You stand at the water's edge. Feeling the waves sucking at your feet. You think of her. When do you not? With her wings and her spiral horn. Her crown and her kingdom. She is everything you aren’t.
For any pony, learning magic can be hard. For an Alicorn like Celestia, her mighty magic is even harder to master. Perhaps young Celestia's greatest difficulty with magic is the concept of power. A grand concept like that only lurks in her mind.
Every day, Princess Celestia wakes up in terrible pain, and every day, she chooses to endure it, until the one day she's left feeling blissfully normal. Few things have ever scared her so much.
While visiting Twilight at the Castle of the Two Sisters, Princess Celestia discovers that the Princess of Friendship has found a book from her past, and an account she may not wish to remember.
Celestia stole her heart—literally—and kept it when she promised to give Twilight freedom. Now furious but unable to do anything about it, Twilight copes with her new unlife.