Something Always Goes Wrong
Twelve hours until the solstice—and Twilight was in the library, adjusting her telescope.
Of course, most ponies would say the solstice was already here. December 21st, that's what the wall calendar beside the door said. But precision was important to Twilight, and if you wanted to be precise, the winter solstice—the annual event in which the sun reached its lowest deviation below the celestial equator—happened at precisely 11:03 pm. Twelve hours from now. Even Twilight had to admit this added precision was meaningless for most, but anypony with an interest in astronomical observations ought to know better.
The fact that the Ponyville Telescope Society were throwing their bi-annual solstice party from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm still rankled. How could you have a solstice party without a solstice!
There were other reasons for precision in astronomical observations, though. Princess Celestia's power was tied to the sun, just as Princess Luna's was tied to the moon. Twilight didn't know if this was common knowledge, but she'd spent enough time with each of the princesses to detect the pattern. Celestia's magic would be weaker tonight than at any other time during the year—and weakest at precisely 11:03 pm. Hopefully, nothing bad would happen.
Twilight peered through the telescope to make sure the optics were clear. A fluffy white cloud drifted through the bottom of her view, framed against the blue morning sky. She cranked a handle and the view inched further to the right.
Something nagged at Twilight. A thought, half-remembered. She stepped back from the telescope and stared ahead. She was forgetting something. What was she forgetting?
"I was calibrating the telescope for tonight," Twilight said to herself. "The constellation Equuleus is going to be especially clear this week. Okay. Calibrating the telescope. It's daytime. If it's daytime, I have to calibrate using the..."
Her eyes widened. She checked the altitude and azimuth, and peered through the telescope's eyepiece again. The last thin wisps of cloud melted away, leaving only clear blue sky.
A quiet scrabble of claws sounded behind her. "Hey, Twilight, have you seen my Power Po—"
"Spike!" Twilight spun away from the telescope, feeling her heart beat more quickly. "Do you know where my astronomical almanac is?"
"I thought you were reading it this morning. Isn't it still down in the kitchen?"
Twilight galloped past him, ignoring Spike's question.
Eight hours until the solstice—and something was wrong with the train.
"C'mon, Twilight, will you tell me why you're so worked up?"
"Not now," she hissed. "Too many ponies might hear!"
Spike flopped back on his seat, across from Twilight, and raised one eyebrow. "You do know we're stuck in the middle of nowhere, right?"
"I know! Why can't they get us moving again?"
"And the train was pretty much empty when we got on board, right?"
"Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with—"
"And you did buy us tickets for a private compartment, and told the conductor not to disturb you under any circumstances. Right?"
"I need to think, Spike. I don't have time for your little—"
"What I mean, Twilight—" Spike waggled his claws at the room around them. "—is that there isn't anypony who could hear. So why don't you calm down and tell me what you're so worried about?"
Twilight wilted under his stare, fishing her almanac out of the saddle bags on the seat beside her. She held it out to him with one hoof. "Check the solar events calendar on page eight, and then the lunar events calendar on page ninety-five. I marked them both with sticky-tabs."
Spike took the book from her and began paging through it. Twilight turned toward the window and stared out at the silhouette of Canterlot, high against the afternoon sky. "Did you ever notice the changes in Princess Celestia's magic, Spike? How she'd be more powerful—even a little taller—during the summer? Then, during the winter, she'd sleep a bit more, and sometimes she'd ask the castle servants to do things she would have done herself in the summertime, like... I don't know. When we had lessons together, she'd always brew a pot of tea for us to share. And if the lessons went long, sometimes the tea would get cold and it'd need re-heating. And she'd always re-heat it herself in the summer, but in the winter, she'd ask somepony else to do it."
"Why do you drink hot tea in the summer, is what I want to know," Spike said, staring at the book. "You're supposed to have iced tea in the summer. You don't have to keep that hot. It's not even supposed to—" Spike flipped back and forth between two pages. "Hey, that's cool! So we get a new moon on the same night as the winter solstice this year?"
