When Rainbow Dash awoke, she was still surrounded by Twilight. Off to her left, was the dim twilight of early morning, the sun still lingering below the horizon; on her right, of course, is the vender unicorn commonly known as ‘Twilight’, gazing down at the ground despondently, with a purple dragon clinging tightly to her side.

  “Hey.” It was a very simple statement, about all Rainbow Dash could put together at first with her raspy voice as she was still recovering from her dream (if it could even be called that), but it was enough to startle both Twilight and the dragon by her side.

  Before Twilight can respond, Spike butts in first, hopping up on the bed with tears in his eyes as he wraps his stubby arms as far around Rainbow Dash’s barrel as possible. “R-Raynbuhw D-as!” The tiny dragon blubbers, wailing with the wholly unreserved emotiveness of an infant.

  “Woah, hey there, squirt. I think that’s the closest you’ve gotten to saying my name.” Rainbow Dash can’t help but smile softly as one hoof runs over the dragons frills gently. “Sorry if I worried you... Ow.” The st bit cuts in as the simple result of the movement putting some extra weight onto her left side.

  It’s about then that Twilight manages to get a word in edgewise. “Rainbow! Are you okay? How badly did you get hurt? The guards didn’t know and the doctor just waved me off!” Twilight frets, deep concern readily apparent in her wide purple eyes.

  “Heh, I’m... ow... Fine. Mostly. Really, I am!” Rainbow Dash manages a weak smile and the st part at the unconvinced look that Twilight gives her. “You know me, no way a couple shattered ribs are gonna keep me down. I’ll be up and at’em faster than you can blink.”

  Twilight’s frown deepens. “No, you won’t! Aggravating an injury like this could lead to sepsis or jostle the ribs back out of position, worst case scenario you could puncture a lung or colpse your thoracic cavity and-“

  The purple unicorn is cut off by Rainbow Dash rolling her eyes, waving her hooves, and giving the most exasperated sigh she can presently manage. “Woah, okay, I get it, I’ll take it easy. What are you doing here so early?”

  Twilight’s gaze falters, and she looks down. “What do you mean why am I here, I was worried about you,” she eventually states, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I didn’t see what happened to you, the st thing I knew was you dropping like a brick and...” Twilight’s voice catches in her throat and she shuts her eyes tightly to keep the tears from flowing, yesterday’s experience still far too fresh in the young filly’s mind.

  “I heard you got off without being hurt too bad.” Rainbow Dash interjects, hoping to take the other filly’s mind off of the pegasid’s injuries. “You feeling alright?”

  Twilight’s expression softens, and she sits on her haunches, ying her forelimbs on the bedside. “I’m fine, nothing worse than a little bruising. Thanks to you.” She uncomfortably clears her throat. “I was up a lot earlier than you, yesterday, so my family visited me already. They want me to come home for a while but, I didn’t want to go without thanking you for...” Twilight trails off.

  Rainbow Dash offers a weak smile. “Hey now, don’t sell yourself short, if it wasn’t for your brick-lobbing talents I’d be a pega-shishkebab about now.” She looks out the window, frowning. Far off in the distance, she can just barely see Cloudsdale, presently floating west towards the homesteading frontier and as such passing Canterlot by. The cloud city is presently the closest it had been since Rainbow Dash had made the journey to Canterlot. The pegasus looks up towards the ceiling, groaning, as Twilight’s mention of her family reminds Rainbow of her own. “Ugh, I guess this is going to be in the news, isn’t it? I’d better send a few letters home before everypony back in Cloudsdale hears about it and freaks out. I don’t suppose you could help? I’m not really in a condition to write.” Silently, and perhaps a bit selfishly, Rainbow Dash was gd she wouldn’t actually be present when her parents got the news.

  Twilight hesitates for only a moment before nodding. “Of course, it’s the least I can do. I’ve still got a few hours before Shiny’ll be up.” That was not surprising, given how early in the morning it was; even after their conversation, the sun was still only just barely cresting over the eastern horizon. Under the watchful eye of three pace guards, the couple of ponies begin composing yet another set of letters for Rainbow Dash to send home, only two days since the first set of letters, despite it feeling as though it had been a year.

  The act of writing steadied Twilight, grounded her in the present, and by the time she was on her way, she felt considerably better. Even so, it was a fragile kind of ‘okay’, one that could colpse at any moment if she so much as thought about what happened yesterday.

