>Page 1 - One Panel
>It's a quiet, moonlit night at the Golden Oaks library.

>Page 2 - Two Panels
>The moon shone through the bedroom window at about 11:00. Spike snores blissfully in his crib at the foot of Twilight's bed, but the young mare wasn't asleep. The moonlight struck one side of the bed, while the other side facing away from the window was thrown aside and empty.

>Page 3 - Four-to-Six Panels
>Downstairs in the library, Twilight sat on the floor with her snout in a large tome, illuminated by the warm flickering light of a candle next to her. Her eyes scanned slowly down the page, then across to the next. She looked like a young filly reading her first adventure story. She turns to the next page, revealing an portrait illustration of a cloaked unicorn mare rearing up on her hind legs, her horn sparkling like the north star, facing right. The cloak was a colorful crimson and rimmed with simple white four-pointed stars bounded by white stripes on either side. The red cloak contrasted with her white coat and untrimmed fetlocks. The text continued to the right of the picture and down the rest of the page. Twilight's mouth opened slightly in delight as she drew breath, her eyes widening slightly as well. Whoever this character was, Twilight had a fascination with her.

>Page 4 - Five-to-Six Panels
>The next day, Spike woke up to find that the early morning sun shone brightly on an empty bed. "Twilight?" he asked the empty bed, wondering if he'd get an answer. With a yawn and an eye rub, Spike dragged himself out of bed and headed downstairs, dragging the blanket halfway down with his right foot. Opening the door to the library, he climbed down the stairs along the wall and found her snoring just beside it, next to a bookshelf built into its side. The book was closed on it's back cover, and her left cheek was smushed against the floor to the right of it, on top of a little pool of drool. "Twilight?" Somewhat alarmed, Spike ran to her side and tried to shake her awake

>Page 5 - Seven Panels
>"Twilight!" he said again, but the sleepy mare gave a quiet moan and barely stirred. She must have fallen asleep late into the night, and probably the early morning. Again. Unamused, Spike lifted up a wing and pinched it firmly between his claws. That seemed to do the trick, as she cried out in a yelp and bolted upright on all fours, her wings fully extended. Spike was plastered against the wall a couple inches away by the explosive movement. Twilight looked back and forth while Spike groaned and fell down to the floor, until she spotted her number one assistant and lowered her head down to him. "Spike? A-Are you okay?"

>Page 6 - Six Panels
>Looking up, Spike's vision was filled with a purple mare's face, one cheek completely covered in spit, with a thin strand connecting back to the small puddle. Holding back a chuckle, Spike teased her, "Hehe, had a good night's rest, Princess Spittle?" Twilight gave out a confused "huh" and went to touch her right cheek, looking surprised to find it wet and sticky. Pulling her hoof away and looking sidelong at the spit-strands, she says, "Ewwww … I guess I did. I'd better go wash up, my breath must be terrible." She began walking towards the bathroom when Spike said, "I'll say," pinching his nose and grabbing a mop with his free hand to start cleaning up.

>Page 7 - Six Panels
>Panel 1: Jump cut to Twi and Spike cleaning themselves up in front of the bathroom vanity. Twilight brushes her teeth as Spike asks, "So, Twilight, what was that book that kept you up so late?"
>Panel 2: Jump cut to Spike brushing his teeth while Twilight talks through her flossing, "Oh, Spike! That book was one of the first epics of pony mythology I'd ever read! It tells the age old story of the Scarlet Unicorn, a legendary hero that whose story is said to before even Celestia's time!"
>Panel 3: "Whoa!" said Spike as he whipped his face up towards Twilight, his hands remaining over the counter where he held on to a nail file. "That's news to me. I thought our records barely even covered when the Princesses began to rule." "I know!" Said Twilight, returning his excited gaze with her own. "Isn't it awesome?"
>Panel 4: (angled down towards the pair in front of the vanity, their reflections showing in the mirror) "The myth goes," she continued as she pulled a length of her hair with a comb, "that her name was Morning Shine, and although she was a gifted unicorn that traveled far and wide, she had no cutie mark. Her special talent was a mystery to her, but everyone believed she must have been talented. They never saw under her scarlet coat to realize the truth."
>Panel 5: "But that doesn't make sense, Twilight. How could she be a big hero without a cutie mark to show for it? What made her special?"
>Panel 6: "That's a great question, Spike. The myth gives hints here and there about what her talent might have been, but her true destiny seems to be shrouded in mystery. It's left out of the narrative, along with other details that keep it from being considered a true chronicle."

