The Magic of Love (CANCELLED)

Chapter 5: "Returning the Favor"

5:58 A.M. Two more minutes and the alarm clock would start beeping. It had been weeks since the last time Twilight had been awaken by the alarm itself. All because of the nightmares. Once she managed to wake up from them, it was very difficult to go back to sleep. Sometimes she managed to snooze for about an hour. Sometimes only for 15 minutes. And most times... nothing. She just laid there on her bed, staring at the ceiling, in silence. Spike attempted to stay awake with her, but the sleepy dog only lasted about twenty minutes before he felt flat on his face. Twilight let him sleep, of course. Why should he martyrize himself because of her traumas?

But were they just traumas, thought? 

5:59 A.M. No matter how hard she tried not to, she kept thinking about it. And worrying about it. Constantly. Especially when she was alone and in silence. According to what Sunset had told her, her last transformation had probably been due to stress and pressure. So, would she have to go live in a cloud or a bubble with no worries at all in order for her to not turn into a monster? For someone as perfectionist and worrisome as her, "keeping calm" and "thinking positive" were easier said than done. It only got worse with those lucid and extremely realistic nightmares. She wasn't sure anymore if they were just dreams, or maybe something inside of her was speaking to her directly.

The alarm rang and she pounded it before it could finish the very first beep. She was already sitting up at the edge of the bed. She got on her feet, made her bed and walked to the bathroom to take a shower. All of her morning routine was done in automatic. All she wanted to do, and ironically, also the last thing she wanted to do, was go back to sleep. Because yes, she was exhausted and poorly rested, but she knew what sleeping implied.

After she got fully dressed and her hair was done, she went downstairs and straight into the kitchen. The only thing keeping her awake during the day, aside from her paranoid thoughts, was coffee. Lots of it.

Her mom, Twilight Velvet, was in the kitchen, washing some dishes and setting some things on the table quickly. Her parents got up –technically– before her, because they had to be in the restaurant before 6:30, which was the time when they opened up and people began to come over to eat breakfast or ordering coffee to go. By the way her mom was hurrying through the dishes and the sloppy way in which the table was set, Twilight could tell that they were running late. Five minutes could make a half hour difference when it came to traffic, so her parents got pretty frantic whenever their alarm betrayed them.

Twilight sighed and walked to the coffee maker. "Good morning, mom" she said, sounding pretty monotone and tired.

"Uh, good morning, Twilight" the white-purple haired woman responded rather rapidly as she dried her hands and turned on the stove. Twilight was about to pour coffee into a mug, but stopped when she heard her mother yell after dropping an egg on the floor. Twilight Velvet angrily closed her eyes and groaned to herself. Her daughter quickly put a hand on her shoulder and said: "It's okay mom, I've got this." She turned off the stove on her way and grabbed the mop that was next to the fridge. Her mother sighed and attempted to calm herself. "Thanks, dear" she said as she walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, grabbing her purse from the sofa and taking out her mirror and lipstick.

Twilight proceeded to clean the floor as she heard the bathroom door opening, and her dad, Night Light, walked into the kitchen, seeming just as agitated as her mom but slightly less frantic. "Oh, good morning, sweetheart" he said, giving her daughter a quick kiss on her head as he walked to the fridge behind her. "Good morning, dad. And, goodbye" Twilight responded when she saw her dad taking out his lunch and walking to the living room where his suitcase was.

"Yeah, sorry, but we're running late." He grabbed the car key and opened the house door. "Have a great day at school, Twily!" he finished before quickly walking out. Twilight Velvet followed and turned to say "We love you!" before closing the door behind her.

The sudden silence and solitude hit Twilight like a cold breeze. She sighed. "I love you, too..." she said quietly.

Her parents were... nice, of course. She knew they did everything they did because of her and her brother. Now it was mostly for her, ever since her brother moved out with his fiancé, Cadance. She just wished she could spend more time with them. Their restaurant was very successful, which of course was good. But the only family times they got lately were on Holidays, and even then, they were still pretty busy working half day and attending phone calls most of the time. With her dad being the owner and her mom the head chef, they barely ever had time for family anymore. She had always felt a distance between her and her parents, but it had gotten worse with the years, as The Royal Cheval got more and more prosperous.

She really wished she could spend more quality time with them.

She felt so selfish for wishing such a thing. As if she was so fixated in her own problems, that she had gotten herself into anyways, that she wouldn't think of her family's stability and well-being anymore. Her parents were so happy the way things were. Stressed and constantly in a hurry, yes, but that's what they had gotten used to the past years. She knew how, before she had been born, and even in her early years of childhood, her father had struggled and gone through many hardships in order to start his own business. Her mother used to have two jobs as a cook in local restaurants so that they could maintain the family. When The Royal Cheval was finally founded and started to slowly become more popular, all of their efforts began to pay off. Their dream was finally being realized and their lives were coming together quite neatly.

Throughout her life, Twilight had rarely spoken to her parents about her problems, because she knew the time she had with them was very limited, and almost every time she saw them, they seemed tired and wanting to get away from the stress of work. She didn't want to stress them out more with her personal problems, big or small. She never told them about the hard time she had fitting in Crystal Prep.

Usually, her sole confidant was her older brother, Shining Armor. He was the one Twilight felt more comfortable telling almost everything. They had always shared a lot whenever their parents weren't around. But, ever since Shining got promoted at work and moved out to live with his fiancé Cadance, her contact with him decreased significantly. They would speak on the phone once or twice a week and meet every other week. But whenever she spoke to him, he just seemed so happy and content with how things were going in his life. It was so nice seeing him like this that she didn't want to take it away from him, so she wouldn't go into much detail about what was troubling her. She would act like it was no big deal and quickly change the topic.

Because the truth was, Twilight hated seeing her dear ones sad or preoccupied. Especially if she was the cause of it. This was a bit of a problem, considering she wasn't the exactly the best one when it came to "lighten the mood" or even cheer people up. However, she always tried to make sure that the people she cared for were okay and happy, so she took whatever chance she had to avoid being the reason of their concern. She actually never intended to tell her family about the whole "Midnight" incident the very first time it happened. It had only been because Cadance had insisted so much and basically forced her to do so by organizing an impromptu family meeting the night after the events.

She had known Cadance for years, ever since Twilight was a child and Cadance would sometimes babysit her. She knew how intuitive the woman was. Also very persuasive in a subtle way. Cadance was the kind of people who are "always right", and only acted for Twilight's own good, even if the younger girl sometimes disagreed with Cadance's decisions.

"Morning" said Spike with a cautious voice. Twilight snapped out of her train of thought and looked down, a bit startled, at her pet, who was staring at her from the entrance of the kitchen. The girl hadn't heard him coming down the stairs. She hadn't even noticed what she had been doing herself. She looked at her hands and found herself in front of the stove, holding a skillet with her left hand while using a wooden spoon to scramble some eggs with her right. She noticed that these eggs were beginning to look a bit too brown. Twilight shook her head a little and led out a sight, turning off the stove. "Good morning" she finally replied to Spike, her voice sounding as weary and tired as she felt.

She had done it again. Her boring, monotone routine combined with her haunting memories, nightmares, and concerns, had caused her to often get extremely lost in thought the past couple weeks. She could be brushing her teeth one moment, and the next thing she knew, she was in the bus, two blocks away from her school. She hated when that happened to her. She had tried her best to fight it, but just like these memories, nightmares, and concerns, it was often inevitable.