"Check the times," Twilight said.
"Is this what you're worried about, Twilight? That both of them are happening... Well, that's funny. Eleven o'clock for the solstice and eleven o'clock for the new moon. Eleven oh-three, actually. That's... kinda weird, don't you think?"
"Not just weird, Spike. Uncanny. I did the calculations myself, and they're happening at exactly the same time. Exactly. To the second. No, more than that. I went out to eight decimal points, and they matched up perfectly. Something is going to happen tonight, I know it."
"What do you mean, something is going to—"
"Ugh! What's wrong with this train?" Twilight pounded a hoof against the window. "Maybe I should go talk to the engineer and see if I can help. We need to get to Canterlot, to warn the princesses."
"Don't worry, Twilight. I'm sure the train ponies will be able to sort this out in plenty of time for us to get to Canterlot."
As if on cue, the cabin suddenly lurched around them. A piercing whistle sounded from the train, and it began rumbling forward again. After a minute, the train passed inside the big tunnel that marked the start of their slow ascent up Mount Canter, and darkness swallowed them.
Four hours until the solstice—and Spike was being uncooperative.
The streets of Canterlot glowed in the early evening. Between the white light of the streetlamps and the bright and cheery shop windows, most ponies took no notice of the dark, moonless sky. A trio of businessponies wearing well-pressed suits trotted past Twilight and Spike, bickering with one another.
"C'mon, Twilight, just one more. I'm sure we'll find the new special cover variant at Axel's Comics. That was always my favorite comic shop when we lived here. They've gotta have it."
"I thought Stable Brothers was your favorite. And didn't we already check there?"
Spike kicked at a pebble lying in the street. "Yeah, well, they've really gone downhill since Mint Condition stopped working there. And he's the manager over at Axel's now, which is why we should go to Axel's."
"I thought you didn't like Mint Condition."
"Nah, he's a good guy. He's just got some pretty stupid ideas about which of the Power Ponies is the strongest."
"Anyway, we are not going to Axel's." Twilight frowned up at the castle, rising above the city.
"But it's only two streets over! It'd only take, like, half an hour max to check if they had it."
"I thought you said you were sure they'd have it."
Spike coughed. "Well, I mean, I was wrong about the last three. So I guess, no use pretending. But this is Mint Condition we're talking about! No way he didn't order the special cover variant. Anyway, we've got lots of time. And I still think you're overreacting. Coincidences happen. Sometimes I stop by Rarity's place the exact same time Sweetie Belle gets home from school. Sometimes the solstice and the new moon happen together. It's not a big deal."
"That's..." Twilight spluttered. "That's not at all the same thing, Spike! These are astronomical phenomena we're talking about. They work to precisely calculated schedules. They've been this way for thousands of years. This isn't like two ponies showing up at the same place at the same time!"
"Okay, one, I'm a dragon. Two, aren't Celestia and Luna in charge of the sun and the moon? I don't think this is as different as you're making it out to be."
"Fine! Fine! Whatever. If you want to go to your comic store, go. I'm heading to the castle so I can talk to the princesses. This is important, whether you think so or not!"
The solstice was about to happen—and nopony was taking her seriously.
"Princess, you have to do something!"
Luna took another sip of coffee. "And what would you have me do, Twilight Sparkle?"
"Wake up Celestia, for one thing! Don't you think she should know about this?" Twilight noticed she was pacing around Luna's bedroom again and forced herself to stop.
"My sister knows, Twilight Sparkle. We discussed this before you arrived. And we've known about it for a very long time. As you yourself rightly pointed out, we control the two celestial spheres in question."
"I know, I know, but you're both going to be at your weakest tonight! Aren't you worried that... I don't know, that Discord will try to steal your powers, or something? Or that the Griffon Empire might try to take advantage of the situation? Or that Nightmare Moon might try to reassert herself? Or who knows what other monster might come back, that nopony's ever heard of, and try to take over Equestria!"
