Twilight and Spike went about their day around Ponyville, taking the time to enjoy the luxuries that they rarely ever participated in during their usual daily life.  They explored thrift shops, looked at public artwork, and otherwise simply immersed themselves in the general culture of the little town.  They got lunch, sat in the park, and felt the fatigue of the day catch up with them by about two in the afternoon, though Twilight wasn't actually 'tired' in the traditional sense.  She did, however, take the opportunity to bring Spike back to the library for a mid-day nap; immediately taking up her book as soon as he crashed.

"So... book...  What should I call you?  You seem to be almost sentient, hard as that is to believe."  Twilight spoke directly to the still closed book in her lap, trying to come up with some kind of personal connection to it if she could.  She waited a few seconds and then opened the book to a random page, taking the same steps as she always had and closely reading each and every word.

"Those in life called me Iago, though names have long since become redundant to me.  I have no need for them."

Twilight didn't bother closing the page since so much of it was still blank, instead, she held it with her hooves and asked another question: "So you were a pony then?"

Across the blank, ancient parchment was scrawled pure-black text in deep ink, just as if a fountain pen were writing them before Twilight's very eyes.  "I'm afraid not, I come from a time where many other creatures lived in harmony with one another.  Ponies were a rather small minority.

"So what were you?"

"You'll learn more about me soon enough, but I'm afraid I can't just simply give you personal information without anything in return..."

"What is it that you want?"

"Oh, nothing in particular, Twilight.  There's very little information that I don't have about you."

"That's my point...  You seem to know everything about me, how's that fair?"

"Tisk, tisk, Twilight Sparkle.  'Fairness' isn't the issue here, merit is.  I've earned the right to know about you, and just about everything else in this whole world, but you'll just have to continue to work if you wish to earn what I have to teach you."

"Well...  How can I do that for you then?"

"Continue what you're doing: learning, and I'll help you continue my legacy.  There is much that I've yet to do, and I wish for you to help me with that."

"I'd love to.  So continue with the elements then?"

"Precisely, and for the record I must say that I was pleasantly impressed with your earth magic this morning.  That showed a remarkable amount of skill to control that large of a structure."

"Why thank you, it really was nothing though, I feel like you're more responsible for it than I am."

"I only help to channel the energies, you're the one who controls them.  That will change, though, so don't get comfortable.  Do beware, you could destroy your body in the process."

"Would I be wrong to guess that's what happened to you?"

"You would be wrong to underestimate me, Twilight Sparkle.  I do not have the same ineptitude that you do, so don't take any kind of arrogant solace in the speed of your learning."

"Sorry, that's not how I meant it."

"Watch your tone next time, I may seem only a tome to you, but I am far more powerful than you may ever realize."

"Understood...  What element would you recommend I move on to now, though?"

"Air and Water are nothing similar to each other, but they do hold a bit of overlap in their method of control.  You may wish to attempt the learning of both of them at once."

"Piece of cake.  How would you propose I do that, though?"

"Go find some water and I'll tell you."  This final command finished the page before Twilight, not leaving anymore room for the bizarre conversation.  She closed the book and stood up, still a little bewildered that she just had a discussion with a book, but she shrugged it off and went downstairs.  She used her telekinesis for just about everything by that point, moving small objects around and forcing the larger ones (often dangerously at that) into their places.  The cabinet door came open very easily, and she managed to fine tune the use of her new power so that it didn't slam shut anymore.

Twilight found a small cup, she wasn't even sure where she had gotten the thing, but she figured it should work perfectly for this new lesson.  She slowly filled it to within millimeters of the brim and then levitated it behind her, trotting back upstairs to begin.  The book laid motionless on the floor, though Twilight couldn't shake the feeling that it was alive somehow.  She opened it with a wave of the hoof, setting herself and the glass down next to it and cocking her head to read what it had to say.  

"Water is a peculiarity among the elements.  It is abundant, yet absolutely finite, and treasured for its simplicity.  You cannot pick it up as a stone, nor can you shape it as with earth.  At least not without a constant input of energy, that is.  Tell me, Twilight.  What do you know about water?"

Twilight blinked a few times and looked over at the glass, shrugging and answering the book out loud, "Well, it's clear, mostly tasteless unless there are minerals present, it's made up of hydrogen and oxygen, can be split via simple electrolysis into its component elements, and it's polar so it'll dissolve most of the known metals and compounds fairly easily... and--"  Halfway through her rambling, Twilight noticed some more writing scrawl itself across the page.

