use this somewhere after d/s/s terror. The book had said that you were never supposed to use your magic in anger. She didn’t want to do dark magic, it was dangerous and led to a life of ruin! But her panicked attempt to pull back just made it worse. What were you supposed to do when magic kept coming like this?! The book hadn’t said! Was this advanced magic? Was it dark magic? Everything seemed to be growing dim as she fought to control it which only made it double, then redouble. Magic surges are a rare but troublesome matter in the life of a young unicorn. Though triggered by strong emotion, their underlying cause remains mysterious and unknown because strong emotions alone are not sufficient to cause them to happen, and stronger emotions do not corellate to stronger surges. A unicorn experiencing a surge without assistance, is supposed to eject the magic as forcefully and quickly as possible, since whatever damage it causes to the surrounding area will be nowhere near the danger of trying to contain it. Their relation to dark magic is unproven, but you can damage your horn, experience magical burnout, even suffer brain damage as the consequence of a magic surge. As many have ended up in the psychiatric ward as have not, and only a lucky few have come out better for the experience. Theoretically, a surge can open up one’s magical potential rapidly, and in the sole case of Twilight Sparkle, immensely, but its unpredictable nature almost invariably leads to serious even crippling injury. And Dinky would have known all this had she read books for unicorns on how to raise your foal. Unfortunately the book she selected was Basic Magical Aptitude (Level 1), and did not as such make mention of uncontrolled magic surges. Fortunately, Dinky was a very, very lucky pony. For one thing, her position by the school house gave her a view of most of the whole town, which in turn gave most of the whole town a view of her. Picking out a colt among tiny dots of muted color moving around below is not something a unicorn’s eyesight is normally capable of. But eventually her unchecked surge grew to a shining beacon of not yellow, but white light brighter than the sun. That attracted the pegasi who finding themselves unable to approach without reality-slipping went to find the unicorns. It would certainly have been caught had Dinky not been wandering around in places isolated and alone. It might have been caught earlier if Ponyville wasn’t such an earth pony town. But they still needed pegasi for basic weather management, and the weather team was quite familiar with the unicorns working at the local Ponyville hospital. Dinky sure didn’t feel like she was lucky. She couldn’t think or move or even see anything but a blinding brightness and her head felt like it was going to split open. The opportunity to release this surge had long passed as the unicorn was trapped in it more and more. She felt like she was fading away, that there was nothing other than the magic, and the pain. And that’s when the pain increased dramatically as something ripped it right out of her, like a giant claw had ripped her horn right off. She tried to scream but she didn’t even have the voice to. Her entire body was limp and exhausted. She vaguely felt herself drift slowly to rest against the ground, with unfamiliar ponies milling around her. No colts. And looking above she saw the most peculiar thing: a star shining brightly in the sky above her head, in the middle of the day no less. She wanted to watch it curiously, but she realized then that the pain was... gone, and with that, a chasm of weariness overcame her. She was just so very tired...