The Second Story: "The Singular Constant"
The second story, imagined and conceived exactly twenty minutes after submissions to Thirty Minute Pony Stories Prompt #42 had already ended…
“The Singular Constant”
Twilight yawned as she turned up the stairwell.
To her utter surprise her soft sound was met by a flurry of motion, one that seemed to indicate that Spike had leapt from the window and into his bed in one swift movement.
“Spike,” she asked with more than a little surprise, “are you still awake? Your bedtime was two hours ago…”
Spike looked up at her from beneath his blanket. His two eyes shone through the night even as he wrapped it closer to himself.
“Twi,” he spoke into the night, “you’re home? I… I didn’t see you come in. I mean, hear you. I didn’t hear you come in…”
Twilight looked towards the window. There the last few wafts of smoke hung over a candle, illuminated by the moonlight.
He had stayed up waiting for her to come home again. He had sat in the window waiting, watching for her to come home.
She wished he wouldn’t.
Twilight approached him. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight she ignited her magic and wafted the bed sheet over him, letting it settle with an audible “poof”.
“I wish you wouldn’t sit up waiting for me, Spike,” she said gently, touching her face to his before resting upon the quilted coverlet of her own bed.
There was a moment of silence, and then the embarrassed voice of her little whelp called out to her from the basket.
“You… know? You know that I sit up waiting? How… how did you know?”
“You’re always so tired and hard to wake on the mornings after the nights I come home late,” she said, resting her head at the foot of her bed, letting her words drift on the night air that came in through the window. “I wish you wouldn’t…”
“Oh, I…” he began, Twilight watching his outline shift uncomfortably in the moonlight, the slight reflection glinting across his scales.
“It’s just, just that I get worried about you, Twi,” he said, his little voice quiet in the darkness, “I love you, you know, and I get all these ideas in my head… odd ones about stuff, when you’re not here. I mean, we go through some odd stuff, don’t we?”
“Heh, yes,” she answered. Twilight let her mind wander. She let it take her on a journey through any possible number of scenarios that could be bothering him.
“You’re my number one assistant, Spike,” she answered, “and I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m just running late most nights… I don’t need much adventure after dark.”
“I-I know,” he continued with a stutter, “It’s… it’s just that I do worry. I get all sorts of crazy ideas about what could be happening.”
“Spike, no matter what happens, I’ll be okay. I’m touched that you stay up, but there’s no need,” she said, painting emotion into her voice even as her head sat drowsily across her quilt. “I’m very happy that you love me enough to sit up and wait, but I care about you and…”
A pregnant silence sat in the air. At once Twilight released what it was… it was the way she had answered an earlier statement of his. She’d forgotten something, and now his doubt sat in the still summer air that settled around the room.
Now those thoughts were racing through his head, and there was no answer. She felt herself beginning to share them, realize that in that moment she had set him up, and for both of them there were more questions than answers.
“Twi,” said the occupant of the basket, his voice fighting to become more than a whisper, “I know you care about me, but, well…”
Twilight lifted her head from the foot of the bed, and she let the pondering depart from her as the conversation reached its natural conclusion.
“… but do you love me, Twi?”
Twilight and Spike had been introduced to Fluttershy’s lover only briefly.
They picked the strawberries and placed them in the wicker baskets, the wide bands of which stretched and heaved and groaned to contain the fruit. The soundtrack to the afternoon was now being provided by a chorus that arose from the old shed nearby, the one to which the jubilant pegasus and her paramour had unashamedly retired.
Both of the remaining pickers blushed as they worked the long rows, courteously carrying on their conversation in feigned ignorance of the activities that loudly arose from the shed as Celestia’s sun cast itself across the slick surfaces of the berries.
“I don’t really think that it has anything to do with government policies and the larger social commentary though,” said Spike, wiping the back of his arm across his sweating brow, lifting the straw hat as he did. “Do you, Twilight?”
Twilight blushed and recovered as Fluttershy’s voice met them, the distant tones drifting on a breeze of ecstatic whimpers.
“I can’t really say,” Twilight added, dropping her basket of berries and placing her hooves over Spike’s ears while the sounds arising from the shed became that much more lurid. “I haven’t been studying the tide charts, and it is only June, after all.”
Morning in the library came earlier and earlier, and as the Summer Sun Celebration drew nearer Twilight descended into her usual bouts of combined pride and desperation.
