A beautiful book with a golden unicorn head on the center was lying in the grass waiting to be opened. This book was not like any other book, it held the story of something unique, something...magical. The book opened to reveal the first page that read,
"Once upon a time..."
In the magical land of Equestria. There were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn. The younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young ones heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon! She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom, the Elements of Harmony! Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.
A purple unicorn whose mane and tail was of a deep purple color and has a streak of pink and a streak of dark purple in it, was reading through the book. She had a cutie mark that was in the shape of a pink star with other smaller white stars around it. Her purple eyes were full of curiosity as she read the book. "Hmm, Elements of Harmony. I know I've heard of those before, but where?"
The purple unicorn put away the book in her book bag. She stood up and put the bag on her side, then she walked off to head back to the Canterlot library. Before she could get any further, three unicorns approached her. The purple unicorn stopped in front of them a bit confused.
"There you are Twilight, Moon Dancer is having a little get-together in the west castle courtyard. You wanna come?" The white unicorn with pink hair asked as she smiled. Twilight Sparkle was taken aback by this in invitation. "Oh sorry girls, I got a lot of studying to catch up on." Twilight smiled nervously before taking off in a run down the road.
The three unicorns watched her run off. The white unicorn let out a sigh with slight irritation shown on her face. "Does that pony do anything except study? I think she's more interested in books than friends." The three unicorns turned and walked away to get ready for the get-together.
Twilight Sparkle continued running as her thoughts were racing in her mind. "I know I've heard of the Elements of Harmony." She said to herself. Twilight ran past two unicorns and one of them waved to her hoping to get a wave back. However, Twilight was in such a rush, she did not pay attention to the unicorns, and did not wave back. They were a bit upset at how she had completely ignored them.
Twilight ran up the staircases to finally reach the library doors. Inside of the library, a small purple dragon with green spikes was walking to the doors with a gift in his hand. He had a smile on his face as he approached the doors, but to his surprise, the doors swung open and hit him directly causing him to fly back and let go of the gift.
The purple unicorn came through the doors looking for the dragon. "Spike! Spike!" Twilight shouted as she looked around the room for him. "Spike?" She saw the dragon lying on the floor. Spike sat up and groaned as he put his claw on his head where he was hurt. "There you are." Twilight ran past the dragon. "Quick, find me an old copy of Predictions and Prophecies." She started to look around at some of the books in the library. Spike followed her in the room while still taken aback by what just happened. Twilight looked at Spike and she noticed the wrapped gift was on his tail being pierced through the center by the spike that resided on the tip of the dragons tail.
"What's that for?" She asked him. Spike turned and noticed the wrapped gift on his tail that was now obviously broken. He took the gift off his tail and said, "well, it was a gift for Moon Dancer but..." A broken teddy bear fell out from the bottom of the gift box with stuffing falling with it. Spike frowned at the sight of his now broken gift.
"Oh Spike, you know we don't have time for that sort of thing." Twilight said as she continued her search through some books that were lying in a pile on the floor. "But we're on a break." Spike protested. Twilight seemed to ignore him as her horn suddenly lit up and magic surrounded it. She used the magic from her horn to start taking books off of the shelf that was high up towards the ceiling. Twilight made the books float down to her so that she was able to read the covers of them. "No, no, no, no, no, no!" Twilight got frustrated as none of the books that were floating by her were the one that she was looking for. "Ugh! Spike!" Twilight shouted out of frustration.
"It's over here!" Spike yelled from atop of a ladder as he held the book out. Twilight used her magic to make the book quickly float over to her, with Spike still attached. He landed hard on the ground face first with the book still in his claw facing Twilight. She read the cover of the book then she smiled as it was the correct one. "Ah." The rest of the books that she was making float suddenly fell to the ground as she no longer needed them. She used her magic to take the book from Spike and she walked off to a book stand on the other side of the room leaving Spike to clean up her mess of books.