>Page 8 - Seven Panels
>Panel 1: "A chroni-whatnow?" asked Spike as he waited outside the bathroom next to the kitchen.
>Panel 2: Twilight followed and led the way into the main room. "A historical account. We can't verify if it all actually happened; we don't even know who wrote it." A familiar voice in the room other than Spike chimed, "Don't even know who wrote what, Twi?"
>Panel 3: Suddenly we see Rainbow Dash inside the library. "Gaah!" yelped Twi in alarm. "R-Rainbow! You startled me! What are you doing here so early?!"
>Panel 4: "Hah! Sorry about that Twi, I was just coming to drop this book off and pick up another one. I'm just jonesin' for another good adventure story to curl up to."
>Panel 5: Rainbow Dash lifts a book out of her saddlebag with her right wing and hands it off to Twi, who tries to take it with her own left wing, but fails and drops the book on the floor.
>Panel 6: Both look at the fallen book.
>Panel 7: Twi grins sheepishly at Rainbow and lifts the book up with her magic, while the blue mare give her an amused look.

>Page 9
>Panel 1: "Myths, Folktales, and Natural Remedies of Pegasopolis," said Twilight as we see the cover of the book, "I've never read this one, but it looks interesting. How did you pick it out?"
>Panel 2: "I've never read this one, but it looks interesting," she said, with the book hovering in front of her face, and Dash's face covering the left side of the panel as she looked forward at Twilight.
>Panel 3: Twilight moves the book away and asks Dash with a smile, "What made you pick it out?" Dash's eyebrows dipped into a concave line (we can only see her right eye from this panel) as she said, "Well, actually, it wasn't me who picked it out."
>Panel 4: She winces as she attempts to extend her left wing
>Panel 5: "It was Fluttershy," she said as she barely extended her wing to reveal a nasty, blue, bruise-like growth at the wrist, where the wing seemed to bend slightly in the wrong direction.
>Panel 6: "Gaah!" yelped Twilight, followed by an alarmed "Whoa!" from Spike.

>Page 10
>Panel 1: Twilight zipped over to Rainbow's wing and grasped it lightly with her magic, causing Rainbow to see stars. "*gerk*" "Oh my gosh! Rainbow, what happened to your wing!? Please tell me you saw a doctor about this!"
>Panel 2: "Oh, don't worry," she said with a scowl as she held the librarian-turned-princess at hoof's length, "you can thank Fluttershy for seeing to that. If she didn't make me, I wouldn't have set one hoof back at that place after what happened the last time I busted my wing up."
>Panel 3: Twilight gave her a sidelong look of amusement as she said, "Not even with a good book? Rainbow, I thought we–" she said before Rainbow interrupted, " What good book?! The last Daring Do novel came out a month ago, and I don't think The Reluctant Trials of Parsley the Pigeon-hearted is gonna cut it for my adventure fix!"
>Panel 4: Twilight and Spike exchange a puzzled glance.
>Panel 5: Looking back at Rainbow, Twilight's head was cocked to one side and Spike held back a giggle as they responded in unison, "Who?"
>Panel 6: Upstairs, Owlowiscious wakes up with a start. "Who?"