She ran up and down the library, checking every inch of it from the bare dirt floor of the basement to the wide sweep of branches overhead. Not only was Princess Celestia, her beloved tutor, sovereign, and friend once more coming to Ponyville but she would also be passing the weekend here, in the library!
Twilight watched as Spike re-shelved the books once more, wiping the dust from each tome as he did so with the dust cloth. As she looked on he went to place a book upon a high shelf, dragging the ladder across the way to where the slot for the book stood open.
Twilight turned to inspect the alignment of her statue, but immediately she heard Spike call out. “Whoa!” he cried, the ladder creaking in tune with his alarm, “Whut… whoa!”
At once she turned, spun, her magic leaping out before her… catching the dragon whelp before he could hit the solid and unyielding floor of the library.
She sat him before her, and as she looked upon him her look was at once chiding and responsible and at the same time concerned and motherly. “The em dash,” she began, looking down over him, placing her hoof upon his shoulder, “often demarcates a break of thought or some similar interpolation stronger than the interpolation demarcated by parenthesis. In what situations should we forgo the em dash, though?”
“Oh, bloody Hell!” called out the great, vast tree into which the library was built, “Not this rubbish again!”
With that there was an immense, vast moaning sound. At once the tree slowly lifted around them, the very heartwood rising around Twilight and Spike as their few small possessions and all manner of books tumbled to the floor.
The tree raised itself, turned, and looked back to the pair that stood there aghast. “Sod it! Bloody wankers!” it spoke, giving Twilight and Spike a rather rude gesture, “Piss off! I’m goin’ round to the pub…”
With that the grumbling tree traipsed through the center of Ponyville until it finally disappeared over the horizon.
Twilight and Spike stood there amid the ruins of their home, surrounded by the few items that had fallen to the ground.
“I’m aware of most of the conventional writing practices and stuff,” Spike finally said, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing, “but I can’t really bring myself to accept the moral implications, I guess.”
The colts and fillies rose to their rear legs as the announcer called out, “And now, here’s Twilight Sparkle!”
As Twilight trotted out into center of the circular stage the colts and fillies erupted into new rounds of applause and wild cheers!
Spike, bestrewn as he was in his clown costume and an irritated grimace, beeped his bicycle horn.
The colts and fillies laughed as Twilight danced her odd little dance and the cameras panned in closer.
“The prince should nonetheless make himself feared in such a mode that if he does not acquire love, he escapes hatred, because being feared and not being hated can go together very well!” sang Twilight as her dance ended and her theme music came to an end.
With that the fillies and colts in the bleachers pounded their hooves, great wide smiles across their faces.
“Bwwhhaaaaaat,” went Spike’s bicycle horn, the dragon whelp appearing less than enthused.
“But above all, he must abstain from the property of others, because men forget the death of a father more quickly than the loss of a patrimony!” continued Twilight, lifting her hooves high.
From the audience a new round of applause erupted, soon followed by sweet peels of childish laughter. As the audience began applauding she spun back to them with a great vast smile.
“I dunno,” Spike said with a grumble, as he hiked up his clown suit, “Don’t ya’ think there’s some credence to the idea of it as satire, especially considering how hard it is to find a parking space?”
The audience laughed as Twilight sprayed him with a seltzer bottle.
“Bwwhhaaaat,” went the bicycle horn once more.
Twilight watched as the animus of her persona walked down the length of the room, the vision flickering only briefly when her concentration wavered. “I don’t believe that there will be a sequel,” she spoke as she watched her own hooves fall across the white tiles. Her animus stared back at her, at once questioning her with a glance and moving towards the control booth.
As the resolution of the image crackled and sputtered with each step she grimaced, waiting for the monitors to impart their findings. “I can’t see how there will be, not with how domestic sales went, after all. Do you think they’ll make another one?”
With that the animus faded and was replaced with another image, one that bound across the room, searching for something, called for something with wordless lips. Twilight quickly recognized it as her anima, the feminine part of her digital counterpart.
It was seeking the child with desperate, longing eyes.
Twilight kept her eyes upon it even as she was lifting the headset to her mouth. As the animus searched Twilight began to speak. Spike though had already seen it, and at once he began the cascade of data.
“I know ya’ say that a lot,” Spike replied, watching as the vectors imparted the severity of his own upwelling across the broader scope of the digital landscape, “but I don’t really remember ya’ ever even saying it.”
“Flee! Flee ponies!” called Rover, his voice carrying loudly through his bullhorn. As the diamond dog did so the rowboat bobbled beneath him, disturbing the surface of the pond. “All is known! All is discovered!”