"The polarity was what I was looking for.  Part of what makes you so valuable as a student is your near limitless knowledge of things, with almost no practical application for them.  Now then, polarizing the atmosphere is something that I know you've done before with your magic, if unintentionally, and that's the basic principle for controlling water.  Well, that and the more...  dangerous method."

"Dangerous?"  The word actually piqued Twilight's curiosity.  Since she'd come in contact with this book, she hadn't seen many risks, but the small ones that presented themselves had started to garner her attention and curiosity at that point.

"Well, yes, dangerous.  In my life I developed two methods for controlling water naturally, one based on its natural capillary properties due to its polar structure, and the other based around the effect that the moon has on the tides: essentially the manipulation of gravity.  Each has its drawbacks and benefits; polarization of the atmosphere allows you to force small quantities of water to do whatever you please, but performing on the gravity of the planet (although very taxing to your mind) allows you to quite literally control the very oceans themselves in an imprecise and brutish manner."

"That sounds like fun."  The purple unicorn let her thoughts wander for a second, imagining such an immense level of control over the sea.  Even the very thought sent a small tingle down her spine.

"Quite a good lot of fun it was.  The world feels much smaller when you can clutch it in your claws and bend it to your will."

"Claws, eh?  What were you?"  Twilight's curiosity got the better of her, and images of every sentient animal flashed through her mind as she tried to match the general personality up to this book's own.

"None of your concern, Twilight Sparkle.  Now enough of this mindless chatter, try to lift the water out of the glass."

She just shrugged again and looked back to the glass, taking this humble little cup of water as a challenge to be conquered.  She focused on the liquid itself, though it remained still as a mirror's finish, and when she focused on the glass all she could think to do was lift it with her telekinesis.  She tried looking into the water again, focusing and taking whatever techniques she'd learned thus far as a stepping stone, even going so far as to use her telekinesis directly on the water.  A single, small drop lifted out of the glass and then almost immediately fell back in.  The unicorn tilted her head back and gave out a frustrated groan, looking over to the book and inquiring how she might actually do this.  She flipped it open after her question and found, as expected, the answer already scrawled out for her on the page.

"Water is a funny thing, isn't it?  It's definitely there, but you can't really reach out and grab onto it.  It doesn't hold itself together with parts like solid objects do, so you can't just tug on a part and watch the rest of it follow."

"I noticed.  Look, this is getting old, how do I control it exactly?"  Twilight didn't quite notice any changes in her behavior, though by this point she could tell that her patience was running low even with mundane tasks.  She made a mental note to start keeping a psychological diary of herself to profile later.

"You don't focus on the water, you focus on the space around it."

"How's that going to help?  The glass is just an object that I can lift..."

"Not the glass, Twilight Sparkle.  Everything in this universe is made up of very tiny particles, and those particles never, ever touch.  They're so small that only the most fundamental forces can fit between them: intangible things like gravity and magnetic force, though these particles are actually the cause for those things.  The space between the water and the glass is rife with these forces, however small they may be, and it is this that you have to focus on.  Begin with a bubble of air, for gasses have more than enough of this space between particles, so you might try to separate the glass and the water with air to give yourself something more to work with."

"That's all well and good, but what exactly is the target?  What's the goal that I'm reaching for to make these things happen?"

"Will the forces of magnetism to depress and excite; give them the energy to force things, or steal it away to let them fall.  It will take quite a bit of finesse, but I know you'll be able to do it."

Twilight sat back and thought for a second, glancing back over to the glass of water after processing.  She found a single bubble of air toward the bottom and dialed in on it.  Her vision had seemed to improve over the days previous to then, but she hadn't even noticed until now.  She looked back at the book for any last fragments of sage advice, and of course found something there for her.

"The bubbles in the water stick to imperfections in the glass.  Your entire world is made up of imperfections, Twilight Sparkle, and once you can exploit them there will be nothing that you cannot accomplish, and no error you cannot fix."

The unicorn looked back to the glass once more, running each word through her head over and over, closing her eyes to try and visualize them.  She could only see power, immense power, something that she wanted very badly.  She opened her eyes again and focused on the bubbles in the glass, sending a signal.  She wasn't sure exactly what would happen, but in her mind she repeated a mantra: excite.  The bubbles quivered and a few broke free, floating up to the surface of the water and breaking.  She focused a little harder, concentrating on a single bubble nearly in the center of the bottom of the glass.  The thing was tiny, so much so that the tension of the water and the glass held it fixed perfectly to the bottom of the cup; the perfect target.  Excite.