>Page 11
>Panel 1: Rainbow looks at them with eyes narrowed to slits and says flatly, "Page 48"
>Panel 2: Twilight uses her magic to flip to the page as Spike looked on expectantly with an upturned head.
>Panel 3: We see an illustration of a timid-looking young pegasus stallion wearing an ornate cloak, his head lowered and peering behind him with a frantic expression on his face. Twilight reads the text wrapping to the right of the portrait and down the page, "These are the collected tales of Parsley the Pigeon-hearted,"
>Panel 4: We see Rainbow picking something out of her right ear with her wing as Twilight continued, "a pony who finds himself fleeing from one peril into the next,"
>Panel 5: Rainbow flicks a grain of something away with her feathers, "each one more grand and frightful than the last,"
>Panel 6: Finally she gives a big quiet yawn as Twilight finishes, "until he finds the one thing he wasn't looking for."
>Panel 7: "Oh, I don't know, Rainbow," Twilight says to her, "it doesn't sound so bad. Maybe you should give it a chance. It might not be Daring Do, but it does promise peril and peril. That sounds fun, right?"

>Page 12
>Panel 1: "Heh, that's what Fluttershy said. While I wouldn't doubt the book gets a little better later, I'd rather prime myself up with a real adventure story first!" she said as she extends her right wing and chest out proudly.
>Panel 2: "Speaking of stories," chimed in Spike, "you didn't finish telling us about your wing." Rainbow turns her head up and responds, "Oh yeah."
>Panel 3: "Anyways, the doc said I had acute stress-induced joint inflammation, or in other words, what happens when you try to flap a wing hard enough to make a little sonic boom, and do it wrong."
>Panel 4: We see a flashback panel of Rainbow sitting outside her cloud home on a bright morning, her wings fully extended and a smug, self-confident look on her face. "Oh, don't get me wrong, I did do a 'sonic-wingboom', as I like to call it."
>Panel 5: We see her straining to flap her left wing at an excessively rapid rate. "But I underestimated the blowback …"
>Panel 6: A big explosion of sound launches Rainbow into a wildly whirling tailspin to the bottom left corner of the page, off of her cloud patio in the background and to the top-right.
>Panel 7: Rainbow's head is through a tree, being encircled by cuckoo griffins, and her left wing is bent slightly farther backwards than present, " … and failed to make some safety precautions."

>Page 13
>Panel 1: "Couldn't do much in the air other than derpy corkscrews with one wing …" she says as we see Rainbow Dash floating above the ground upside-down with lips pursed and determined eyes that belied a feeling of awkwardness and frustration at the task of one-winged flight
>Panel 2: "… so before Fluttershy would let me stay at her place, she insisted I went to see a doctor first." Now we see Rainbow Dash facing away from the reader and towards Fluttershy, who's giving here a good Stare-down, her lips forming an upside-down checkmark of a frown, as she sweat under the stern gaze.
>Panel 3: "They said I'd need at least a week's worth of therapy before my wing heals. A week! They at least said I didn't have to spend it there, so that was good news." This she said as she stuck her head towards Twilight, her head seeming to stretch from a long distance and appear much larger in the foreground of the panel than her body in the background
>Panel 4: "That's where that book came in," she said as she pointed at the book Twilight had levitated to Spike.
>Panel 5: "We'd already visited Zecora about a remedy to help me heal up faster, but she didn't have any experience treating pegasi …" we see the pegasus pair in Zecora's hut, where the zebra shaman just shrugged to a defeated-looking Dash as Fluttershy offered a hoof to her shoulder, " … so Fluttershy figured she could find something here about how to treat pegasus wings."
>Panel 6: "No luck with that old folktales book though, so I'm gonna settle for something good to read. Anything you can recommend, Twilight?"