Twilight sipped at her cranberry juice once more. As she leaned forward the heavy cast-iron chair easily took her weight, and she placed her mark upon the board.
Spike stopped blowing bubbles into his milkshake long enough to watch her make her little circle upon the tic-tac-toe board.
The shade of the willow tree protected them as they sat upon the chairs, and the white lacquer that covered them and the table upon which the game sat shimmered in the few stray shafts of light that interrupted their interlude.
“Ruination! Devastation!” called the diamond dog once again, trying his best to call out through the bullhorn and paddle the rowboat at the same time. His awkward attempt was hampered as the oar caught on a raft of lily pads. “The end of most social functions! Yes, the unmaking of the fabric of culture, that is apparent daily!”
Spike carefully set aside his milkshake and pondered the tic-tac-toe board. He looked up to Twilight to find her smiling down over him. He returned her smile, and as his cheerful expression sat around him he contemplated the board once more.
Carefully, the dragon whelp leaned forward and made his own mark upon the board. The chalk made a perfect “X”, and with that he returned it to the little crystal dish.
“Taboos and personal mores!” called the diamond dog again, fighting to free the oar. As he did it jerked loose from the lily pads, sending him tumbling to the far side of the rowboat. “A series of loosely defined codes of ethics!”
The ice in Twilight’s glass chimed out as she placed it upon the table once more. Levitating the chalk to herself she hummed happily as she cast a long glance over the game board. With that she went to make her mark.
As she did she noticed something about the game as it was progressing.
Spike smiled at her, he too making an observation.
“Twilight,” he asked, “are you letting me win?”
Twilight laughed a small laugh.
“I was about to ask you the same thing, Spike!”
Together they giggled at their mutual observation as the rowboat sprang a leak. Together they waved to Rover as he saluted and his craft slid slowly beneath the surface of the pond.
The rail gun fired once more, the heavy, dull thump of the battery meeting their ears only briefly as the charge rocketed out of the artificial atmosphere of the dreadnought’s gun deck.
Twilight put her eye to the enhanced telescope once more, watching as the charge flew across the starscape before impacting upon the hull of the distant V’ghot battle cruiser, mostly likely the Raging Insanity, the Headhunter, or the Petunia if the reports were correct.
“Hey Twilight,” asked Spike as a few gunboats strafed the side of the ship, causing sparks to flicker along the ventral core and two crewmen to go screaming along the companionway as melting metals charred their flesh, “what’s a libido?”
“A village in New Hampshire,” she answered, watching as purple flames began to erupt from the distant V’ghot battle cruiser.
“Oh,” he replied as the burning wreckage of a star fighter crashed through the distant bulkhead, “that makes sense, I guess, but what’s a New Hampshire?”
As the gun deck began to decompress Twilight quietly placed the emergency breathing apparatus around her own head and then his, as dictated in the handy panels nearby. As the automated fire suppression systems kicked in she made sure the hood sat upon her assistant properly.
“It is a theoretical construct based on works done by previous authors,” she told him as the flames began to die down, their intercoms crackling in their ears.
The stalwart crew of the rail gun nearest them went through their practiced drill once more, and soon the charge flew away again, this time without the dull thump, and impacted upon the hull of the distant V’ghot ship.
As the battle cruiser began to disintegrate she held him close.
“… but do you love me, Twi?”
Twilight lifted her head from the foot of the bed, and she let the pondering depart from her as the conversation reached its natural conclusion.
She looked down at him. There she saw his eyes reaching for her across the short distance between her bed and his basket.
“I-I mean, I know that you care about me, and you take good care of me… mostly, but… I’ve told you that I love you before, and all you’ve ever said is, well… you’ve never said you love me, is all,” he spoke, a slight stutter evident in his voice. “Well, at least not… not since we came to Ponyville.”
As he continued to voice his concerns she saw his claws gripping at his blanket unevenly, saw him slowly lifting the blanket until it came undone from its edges.
Twilight rolled out of her bed. She ran her hoof across her face to clear the strands of her mane, and with that she walked to his basket.
She stood over him, looked down into his green eyes, studying the whelp.