With a single small quiver, the bubble grew a little, taking on a larger surface within the glass.  Twilight knew that she needed to keep all of the water inside together, so she focused on the top of the slightly larger bubble, sending another signal in hopes that it would flatten out.  The air seemed to obey her, flattening itself and spreading its surface along the glass floor, not quite large enough to fill out the whole glass though.  She told it to excite once more, and the bubble expanded to meet the walls of the cup, effectively lifting the water out by a fraction of a millimeter.  Twilight continued her command, creating an imaginary bowl between the air bubble and the water, forcing the bubble to take an unnatural shape.  This took a serious toll on Twilight's concentration, however, and the bubble rose up the sides of the glass unevenly and with a slightly quivering motion.  The unicorn was an expert on staying focused, but when the glass shattered she still let everything fall.  Most of the pieces were fairly large, but water spilled out along the floor with a familiar sparkling as it carried tiny, dangerous shards of glass up to a foot away from the transparent heap.

With a sigh, the unicorn grabbed her book and backed away from the puddle of water, making sure none of the liquid touched the either of them.  She opened it as it floated next to her head and glanced in, hoping for any kind of explanation to already be there.  The page was blank, so she simply asked aloud: "What went wrong?"

"It's simple, really.  You expanded the air bubble by essentially heating it up; what happens is that you cause the particles to vibrate and exert their forces a little more strongly.  You didn't add any air to it, so the volume of air in that tiny little bubble that you started with got stretched out to fit that incredible space.  Basically you created a vacuum between the glass and the water, and with the pressures of your atmosphere around here the glass simply couldn't handle it.  You were on the right track, though, just next time add a few more bubbles into it from outside of the water.  Lifting it should be the most difficult part; once it's in the air and you can concentrate on it, it'll be trivial to manipulate."

"So, controlling water is actually controlling air?"

"Not exactly.  Have you ever seen a large bubble rise in water?"

"Yes I have.  Why?"

"By controlling the densities of the air and the polarity of the forces around the water, you can literally control how and what water does.  If you make air dense enough, water will float on it, though the gasses in the air would become liquid at that pressure, so you augment the effect with an excited magnetism around the water: a polarity that already pushes it out against gravity.  Water cannot be compressed, so every effect on its surface has a direct and immediate reaction someplace else in the water.  This can take form as ripples or, in a zero gravity environment, the change of shape.  Once you have the ability to do that, you'll be able to make literal structures out of water that a pony could walk on, or even draw moisture out of the air and condense it on a whim.  The only reason you're using air at the moment is because it provides you with the highest concentration of fast-moving, energetic particles, which in this case act as a kind of power source for you to twist and manipulate whatever they're close to."

Twilight took every word to heart, letting the appeal to her scientific mind take over.  She immediately watched as the edges of the water crept back, evaporating slowly away from her.  She did what she could to save it, and created a ring of excited air around the puddle, slowly closing it in.  Her eyes darted back and forth, point to point on the ring, doing the best she could to focus on the entire thing at once: the water seemed to press right up against a wall that didn't actually exist.  She closed it in even further, forcing the water into a cylinder that, by then, was nearly the same width as the glass used to be.  She gave the cylinder a base, coaxing air in beneath it and lifting it up off of the ground.  The barriers were far from static, however, so the water seemed to wriggle and jiggle in a little cylindrical mass.  She pressed the shape with her mind and attempted to form a sphere, but the water refused to stay still.  She didn't mind, however, and simply marveled at the simplicity of holding such a thing: something she had struggled to do for years up until this moment.  She held everything as it was, trying to shift her concentration over to the pile of broken glass.  Though each time her eyes stopped focusing on the water, the amorphous blob became more and more spastic.  She could only see from her peripheral vision that it nearly fell apart.  She gave up on trying to keep it still and held it up to the ray of light coming in through her window, examining it for any glass.  She saw none, and brought the water to her mouth, sucking it in and swallowing it.  She knew it was just on the floor, but at this moment there was no more efficient way to dispose of it; she also really just wanted the satisfaction of drinking straight out of the air.  