Luna's expression darkened. "Twilight Sparkle, I would appreciate it if you didn't refer to my former... condition... so casually. Nightmare Moon is gone, which again I thank you for, but the fact remains that you are not being reasonable. Discord is reformed, and the griffons can hardly hope to invade Equestria during the brief seconds while my sister and I will be powerless."
"Wait, you're going to be powerless? That's so much worse! How are you not taking this seriously?"
Luna clucked her tongue. "I should not have said that. Still, my point remains. You haven't been able to name one credible threat for us to prepare for."
"What about Sombra?"
"You defeated him earlier this year."
"What about, I don't know... there was some guy named Tirek, right?"
"Tirek is safely locked in Tartarus. Celestia and I checked on him earlier this week. Precisely for this reason."
"I know! The Sirens! What about the Sirens? Or the windigoes? They're still around somewhere, right?"
"Please, Twilight Sparkle, calm yourself. I can send for some tea if you'd like." Luna's horn glowed briefly and a bell rang outside the room. "Come, sit with me. The event is nigh. Everything will be fine, as I told you."
She was pacing again. She couldn't help it. "No, it won't! It won't be fine. It's never fine. Something always happens!"
For a moment her voice hung suspended in the room, and the world seemed to hold its breath. She felt the tide of magic flex within her. Twilight turned toward Luna, her heart pounding in her chest.
Luna blinked twice and took another sip of her coffee. "There. It is done. The solstice has passed, and the new moon with it. Now our power will return, as it ever does."
Twilight galloped to the balcony and threw open the glass doors, looking out into the moonless night. "No! Something happened! I know it. I felt it! We need to be prepared!"
There was a sigh behind her, and then she heard the sound of hooves clopping across the tile floor. Luna joined her on the balcony. "There is nothing to prepare for, Twilight Sparkle. The event is over. Equestria is safe. My sister and I are safe. Sometimes, coincidences happen."
Twilight growled under her breath. "No, they don't. They just don't. Not like this. And I'm going to stay right here until I know what happened. I'm going to wait and..." She sniffled. "And..."
She could feel herself starting to cry. Why was she starting to cry? Everything seemed fine, just like Luna said. What was there for her to be upset about? She sniffled again.
"Twilight Sparkle, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Princess. I'm just..." She stared out at the night, at the darkened countryside lying in the shadow of Mount Canter. "This isn't how it works. Something always goes wrong. And then I have to save everypony. For once, I wanted to stop it from happening. I wanted to protect everypony before there was a problem. But... But I failed."
Luna brushed a hoof through Twilight's mane. "How did you fail? You came to warn us. And now Equestria is safe. Is this not what you wanted?"
"But nothing happened!"
For a moment Twilight thought she saw a hint of a smile on Luna's face, and then it was gone.
"Yes, Twilight Sparkle, that is precisely correct."
After Twilight left, Celestia crept into the room and went to stand beside her sister on the balcony. They both stared up at the night sky in silence.
After a while, they turned away. Side by side, they walked back to Luna’s table and sat. "So did you tell her?" Celestia asked.
"Tell her what really happened?" Luna snorted, tossing her mane. "No, of course not."
A grin split Celestia’s face. “Didn’t I say she was fun to tease? I said that, right.” She turned toward the door and her horn glowed, and the bell in the hallway chimed once more.
Luna rolled her eyes. “Patience, sister. I already rang for the servants when Twilight was here. They should be along shortly.” She took another sip of her tea.
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Very cute and fun. Good to have you back.
And very subtle thing there.
5237105
Speaking of cute and fun, I love your new avatar!
I'm probably dumb. What actually did happen? Did they manipulate it for that lesson? Or something else?