>Page 14
>Panel 1: Twilight thought about the question for a moment, with a hoof stroking her chin. "Weeeell … there is this one book I'm reading …"
>Panel 2: "Yeah? Does it have adventure? Action? A plot with world-ending consequences at stake?"
>Panel 3: "I dunno about the last part," replied Twilight, "but it is an epic adventure. I read it once when I was a little filly in Canterlot, and I'm really getting back into it now. I wouldn't mind letting you borrow that one if you really want it, though."
>Panel 4: "Oh, nuh-uh. I'm not one to get between you and some quality reading time; I know how much I love it. It's fine, I'll just browse around here until I find something that looks decent," said Rainbow as she turned around to inspect the shelves.
>Panel 5: Twilight looked over to the book on the floor, eyes furrowed and face in a frown as she struggled with a momentary dilemma.
>Panel 6: "Hmmmm," she hummed to herself, eyes closed in thought.
>Panel 7: Suddenly she gasps, her face brightening with enthusiasm at a sudden epiphany. "Wait, I've got it!"

>Page 15
>Panel 1: "Rainbow," she calls over to her, "why don't we read it together?"
>Panel 2: Rainbow looks back at her with a quizzical expression, clearly confused by the idea.
>Panel 3: "You can do that?"
>Panel 4: "Yeah! You've never told stories around a campfire? That's basically the same thing, except we're reading it from a book instead of just telling it, and–"
>Panel 5: Twilight gasped once more, the ideas seeming to flow in, "Ohmygosh, you know what we should do? We should totally have a story-time slumber party! It'll be so much fun! We can have snacks, relax, and read an awesome story together!"
>Panel 6: "Uhhh, yeah. That sounds … great, Twilight," said Rainbow.
>Panel 7: Not missing a beat, Twilight continued, "And since you're staying with Fluttershy, you could invite her to join us! I don't even know what she likes to read, but I'd be very interested in finding out, wouldn't you? Oh, it's a good thing I didn't have much planned this week, what with you being grounded and all, there's so much I'd need to prepare first! Eeeeh~"

>Page 16
>Panel 1: "Eeehehe," Rainbow chuckled half-heartedly, "suuurree … um." She faked her best grin
>Panel 2: The grin suddenly turning to a wide toothy frown as she looked at Spike with a pleading look in her eyes. He could only return the worried grin and shrug in response
>Panel 3: Suddenly Twilight crouched low to Spike's eye-level from his left, causing him to rear back in startled fashion. "Spike! You weren't here the last time we had a slumber party, so you're welcome to stick around for this one if you're not too sleepy." "Uh, sounds great Twi."
>Panel 4: "Wow," said Twilight as she levitated the book from Spike's arms, "it seems like everything's gotten busier ever since I became a Princess! It'll be so nice to relax like this with you guys. And with us reading together, the week will go by like nothing, you'll see!"
>Panel 5: "You bet!" said Spike and Rainbow in unison as Twilight busied herself with mental planning and tidying.
>Panel 6: Spike and Rainbow glance at each other, still having those fake grins plastered on their faces. This would prove to be an interesting night.

-----
Decided to rewrite the last two pages. It sounded too much like I'm replaying the angle from ''Look Before You Sleep'' with more S2 zaniness, and I don't think Rainbow Dash would mind hanging with her bestest reading buddy at a story-time sleepover. Fluttershy and Spike may be different stories, but we'll see about them soon enough.
-----

>Page 15 Alt
>Panel 6: "Wow, Twilight," said Rainbow with an awkward grin on her face, like she's holding back from laughing at her nerdy friend, "I never thought I'd say this, but ..."
>Panel 7: ''"Yes?"'' Twilight asked expectantly, a pleading look on her face

