the same magnitude; everything seemed to be dulled and blurred into the background noise of the environment at her hooves.  She spent more time in her meditative focus, figuratively pulling at the strings of the earth and trying to find its beat and key, only doing so after nearly becoming so frustrated that she abandoned the prospect.  She pressed down onto the tip of the spire, pulling from within the sunken spaces around it and trying to bring it back into the earth.  Her efforts were grueling, and she struggled to move it just a little bit; it was as if her mental strength had degraded since the night before.  She pressed herself harder, following the technique and watching the earth spire slowly sink back down into its natural place.  It took much longer than she would have wanted, and she felt that familiar strain in her mind (no nosebleed that time, thankfully), but she did manage to get it replaced eventually.  Just the added effort, however, brought her frustration in the matter.

Why can't I do this?  It was practically too easy last night...  Twilight's mind continued to dwell on the fact that she seemed to have lost her powers overnight.  It didn't take her too long, though, to put two and two together.

"Spike, where'd you put the book last night?"

"Oh c'mon, Twi.  We agreed you wouldn't read it today."

"We also agreed that I'd watch the sunrise with you, and it's almost time for that.  I just need to look something up real quick before I can get us up high enough to do it."

Spike gave a low groan, looking up at Twilight's sparkling eyes and big smile.  "Okay, fine, I'll go get it for you, but after this you've gotta put it away for the rest of the day okay?"

"Okay, okay...  Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye...  There, I gave you a Pinkie Pie Promise."  Twilight mimed along the promise with her hoof, making sure to overemphasize every single motion.

"Alright, fine, it's up behind your bookshelf where your bed used to be.  You feeling okay to climb up there now?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, thank you."  Twilight finished her sentence and ran upstairs in the library, immediately climbing her ladder into her sleeping area.  Spike, however, stayed behind and looked out the still-open back door.  Twilight had bled so much the night before then that he could actually make out the bloodstain on the ground from where he was sitting.  He still worried about her for that, but couldn't help himself from noticing a very tiny disturbance of green in the burgundy-colored soil.

Twilight poked her nose behind the shelf and quickly located her book, pulling it over with her telekinesis and dropping it onto the floor, pages open.  She asked the book in her mind why her powers felt as though they had weakened, and as usual the pages that she opened to provided her with a perfect answer.

"It's quite simple, my student.  You alone don't have the power to produce the results that you've been seeing recently, though you are indeed very powerful.  The more time we spend apart, and the further apart we are, the less influential your knowledge of these magics will be.  We are not quite 'one and the same' yet, though I am bonded to you most certainly.  When we first made contact in the woods, your hoof was split and a very small amount of blood fell onto my pages.  This allowed me to connect directly to your body and augment your powers as I saw fit, though it is nothing like a contract.  I've been giving you a taste, Twilight Sparkle, a taste of the power that lies within the two of us, and you may use it as you see fit, but not without me.  That is, unless we come to an agreement."

Twilight read her name in the same ancient text that every other page was adorned with and felt her heart sink.  The raw power of the book hadn't actually seemed threatening to her until now, especially with the prospect of some kind of physical connection to her very being.  However, the idea that she could actually use it however she wanted certainly was tempting.  Her mind raced and she could feel herself becoming rejuvenated simply by being in the tome's presence (a familiar feeling, but one that only made itself apparent by this point), so she glanced over to the side and lifted another book with her mind.  Simple, the thing came right up as she pulled at it, and followed her every command, right down to opening to a specific page.  She placed the book back onto the shelf and looked down to the open grimoire in front of her; the lettering on the pages had changed.  

"To answer the question that I can tell you're thinking, Twilight: the aforementioned 'agreement' has to do with allowing me some use of your body as a channel.  You will be given unfettered access to the very forces that shaped your entire world, but you'll be making a bit of a sacrifice in the process.  For now, though, I will not push this contract on you: continue to learn from me, and continue to work with my magics; master the elements, and then I will show you just how far I can take you from your mundane life in Ponyville.  Moving mountains, Twilight Sparkle, is only the beginning."

These words worried the unicorn, driving her to think twice about continuing to use the book, though a little voice in the back of her mind prodded her toward learning this long-dead knowledge.  She loved learning, and would never pass up the opportunity to explore magic, especially so when the magic wasn't known to anypony else, so her decision was eventually to proceed, albeit with caution.  Her final thought before toting the book downstairs was that she wouldn't dare tell Spike what she just read; it would only drive him to worry.

The purple dragon knelt outside by the blood-stained earth, looking down into it as Twilight joined him outside.  She couldn't quite see what he's looking at, but called out to gain his attention.

"Alright, got what I needed.  So are you ready?"

"Hm?  Oh, yeah, yeah let's go.  Aaaaand you brought the book..."

"It's just for this part, Spike.  I'll put it away when we go hit the town, what're you looking at by the way?"

"Oh, it just looks like a flower is trying to grow right here where your nose bled yesterday."

"That's kinda weird.  Let me see."  Twilight looked over Spike's shoulder and saw exactly what he described.  The dark stain formed a fairly neat circle, and right in the center was a very small, bitter-green sprout that seemed healthy enough to reach directly upward.  The sun was just barely beginning to paint the sky a pale orange as it began to rise, so Twilight nudged the dragon and coaxed him a few more feet out into the back yard.  

"Is this as far as we're going to go?"  Spike stood still as Twilight drew a circle about ten feet in diameter in the dirt with her hoof.  She looked over at him to get a good gauge of the distance and nodded.

"Yep, this is all we'll need.  Now then, hop on my back."

"Seriously?  The last time I did that you wouldn't let me live it down for months."

"That's because you were playing pretend with that stalactite 'lance' and using me as your steed."

"Oh c'mon.  The situation was perfect."  The dragon gingerly climbed up onto Twilight's back as she passed the book to him.  He took the thing but didn't try to open it, just holding it there for her as she trotted over to the center of the circle.  "So what are you planning?"

"Just watch.  I gotta concentrate so I'll be a minute, 'kay?"

"Okay, Twilight.  Sorry."

Twilight gave the dragon a nod to let him know everything was alright, then took her stance and worked to find the beat of the world beneath her.  With the book in direct contact with her back she found it immediately, amazed at the vivid pulse that instantly brushed her hooves as she relaxed.  Her eyes opened, and she could tell that they had the familiar white glow that she only got during a very powerful spell, so she couldn't help but crack a smile.  The circle that she drew acted as a dividing line between the earth that rose and the earth that fell, forcing up a small platform on top of a spire as fissures formed around them, bringing the pair up far higher than the treeline.  Spike clung to the unicorn as he felt his stomach sink from the rapid ascension.  By the time Twilight stopped raising the pillar, the pair was high enough to see the horizon line itself as the trees faded away into a dull green blur.  Twilight dropped her concentration and took a few deep breaths, feeling some more blood drip from her nose, but not nearly as much as last night.  The breeze up there was chilly, but the warm rays of sunlight that began to blanket their bodies was enough to counter that.  Spike stared in awe at the distance, looking over the edge and seeing the very clear crater around the spire that Twilight had created, looking back to her as she took a cocky pose.  "Pretty neat, huh?"

Spike nodded, standing completely speechless on the pillar of soft dirt and watching the sunrise like he had wanted to.  Twilight sat down in the center, offering Spike a chance to sit with her and quietly watching the magnificent orange light paint more and more of the sky; as far as either of them was concerned, it was just another normal morning in Ponyville.