5237135
Something did actually happen—and you have bookplayer to thank for that—and you may have to look carefully to catch it. My original intention was to just have Celestia show up at the end and be like, "You didn't tell her?" "Nope." "Cool."
I'm not saying that's all that happened. But books thought it'd be nice if there was a thing readers could actually see in the story. My attitude (and maybe I'm weird) is that what actually happened doesn't really matter a whole lot. Death of the Author and all, though, it kind of matters more what the people who read it think.
5237146 Interesting. I'll read through it a bit more to try and catch it.
5237163
Fair warning, it's tiny and totally unimportant...
5237170 I'm too curious of a person for my own good.
Celestia playing her troll game.
Ah, there we are. I'm assuming that the bell had something to do with the little flex of magic, like alerting Celestia to do something. Or maybe it itself did it, since Celestia rang the bell after talking about teasing her. Although Luna seemed to think that was just for the servants.
EDIT: Yup, she did that for tea.
5237129 Thankya I'm rather fond of it.
Seriously?
I had all these silly ideas of what it could be, but on a second reading I instead found that. Either it's a mistake (and the thing-that-happened is that the servants made the tea for once) or your gimmick only rates a few micro-sillies.
Also, one of these days Celestia is going to give Twilight a heart attack with her 'teasing'.
5237349
Oh yeah, that's it.
Like I said, my original intention was to just have the two of 'em show up at the end and be like:
"Did you tell her?"
"Nope."
"Cool.
So the <cough> upgrade <cough> is Tiny Visible Effect.
"Fun to tease," she said. When Twilight is driven utterly mad and conquers Equestria before anything else gets the chance, we'll see just how fun she is to tease...
I don't know. I really sympathized with Twilight here. She's been kind of traumatized from having the weight of the world on her withers so often. And really, given Equestria's track record, there were good odds of something terrible happening.
A well-written story, but one that I just couldn't get behind.
5237762
Fair enough. I suspect I've been keeping this sort of story/ending in the tank for a while, though. The meta-humor around just what Twilight gets asked to do has gotten to be some of my favorite pony humor, and I think this deleted scene captures it nicely.
But you're right, Twilight does have every reason to be upset over this. Because it just keeps happening.
5237379
Tea and coffee are a pansy princess's beverages. Prune juice is a real warrior's drink.
The nerve of some ponies!
I couldn't help reading this with the gravity Twilight would have, as a serious epic. I was listening to Sun at the time, so that could have something to do with it.
You really like time-stamps in your stories, don't you? I think it's kinda cool. Maybe you should do something crazy with them, like jump around in time and see if people catch it.
This is such a show character name I don't even.
What is this analogy supposed to imply?
Thanks, Hagrid.
This bothers me. I don't know why. It's technically the right tense. I feel like it needs a 'had' though.
This is one of those laws of the universe though. You can't beat it. If you're prepared, it won't happen. It gets worse in Equestria though, what with these gods of the sky trolling ponies. That meta though. It does always happen. Even things that really were just coincidences become randomly important later, like that darn Cerberus thing.
Like I said at the beginning though, I read this very much in tune with Twilight. "I've predicted the downfall of Equestria perfectly accurately before. Y'know, except for the part where I saved it, and Celestia knew the whole time. Still, you should take this seriously!"
Also, what is this silliness that Derpmind found? You expect us to be okay with this!? Coffee transmutation? NO. nononono. Celestia and Luna switched bodies (and beverage containers, simultaneously), Equestria was sucked into the mirror universe, Aria came back and the matrix had to do a 3k year rebase and there were some glitches. Something. Gosh.
5237349 is on to something, but it's not liquid transmutation. The liquid remains coffee after Luna says "There, it is done." The only time tea is mentioned is in the final scene, well after the event.
That suggests a body swap — especially given the blink reaction to the coffee — but the new Luna says she rang for the servants already, which happened before the Solstice; and we see her do it on-screen, so the new Luna is the same consciousness as the old Luna.
