"Twilight Sparkle!" For a moment, Twilight didnt recognise the strident voice as belonging to her beloved mentor. Princess Celestia had never raised her voice to Twilight before, not even when she was a foal.

"Princess? What's wron-?" Twilight's question was cut short by a blast of golden magic from the Princess. Twilight was so shocked, she didn't even think to put up a shield. The fireball hit her square in the chest, and lifted her off her hooves as it slammed into her like an avalanche. She crashed to the floor, her eyes wide and stunned. Uncomprehending, she stared as the Princess approached, her face twisted into a mask of fury.

"Twilight, how could you?" Celestia snarled, and she seemed to throb with suppressed light. The floor blackened and scorched where her hooves touched it.

Twilight gasped in a breath at last and struggled to rise. "Princess, I don't -"

"-Traitor." Celestia's simple statement, burning with hatred, cut Twilight to her core.

"Princess, please, I-"

"Don't presume to speak to me, you — you — there are not words to describe how you have betrayed me. How you have betrayed Equestria!" As Celestia spoke, she became more incensed, her wings spreading and arching over her head. She seemed enormous, and Twilight cowered. What had happened? What could she have done?

Orange flames sparked and flickered into life beneath Celestia's hooves, and spread quickly in a semicircle to either side of the Princess, arcing out around the prone Twilight. The heat on her wings, singeing the delicate filaments of her feathers, told her that the flames had met behind her and were entirely too close to comfort, but she dared not look away from Princess Celestia.

Celestia took one slow, deadly hoof-step after another towards her pupil, and her eyes narrowed in disgust as she looked down at Twilight, who began to sob. She didn't understand!

"You will not move me with your false regret," Celestia spat, and she seemed to glow brighter and brighter, light pulsing out of her and turning the dimly lit room into brilliant day. The flames leapt higher, and Celestia reared onto her hind legs, her wings blocking out the edges of Twilight's vision. Magic swirled, golden and blinding, around her horn, a vortex of sheer power. "You will pay for your actions."

Twilight gazed up at her teacher mutely, tears crowding into her eyes and spilling onto her cheeks. A small, detached part of her mind thought that this must be how a mouse would feel before Owloicious swooped down on it.

The light from the Princess' horn burned fiercer and brighter until it was all Twilight could see, and then Princess Celestia struck.

*

Twilight jerked awake, thrashing desperately at the tangled blankets. "Princess, no!" Kicking out blindly, she finally struggled free of the blankets, and staggered to her hooves, looking wildly around her. Her heart was pounding. Oh, Starswirl's beard. Just a dream. Just a dream. She was safe. It was nothing — just that wretched dream again.