  The unicorn and pegasus hadn’t really talked about it, not directly; all reference to the attack was just ‘yesterday’, or ‘this’, always vague nonspecific nguage even if it was patently obvious to all present what they meant by it. It was easier that way somehow, keeping it at hoofs length. Rainbow Dash’s letter, of course, is filled more with the pegasid’s normal bluster and self confidence than anything; It takes a moment for Twilight to realize that she's doing it on purpose, trying to downpy how terrifying it had been.

  Neither of them spoke a word, not a whisper, even in the vaguest of senses, about Celestia’s involvement.

  On the way out, Spike had refused to stop clinging to Rainbow Dash; reluctantly, and with the doctor’s go ahead, the two fillies agreed that Spike could stay with the pegasus for a while. It was probably better that way, anyways; the pace was more Spike’s home than House Twilight was, and both Cadance and the daycare were on hoof to look after him while Twilight recovered from her ordeal.

  So it is that Twilight is left entirely alone as she walks down the hallways of the pace, face staring deeply into the details of the floor. In the middle of falling back into a downward spiral of introspection and fear, Twilight’s oncoming panic attack is suddenly halted as the unicorn, not watching where she is going, bumps directly into another pony.

  “AHH!” Twilight screeches at a volume far too loud for the circumstance, and bolts backwards as if under attack, her horn lighting up without any actual target, haphazardly firing an unfocused salvo of magic beams all over just on pure instinct.

  “Woah! It’s just me, Twilie!” The voice of her older brother gently reassures her, a series of familiar magenta shield panels materializing in midair to block the haphazard light-show Twilight had just let off from damaging the walls.

  Twilight freezes up, eyes wide in apparent panic, before suddenly diving straight into Shining Armor’s white fur, throwing both forelegs around him and squeezing her eyes tightly shut without so much as a word. The guard cadet sighs, pulls her in closer, and gently runs a reassuring hoof down her mane. “It's alright, Twilie, it's just me. Nopony is going to hurt you. Not while I’m here.”

  It takes a long moment before Twilight stops shaking enough to hesitantly pull her head back to look at Shining Armor uncertainly. The colt in question briefly gives his younger sister an affectionate nuzzle, before slowly letting her go. “Come on, it’s time we went home.”

  Twilight blinks and finally opens her mouth to actually say something. “Home? You’re coming with me..?”

  Shining Armor wraps one of his legs around her. “’Course, Celestia wouldn’t dream of leaving you without somepony to keep you safe at a time like this. Besides, she asked me to teach you a few tricks from guard school.” Her older brother winks at her, and Twilight’s heart soars. Even at a time like this-or maybe especially at a time like this-getting the opportunity to learn and spend time with her B.B.B.F.F was a delightful prospect.

  The walk home is deeply uncomfortable for Twilight, given the eerily silent streets of the pace district that then give way to the bustle of far too many reporters and guardsponies running around immediately on the outskirts. The two had taken a circuitous route which avoided the pza where the attack took pce, but even so they merely had to step beyond the perimeter the guard had set to be immediately mobbed by reporters.

  Rather than actually take the time to contend with them, Shining Armor simply grunts and projects a shield around himself and his sister to block both the reporters themselves and the cmor of their voices, before proceeding to simply plow through the crowd with brute physical force. Twilight’s eyes dart this way and that, panicked; thankfully, her older brothers efforts are not in vain, and she is able to make the journey back home without dealing with their insensitive questions; although, the same cannot be said for avoiding having her picture taken where it will surely be pstered all over the news. Twilight tries not to think about it too much.

  When the siblings arrive home, Twilight is immediately swamped in a suffocating degree of attention and fretting over her well-being by both her mother and, surprisingly, her father; Celestia had given him time off as well, seemingly.

  Even as studious as Twilight generally is, she does not simply sit straight down to read more out of her library as she usually does upon returning home, but instead curls up on the couch, wrapping her tail around herself in an effort to feel safe. It does not take long before Shining Armor promptly pces himself down beside her, watching over her like an overzealous guard dog.

  Twilight stays like that, neither moving nor responding to anypony, until it's time for lunch; finally, the prospect of food lures the filly into the dining room to sit down with her family.

  After eating, she seems to finally be feeling a bit more herself, as instead of simply returning to her repose, she looks up to Shining Armor uncertainly. “What exactly did Celestia ask you to teach me..?” She asks hesitantly.

  “What’s my specialty?” Shining Armor responds, flicking his eyes back towards the shield that adorns his fnk. “Get ready, ‘cause you’re about to learn from the best in the shield-conjuring business.”

  Twilight and Shining Armor stand in the Twilight estate courtyard, ten meters across from each other.