I got nothin' else. So, I think maybe it's a red herring, and the sisters are right — they're just trolling the audience along with Twi.
5238202
5238317
Omigosh, omigosh, you guys are both awesome!
Body swap was so totally my original idea for what happened, I just decided it was too wacky to go for.
Damn, maybe I should edit this to make it make sense...
5237762
"If I can't find an Equestria-shattering crisis, I'll just have to make an Equestria-shattering crisis!"
Small correction, or possibly a question about the mythos: I believe it should be "windigos" and not "wendigoes". The latter, while more mythologically legitimate and less afflicted by Equestrian puncraft, are not the creatures of the Hearth's Warming Eve tale; they aren't incompatible with canon but are unlikely to be endorsed by it, what with the child-unfriendly cannibalism. (Google tells me that "windigo" is an accepted alternate spelling for the original Algonquin legend -- but for weather-pun reasons only the "i" makes sense for the Equestrian version -- and that there should be no "e" in the plural.)
Well, that was fun. I do wish there was a slightly more obvious hint as to what happened, though.
5238502
The coffee was still coffee, Twilight still has her library, and the mention of Tirek also implies that Twilight's Kingdom hasn't happened. It's winter, so the Summer Sun Celebration after Twilight's coronation hasn't happened, but Discord HAS been reformed....Is she a unicorn here?
Was that magical twinge a signal of her upcoming wing growth?
Also, I kind of expected Luna to say something to Celestia about how the teasing actually made Twilight cry. OR DID IT.
Actually, maybe it WAS a body swap...
What's casting the shadow?
Starlight would be shining from all directions...
5238893
Thanks for the catch! I have a hard time remembering that the spelling used by the show is different than the spelling I would have learned growing up. The idea that it's a pun (which I don't think I really got before) will probably help me remember, though.
5239044
I left whether or not she's an alicorn intentionally fuzzy , because I don't like wasting words and I didn't think it was super important to specify—which may or may not be true, actually, but it was my thought. I definitely wrote this thinking of her pre-alicorn, though. So yes, in that small space between Discord being reformed and Twilight gaining wings. I didn't want Twilight to seem/feel like she was on an even level with the princesses, and her having wings complicates the time bomb a bit because it's a lot easier for her to get to the castle in a timely manner.
But at the same time, that's sort of like me head-canoning my own story. I tried to leave out the detail there because I think this can probably get read with Twilight being anywhere in Season 4, too, without much difficulty. I do think my own ideas about when it was set probably played into me not playing for the body-swap, though—because a body-swap here would seriously recontextualize Twilight's alicorn ascension.
5239350
I dunno if this is bad of me, but I was thinking you could use that as a figure of speech without needing a proper shadow there at the time. That's the way the phrase works in my head. It sounds like it's not reading well for everyone, though? Something I should definitely keep in mind, then. I really don't like when phrases in my writing throw readers out of the story, and so this might be a phrase I want to avoid in the future—at least, avoiding when it's figurative instead of immediate.
Thanks for pointing it out to me!
5239598 5237807 5238317
This narrows the time frame of the story, as Tirek escaped from Tartarus when Cerberus went AWOL in "It's About Time" in season two. Heck, maybe one of the sisters slipped up at the end of the inspection, precipitating later events! ("Who so art a fine canine? Yea, thou art, Cerberus! Yea, thou art! We are glad to see thee again, also!")
I'm not sure if this is what happened, if it's an error, or if Luna's become a two-
fisted-hooved drinker, given that the beverage swap occurs after the event in question. And if it is a body swap, it seriously re-conceptualizes all subsequent events in the show. Though it would go a long way towards explaining where "Luna" was during "A Canterlot Wedding"—she was sleeping in during the day, for a change!5239983
AAAAGH! You are correct, sir/madam! On both counts. The Tirek one I just completely forgot about, and the other one... is entirely my bad.
Well, that's just downright embarrassing. Okay. This story needs some revision, unfortunately.