“It’s okay, if you don’t,” he said, the tremble still evident, “I-I know you didn’t ask for me, that I was assigned to you… and if you don’t, I’ll-I’ll take the caring as enough. But, Twi, if you do I’d really like to know, because, well because you’re the most important thing in my life… you’re really important to me, Twi, and…”
With that she touched her face to his, beginning at the cheek. Slowly and with certain motions Twilight drew her face along Spike’s until his surprise left him. As it did he answered her nuzzle, the two running their faces across the other as the clock ticked slowly and the moon shone upon them.
She waited as they sat there; waited forehead-to-forehead as sounds of the summer came drifting through the open window.
“Of course I love you, Spike,” she answered. “Of course I do… I-I don’t tell the ponies, well… creatures, in my life that nearly enough. All of them, not just you, and I know I can be pretty thoughtless at times… but that, that’s just me.”
With that she levitated the blanket again, and wafting it through the air she laid it back across him until it settled gently. As she tucked him back in his arms went around her neck, and as he released her from his embrace he looked up to her.
Her smile was enough.
“I want you to remember that, okay?” she said, looking back down over him. “No matter how weird things get, or how bizarre our lives become, or what challenges we face… and no matter how many times I forget to say it when the time would be right… I love you, Spike. That’s the singular constant thing you should always remember, okay?”
With that she pressed her lips to his forehead, letting them sit there just long enough to wash away his doubts.
“Of course I love you,” she said.
His smile was enough.
Outside the fireflies flickered through the leaves of their tree, and the beautiful sky wheeled through the Equestrian night.
End.
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Cute as hell and yet I can't help feeling shafted.
That was really cute.
And... Strange. For now, all I can say is the part with the tree is hilarious, and my perception of Fluttershy is now slightly askew. Thanks!
On to the next chapter!
To everyone confused by this chapter, I suggest you consider the overall title of the story.
974190 As I've already told TD, I'm very amused by the idea that Fluttershy should be VERY LOUD.
Loud Fluttershy is strangely appropriate.
I felt slightly hung-over after reading this chapter. Very appropriate, considering the title for this compendium.
978391
I think
would be more fitting for her....escapade.
I think that's as close to a crackfic as we're gonna get from The Descendant.
An interesting dive into the mind of Twilight...
Can you imagine what it looks like in there when she's really stressed? It'd make Lesson Zero look tame 
Gloriously peculiar and strangely touching. I do believe my favorite moment was Rover sinking in his rowboat.
This reminds me of that scene from Project A-Ko Uncivil Wars.
Heh...Fluttershy is such a loud mouth in that shed.
The tree is British?!
Libido, NH? Twilight, you know that it is not nice to lie. And it is either that or Google Maps needs to be updated.
Such a sweet story about a younger brother asking for the love of his sibling.
That tree scene made me laugh more than I have all day, which is saying something
... Huh. Okay.
Oh dear. That... That was certainly something else. Loved the tree though. That part was bloody awesome.
974360 it's always the quiet ones XD
without fail
Ok, the stuff in between the beginning and end...well, as Film Brain would say...."SYMBOLISM!!!" Hope I did him proud there.
Now with that out of the way, touching sceens between Spike and Twilight will always be a favorite of mine. Well done, and thanks for a great little chunk of that goodness!
...is the stuff in the middle the kind of thing that English majors would understand? I mean it was cool, in a trippy sort of way, but I have no idea what happened. The beginning and end make sense though.
This sentence confuses me because I simply cannot place what it is that makes it so very you. It's been years, quite literally, and I still don't fully know what I am seeing when I recognize your style, though even from when I first read one of your stories it was unmistakeable. Most curious, wouldn't you say?
Well. You certainly mean "fever dreams" and "surrealist" when you say them. I feel like I need to read this once a day, every day, until I have figured it out. Or at least figured out if there was a reason Twilight was quoting The Prince while clowning, and where I recognize Rover's words from. There's definitely more here than I got on this first reading.
2867549
In every reality, in every universe, in all times and ages, the one thing that those two can always count on is each other.
Never forget that.
This story was beautiful, If nonsensical at times. You have an amazing talent, and it makes me saddened that it took this long to find your work. I look forward to finishing the rest of you works and those yet to come.
That was nice, a little strange in the middle but that's there crazy life, and I get it. I'm like Twilight in that sense, I love the people that are close to me but I don't say it too. We're just weird like that.
Twilight... you traveled cool.
Since I live in Washington, I will assume that thc ended up in my coffee.
Your mind is a scary place. Fun to visit, but wouldn't wanna live there.
This is the most glorious piece of whatthefuckery that I have ever read. I love it.
Ah, an English oak. I always wondered what type of tree it was...