  “For our first lesson, we’ll focus on something with broader applications in magic in general.” Shining Armor starts, immediately perking up his sister’s interest. “We’re going to focus on remote magic, which is imperative for being able to shield things away from your own body. Do you remember when I blocked your attacks no matter where they went this morning?”

  Twilight nods, putting on a determined face. Something to focus on other than recent events is just what the doctor had ordered, and that ‘something’ being ‘Magic lessons from her very own B.B.B.F.F.’ is really special, so she is determined not to mess it up. “Uh-huh! Remote magic is a rare discipline focused on extending ones magic outside of their own body without spell casting, allowing yourself to treat distant locations as if they are your own body when it comes to magic use, though it has the detriment of-“

  “Twilight. I think I know how remote magic works.” Shining Armor interrupts the unicorn before she can go on an even longer tangent. “Its great that you know the theory and all, but have you ever actually been able to do it?”

  Twilight hesitates for a moment before shaking her head, and Shining Armor smirks. “That’s what I thought. Now, pay attention.” The stallion, without any apparent effort, ignites his horn and conjures a series of hexagonal shield panels simply hovering in the air at varying depths and distances. “The most important thing for remote magic is awareness of your surroundings. To extend your magic into the empty space, first you have to make sure your mind is extended into that space. To start with you can try reaching out with your aura, but after a while it’ll become second nature.” Shining Armor nods to Twilight. “Why don’t you try levitating, say, that ball behind you, without looking to see it?”

  That was all? That would be easy. Twilight scrunches up her face and lifts any given loose object her magic can reach into the air, giving Shining Armor a smug look. Her older brother, however, seems less than impressed, and simply shakes his head.

  “No, Twilight, just the ball. You need to show precision even when you’re not using any of your senses to see what you’re doing. It’s one of the first things they teach us at cadet spell craft school, maintaining awareness of everything around you with your magic without even thinking about it is imperative to honing your reflexes and abilities.” Shining Armor expins patiently. “Try again.”

  Twilight frowns, disappointed in herself. “R-right!” She nods her head jerkily before drawing a line in the dirt with her hoof, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. This time, she tries to feel any objects nearby and their shapes; it isn’t too hard, as the levitation she had just performed had left enough magical traces to be felt by her. Privately, she wonders if that counts as cheating, since the ball shouldn’t have had such markers. But, she isn’t very well able to just ignore the trace so she just accepts it, and focuses her magic on the most spherical object and lifts.

  “Better. But try not to pick up so much dirt, next time.” Shining Armor remarks dryly, and Twilight gnces back to realize she had picked up not just the ball but the grass and dirt it was touching as well. Hastily, she drops the tter, looking a tad sheepish.

  “Alright, what’s next?” Twilight asks, eager to continue. Shining Armor ys down, looking quite comfortable on the grass with the bare wisp of an amused, proud smile on his face, before nodding.

  “Now, without dropping it, see if you can shield the ball there from my attacks. You can feel free to look now, since I imagine it should take you a bit of practice to get shielding it down, but eventually we’re going to want to see if you can protect it without looking.” Shining Armor states, igniting his horn and waiting for Twilight to nod that she was ready before firing off a pulsed beam of magic, too weak to cause any real damage or require any real strength to block, simply enough that she would need to focus on conjuring a shield.

  Twilight’s first attempt projects a shield both around the unicorn and the ball, an elongated, lumpy, potato-shaped barrier that is less than efficient. It takes her a few attempts before she manages to actually focus her magic exclusively on that spot in space separate from her own body, shielding the ball. Three times she successfully blocks the strikes, before one time she accidentally shields her own body instead of the ball; there is a pop sound and a faint smell of smoke as a thin line of matter through the ball is charred.

  Twilight flinches in fear and takes a step back, uncertainly. That smell, that scent of magical burning, it's almost like...

  “Don’t worry about it. Even I didn’t get it on my first try, and this is literally what I got my cutie mark in.” Shining Armor reassures her, before she can get too lost in her thoughts. “C’mon, let’s keep going. Once you get this down we’ll see about blocking magic when you don’t know where it’s going to go preemptively.” Her brother takes up position again, and waits for Twilight to regain her composure.

  Twilight takes a deep breath and settles back into a focused spellcasting stance, widening her legs and lowering her body. Shining Armor can’t help but notice that while she is in a better position for doing magic, the stance is certainly more than just for spellcraft; she looks like she’s ready to bolt in any direction, her muscles poised and ready. Seemingly, a certain cyan pegasus had had a particur influence on her. Shrugging, Shining Armor ignites his horn once more, and the pair return to their practice.