>Page 16 Alt
>Panel 1: "... but that would be the ''best'' grounded week I've ever had!" shouted Rainbow excitedly.
>Panel 2: Both of them started hopping in front each other, like excited little school girls, going "EEEEEEEEEEE~" as Spike looked on, still holding the large book against himself, and with a delighted smile on his face
>Panel 3: "Ooooooh, Rainbow, I'm so excited!" said Twilight. "We are gonna have a blast tonight! Oh, hey, speaking of, do you think Fluttershy would want to join us?" "Nah, I remember her saying something about firefly season and how she wanted to watch them tonight, so I'd say--''oh shit!''"
>Panel 4: "What?!" "I forgot! I promised I'd go watch the fireflies with her! Uugh, and I don't want to leave her hanging either!" "Oh, well, we can just reschedule for tomorrow night. It's no big deal."
>Panel 5: "Yeah, you're right. I just hope I don't fall asleep on her or anything. It'd be a bummer if she felt like she had to drag me back to her cottage in the middle of the night." Twilight stroked her chin as looked down and hummed.
>Panel 6: "Hey Spike," said Twilight, "how would you like to join Rainbow tonight on her field trip?" "Me? Really, Twilight?" "Of course!"
>Panel 7: "I bet you've never seen fireflies before, Spike, and I figure my number-1 assistant could use a break from the library. Just make sure Rainbow stays awake, and she can bring you back here if you stay out very late. Sound fun?" "Yeah, totally! Thanks, Twilight!" said Spike with a beaming smile.
>Panel 8: Twilight smiled back cutely, her eyes forming inverted U's. "Your welcome, big guy."

Page 17
>Panel 1: We see Spike on Rainbow's back as both are looking back at Twilight, who's standing at the entrance to the library. "Have fun! Oh, and Spike, could you bring back some snacks for tomorrow night?" she asked as she tossed a hefty coinpurse to Spike with her magic. "Sure, Twi!" he says as he catches it with his left claw.
>Panel 2: We see Twilight now from the inside of the library, looking out to Rainbow and Spike. "See you later!" said Twilight, before shutting the door.
>Panel 3: She closes the door and turns around in one motion, her eyes closed and with a smile on her cute bookhorse muzzle, as if already knowing what to do next.
>Panel 4: Suddenly her eyes shoot open, as if struck by the cartoony red exclamation point over her head.
>Panel 5: Cutting to a side view of Rainbow and Spike with the afternoon Ponville horizon in the background **sure wish there was a reliable town map to describe how everywhere connects**, Twilight shouts at them from off-panel, "JUST MAKE SURE IT'S NOT ALL JUNK FOOD!"
>Panel 6: "Okay, Twilight! Don't worry!" They shout back at her in unison.
>Panel 7: A mischievous smirk is shared between them, unbeknownst to Twilight.

>>134523
Since drawfag's taking a hiatus for school, I figure I'll just have more fun with this and take his advice on writing this like a fanfic, then I can make some heavy edits and panel-marking later.

>Page 18
>Rainbow took a casual round trip through the grocery stands, eyeing the afternoon faire some ponies had left from the day. She passed over the usual suspects: Golden Harvest with a nice orange batch of carrot crop; Roseluck and her prized flowers arranged in a neat, colorful stand; and Applejack with an evening's bushel of fresh Golden Delicious apples. An evening's bushel being about a dozen. "Hey, AJ!" said Rainbow. "Man, those look great. Glad I got here before they ran out."
>"Howdy Rainbow," said Applejack, who looked like she'd made at least a couple trips between Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres to sell her . "Lucky for you, they can be yours at half-price! I'm aiming to close up shop ..." she said before launching into a deep yawn, "... early today, sssso how 'bout it?"
>"You know how to close a deal, cowgirl. Spike?" The little dragon handed her the pouch of bits. She pulled the bag open with her wings and produced a nice pile of golden bits on the apple stand. "Whoo~wee, Rainbow. I'm a little surprised. What's the occasion?" Rainbow stood to the side and gave the surly cowpony a gander at her injured wing, all wrapped up in cloth. "Ho-hooh, say no more. You know what they say about an apple a day, dontcha?" "Oh, I know. But I'm getting some food together for a party."

>Page 19
>Twilight read through the next chapter, voicing the events in her head. "Morning Shine left the town of Biddlestern early next morning. She passed by the baker's shop and Old Mare Gwen's Apothecary on her way to the Fairy's Glen, past beneath the violet canopies of the Rosewood. Her meeting with Mara the Miracle-Maker remained foremost in her mind, her words sticking like dried honey, 'She may yet regain her memory with a tincture of