I'll try to get on that in the next day or two. Eesh. Sorry...
5239996
For your own sake, please try to be a little bit precise about it. I mean, you can probably get away with just before lunch, but to be really safe you should try finishing it at something more traditionally significant, like the stroke of midnight. You can never be too careful with these things.
5239996
The implication that Twilight just barely knows of Tirek's existence impacts references to other threats. As of "It's About Time,"
• Discord is still re-petrified
• Queen Chrysalis will soon abduct and replace Princess Mi Amore Cadenza as the next step in her plan to invade Canterlot
• King Sombra is still a shadow, banished to the ice of the arctic north, the Crystal Empire barely even a myth
• It's moons before the magic mirror portal to Canterlot High reopens, so Sunset Shimmer and the Sirens are beyond reach
• The Great and Powerful Trixie is (probably) now working on a rock farm and saving her bits for something
• The Flim Flam brothers were recently run out of Ponyville for producing low-quality apple cider
• The general public believes Ahuizotl to be a figment of A.K. Yearling's imagination
• And what about…
NaomiStarswirl?So while there are several credible threats at this point in time, their existence is either unknown to Twilight (e.g., Sombra, Sunset Shimmer, the Sirens), a story or legend on the order of Nightmare Moon prior to the one-thousandth Summer Sun Celebration (e.g., Tirek, Ahuizotl, probably changelings), or actually not that much of a threat (e.g., pre-Alicorn Amulet Trixie, the Flim Flam brothers, re-petrified Discord).
Continuity—in about it's order things keeping all.
And I did some digging. It turns out that—on Earth, at least—a new moon on the same day as Winter Solstice is a somewhat rare event, to say nothing of them occurring at exactly the same minute. From what I can tell, the next time the two fall on the same date for us is on December 21, 2033!
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phases2001.html
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/seasons.html
5245201
True, but the solstice happens at 11:03pm this year, and the new moon at 1:20am the morning of the 22nd or thereabouts if I remember correctly. So we've got them pretty darn close this year, too.
5237762
Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt too. They should have told Twilight she was an alicorn now, instead of lying and saying nothing happened.
5239996
No, no, this is fine. Tirek escaped, but he bunched up some pillows under his blanket, so it looked like he was still there when Celestia and Luna checked in on him.
Hmm. Can you have headcanon of fanfiction? I think I prefer that the thing that happened was a prank millennia in the making involving indirect influences on breeding and eventually tutelage to produce a neurotic, obsessive compulsive student to pull it on. It must get boring being long lived, right?
5276649
It is turtles all the ways down. Generally what happens next is someone writes a fanfic of that fanfic, and pretty soon you have a universe to play with such as the Optimalverse, or Winningverse.
Interesting premise, though the fact they went comic shopping in the middle of things BEFORE going to the castle seems out of place. I must admit, I also wanted more from the ending. I wanted the "nothing" to turn out to be important in its own right, or at least have some deeper lesson learned because of it. Of course, I guess that just means I should probably go write that story myself then.
Oh, and the whole inevitable anti-climax kept reminding me of the Violent Femmes song, "Machine."
Is this a hint at Spike-Sweetie shipping, or is it just a coincidence?
5636084
Exactly!
5239996
Well, I think the day or two have passed, and Luna is still drinking coffee... Which I find strange in general, since the solstice would happen at her equivalent of late morning/noon.
...Or maybe it's just me unable to comprehend how people drink coffee for the taste.
I've reread the story and the comments and I STILL don't get it. Was it coffee turning into tea? Celestia and Luna swapping bodies? Twilight growing wings? WHAT?
Not being sure what, if anything, happened will bug me.
Kinda fun.
Should have been a little more sympathy for Twilight. She does have a point, that something always happens.
The premise was funny but in retrospect the whole thing seems kind of mean. Twilight's fear isn't exactly unreasonable, and they're causing her to stress out.