Twilight set the book on the book stand then she started flipping through the books pages with her magic. "Elements, Elements, E, E, E... Aha!" She stopped on a particular page in the book and started to read what it said. "Elements of Harmony, see Mare in the Moon?" The unicorn questioned. Spike, who was putting away the books looked back at Twilight. "Mare in the Moon? But that's just an old ponies tale." He said. "Mare, Mare..." Twilight said as she flipped through a few more pages in the book before stopping on another. "Aha! The Mare in the Moon, myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria. Defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon."
As Twilight was talking Spike was on the top of a ladder attempting to put some of the books back on the top shelf, but some of Twilights magic was left on the books causing one of the books that he put on the shelf to start sliding back out towards him. Spike pushed the book back in, but it caused his later to push away from the book shelf. Spike looked down in fear as he was now wobbling on the ladder while holding other books. Twilight did not notice this as she was deep in concentration while reading the book.
"Legend has it, that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal!" Twilight read aloud. Spike attempted to put another book back on the shelf while still balancing on the ladder that was no longer leaned against the shelf. "Spike! Do you know what this means?!" Twilight looked back at the small dragon. "No." The dragon responded. The response made him loose his balance causing him to suddenly fall off the ladder.
"Woah!" Spike yelled as he fell, but his fall was broken by Twilight who had caught him on her back. "Ow!" Spike looked at Twilight who had a scroll and quill that she was holding in her mouth. Spike took the two items from her then Twilight spoke, "take a note please, to the Princess." "Okie dokie." The dragon hopped off of Twilight and used her tail to slide off.
Spike started to write the letter as Twilight spoke. "My dearest teacher, my continuing studies of pony magic have led me to discover that we are on the precipice of disaster." "Hold on." Spike stopped her as he struggled to write the word. "Preci...Preci..." Spike looked at Twilight confused, so instead she came up with a new word that he could spell. "Threshold." Spike struggled to spell this word as well, "thre..." He looked at the unicorn again with a confused yet guilty look for not being able to spell the word. "Uh, brink?" Twilight said unsure if he could even spell that word. Spike just looked at her completely confused. "Ugh! That something really bad is about to happen!" She responded. Spike knew exactly how to spell those words, so he continued to write as she spoke.
"For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon, and she's about to return to Equestria and bring with her eternal night. Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your quick response. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." The unicorn finished speaking. "Twilight Sparkle, got it!" Spike exclaimed as he finished writing the letter. "Great, send it." "Now?" Spike questioned. "Of course." Twilight said assure of herself. "Uh...I don't know Twilight, Princess Celestia is a little bust getting ready for the Summer Sun Celebration, and it's like, the day after tomorrow." Twilight approached him and said, "that's just it Spike. The day after tomorrow is the thousandth year of the Summer Sun Celebration! It's imperative that the Princess is told right away!" Spike thought about spelling the word that she had just said. "Impera....impera..." He struggled to write the word on the scroll. "Important!" Twilight yelled at the dragon causing him to fall backwards into the bookshelf.
"Ok ok." Spike stood up then he held the scroll in front of his mouth. After taking a deep breath in, he breathed out green fire that the scroll seemed to disappear into with magic and vanish out an opened window. "There, it's on its way." Spike said. "But I wouldn't hold your breath." He said unsure if the Princess would respond to them or not given her busy schedule. "Oh I'm not worried Spike, the Princess trusts me completely. In all the years she's been my mentor, she's never once doubted me." Twilight said with confidence.
Spike suddenly let out a belch that was followed by him breathing out magic green fire. A scroll appeared out of the magic fire and fell to the floor. "See? I knew she would want to take immediate action." Twilight said confidently at the fact that the Princess replied so quickly to her letter. Spike picked up the scroll and opened it then he cleared his throat before reading it.
"Ahem. My dearest, most faithful student Twilight. You know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely, but you simply must stop reading those dusty old books!" Twilight gasped in pure shock after hearing Spike read that part of the letter. How could the Princess push her warning aside without even giving it a thought?