Twilight moved around where she thought all of the broken glass could be, searching for each and every sparkle as the angle of the light changed.  She trotted a full circle around the area and located what she figured was all of it, using her new telekinesis to gather it all up in a floating heap.  With no aura around the glass Twilight could actually look at the menacing edges: she was so careful all the time that she wasn't around broken glass very often, and even less often spending the time to really look at it.  The sharpness of the edges was chaotic and random, jutting off in awkward, splintered directions that left the shards fragile and dangerous.  This simply would not do for the unicorn.  

Twilight pushed the heap further away from her face and applied as much pressure as she could with her mind.  The tips of the shards were pulverized almost instantly, with every speck of the glass powder being caught in the levitation along with the rest of it.  The crunching and grinding of glass caused Twilight to grind her teeth in annoyance, but not to stop with the process; even the nosebleed from the exertion didn't stop her.  Every single bit of glass that composed the cup was slowly pressed, crushed, ground, and twisted into a sphere.  The thing wasn't quite fused together, though it clearly became hotter as Twilight crushed it, so she simply crushed it more.  All of the matter eventually became pressed into the size of a marble, and Twilight could no longer crush it down into a smaller form.  She rotated it though, taking it apart into hemispheres and grinding them against each other.  Eventually, she split the sphere into several concentric circles of rotating glass, building friction and heat as they sped up.  Each one spun opposite of the disc above and below it until the entire ball of glass was the consistency of a paste, glowing a very hot orange midair.  She brought the sphere closer to her and rotated it all as one: the quick spinning kept it as perfectly spherical as she could manage.

Twilight could feel the heat from the glowing marble against her face as she looked at it; it wasn't quite bright or hot enough to hurt her eyes, but it was just enough to fuse the glass together under the intense pressure.  After having worked with glass before, she knew that cooling it too quickly would simply fracture it, so she trotted toward her staircase, leaving the book behind and taking it upon her own power to carry the marble with her.  She passed through her living room and headed toward the basement, still examining the little glass ball as the glow subsided into a translucent little sphere.  

Twilight flicked the lights on as she carefully stepped down the stairs, glancing around for any equipment left out from her previous experiments.  Everything was perfectly organized in its place, as usual, so she simply had to focus on not dropping the little ball while she stepped over to her chemistry apparatuses.  She removed a ceramic crucible and placed it out on her heat-resistant table, giving the marble a little tap to make sure it wasn't still soft enough to flow.  With care, she lowered the ball into the crucible and looked in, examining its perfectly spherical form and giving a smile.  She trotted back to the staircase and headed up, realizing that she left a few small drops of blood behind her as she walked downstairs and checking her nose to make sure it wasn't still bleeding.  Since the injury had stopped she simply walked past it; she didn't bleed on any carpet and the floors were protected by magic from a very old spell that stopped them from absorbing any kind of color other than the varnish they were originally painted with.  That had saved her hardwood from the occasional Pinkie Pie encounter, so Twilight figured it would definitely work for a little blood.

She stepped back into her room, pulling the book toward her from afar with the telekinesis and flipping it open, hoping for some kind of criticism.  

"Very good job, Twilight Sparkle.  Though I must ask, why did you do that to the glass?"

"Well...  Broken glass is dangerous, and frankly ugly.  It just kinda juts out everywhere...  Figured I'd do something with it that made it safer and easier to get rid of."

"But why a sphere?"

"A perfect sphere is the most perfect thing in existence...  Perfectly dense, perfectly distributed weight, perfect size, each point on the surface is the exact same distance from the center as any other point...  And if you put a perfect sphere on a perfectly flat plane, it wouldn't roll, and only one single point would ever be in 'contact' with the plane."

"That's the answer I was hoping for, Twilight Sparkle.  Some may say that 'nopony is perfect', but if you strive for perfection, then I can make it happen."

"So there really is such a thing as natural perfection?"

"Natural?  No.  Celestia wouldn't allow natural perfection, but she can't control everything.  Even she's not perfect."

"What's next, then?"

"We'll get you more accustomed to air, which you seem to understand the basics of already, and introduce you to fire."

"Thank you, Iago.  For everything."  In a small twist away from her impatient behavior, Twilight couldn't help herself but extend a greeting to the mysterious force within the book.  

"Don't thank me yet, Twilight Sparkle.  I still have yet to give you my greatest gift."

"I look forward to receiving it."  Twilight's sincerity was only matched by the deviousness of her motivation.  She wanted knowledge, respect, and most of all: Power.  She knew this book, this creature, could give it to her, and she wasn't about to give up.

"As do I, Twilight Sparkle, I anticipate you'll use my gift just the right way."