• Published 4th Dec 2012
  • 9,523 Views, 316 Comments

Fear and Trembling - shortskirtsandexplosions



Princess Celestia entreats her apprentice; Twilight Sparkle must make a sacrifice.

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When Twilight was done reading, she took a deep breath and read it again. Then she read it once more. She read and perused and studied the missive over and over, patiently and dutifully, as the sunlight outside melted into golden amber. The day was coming to an end, and it was draining Twilight's spirit along with it. When she finally tore her eyes from the fateful letter, they were dull and dry, incapable of producing any tears beyond the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling gravity of the message.

Twilight received shocking letters from the Princess before. When she was told she'd be moving out of the Royal Palace and into an apartment of upper Canterlot so that she could focus better on her studies, her heart sunk. When she was instructed to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville, her frustrations reached a boiling point. Here and now, receiving such a morose directive from her one and only mentor, Twilight's spirit was utterly shattered.

She didn't even know how she was capable of staying conscious, much less trotting around on all fours after having received such a blow. She hypothesized that the only reason she was capable of meeting her lunch date with Rarity and Rainbow Dash earlier was due to a frigid numbness that had covered her from head to toe and allowed her to participate in the mundane routine of things.

Now, after having saturated her mind once again with the contents of Celestia's personal note, she was incapable of thinking. She could only sit there on her bed, gazing out upon the darkening day, watching as phantom shades of the letter’s paragraphs spelled themselves out against the waning sky.

She wanted to weep, but all that she managed were dry heaves, the same shivering sensations that had overwhelmed her that morning, twelve hours ago, when she had first opened the scroll and realized her mentor was asking her to do the impossible.

But was it so impossible? Princess Celestia possessed wisdom that was unfathomable to mortal pony minds. She had proven time and time again that she was always a hundred steps ahead of any other soul. When Celestia revealed to Twilight that her "entry exam" with Spike years ago had been planned specifically for her, she wasn't mad, because she knew that the Princess was helping Twilight wake up to her own potential. When Celestia requested that Twilight be in Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration, she understood in hindsight that it was the Princess' way of having her become the bearer of the Element of Magic so that she could assist in the purging of Nightmare Moon.

Only now, she was being told to eliminate the other Element bearers? She was being told to annihilate them? To kill her own friends? Just like all the other times Celestia asked things of her, it didn't make any sense. But this time there was such a dark, bitter edge to the request, and meditating on the matter only stung at Twilight's dizzied mind more and more.

Twilight curled into a lavender ball in the corner of her bed and hid her face in her forelimbs. She wanted to cry; everything was so confusing. However, each time she tried to summon tears, they wouldn't come. She was a pony who was equipped for thinking her way out of a complex situation, but this debacle had erected an impossible maze to her mind. She felt trapped, imprisoned, and everywhere she looked she saw Princess Celestia's penmanship, glaring at her, burning, melting.

She wanted to scream, but that didn't come out right either. So she tried sleeping, then reading, then both at the same time. This restlessness melted along with the last remaining shadows of the day, until Twilight found herself alone with the grayness of her room, tossing and turning between sheets and sighs. She looked out the window and gazed upon the fresh glitter of stars. In her mind, she knew that there was only one way that she could concentrate, think, or even relax.

Trotting downstairs, pacing herself quietly beside a sleeping Spike so as not to wake him up, she made it to the far end of the library and... began reorganizing. Carefully, like a harvester would separate crops, she filtered rows upon rows of manuscripts and arranged them by chronological order, then by alphabetical, then back to chronological.

She shuffled novels by the number of letters in their publishers' names. She filed books by type of binding and even color of embossed titles. She threaded a stupidly complicated order of arrangement through the entire array of tomes, constructing herself a convoluted labyrinth, only to go back through and unravel the entire mess, restoring it back to the original order in hopes that she could consequently deconstruct the tangled mess of worry that had formed a knot in her mind.

This did a good job of consuming the first hour of passing. But then the second hour dripped by, and her motions slowed down as if they had been driven through a puddle of molasses. By the third hour, Twilight was squatting in the center of the floor, surrounded by books, hugging her limbs to herself like a little foal lost in the middle of a dusty forest.

There was no escaping her duty, no forgetting Celestia's order, no shirking the responsibility that she held as the Princess' prized student. It was all because of Celestia's divine intervention that she had grown to be so intelligent, so learned, so proficient in the magical arts. The very reason she began living in Ponyville to begin with—having made such fantastic friends and memories—was all because of Celestia's doing.

Yes, the letter was grim, horrible even, but who was Twilight to judge? She was a mere mortal, a young pupil just starting to grasp the truths behind sorcery. The world was far older than she was capable of imagining, with incalculably immense forces that threatened to devour Equestria at any moment. There were powers too large, too grand, and too dark for any light to illuminate, much less for any feeble mind to comprehend.

If Celestia told her that there was an evil at hand that needed to be extinguished, Twilight would have been a fool to have judged the Princess. Still, she only wished that Celestia had provided some sort of explanation, a means of clarifying the purpose for such a heinous act that Twilight was being requested to commit. The nature of the matter went well beyond Twilight's personal, emotional biases. She had always been taught that murder was wrong, disharmonious, and antithetical to all the morals that Celestia had raised her to respect. If suddenly Twilight was required to kill, what did that mean for everything else Celestia had used to lay down the foundation of her studies?

Sniffling, Twilight glanced up with moist eyes towards a single candle she had lit hours ago. The window beyond brimmed with starlight, a bright speck for every tear begging to leak out of her. She thought of warm, toasty nights when she sat on her bed as a filly and stared out the window, admiring the heavens, rejoicing in their immensity.

Life too was complex, but Twilight was starting to dread the new and darker shades of it. Perhaps this was something Celestia had always intended to teach her, but had held the revelation back for too long. Now everything was falling apart. A great evil was spreading through Equestria, and Celestia needed Twilight to grow up overnight, even if it cost her both her peace and dignity.

Twilight sniffled again. She clenched her jaw and sat up straight, her limbs tightening.

No, there had to have been something she wasn't taking into account. She had read the grim words of Celestia over and over again, but had she taken a moment to see between the lines? Perhaps there was more to the letter, just as there was more to the Princess. The Goddess was anything but simple; her spirit had to have been capable of rough edges, dark tones, and—yes—maybe even mistakes. What if the Princess, in her desperate need to protect Equestria, had overlooked something? What if worry and anxiety had clouded her judgment, just like Twilight's spirit was so currently dashed? The Princess had chosen her as an apprentice for more than mere talents; the two were alike in numerous ways.

Yes, perhaps all it took was reasoning with her. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since Twilight first received the letter. All things considered, she wasn't wasting much time by delaying the cold task for the better part of a single day. However bad the "evil" that was spreading through Equestria, Twilight had the opportunity to make sure that something wasn't muddying Celestia's vision. Perhaps all she needed was a response, a message from a kindred soul, a sign of communion with the one pony in the kingdom whom the Princess could still trust.

So, tripping over her books, Twilight scampered her way to her writing desk. She took out a scroll of parchment, a quill, a well of ink, and simply... stood there.

The unicorn fidgeted, biting her lip and squinting through the candle-light. Just what kind of a response could she give to a letter like that? What could she convey to the Princess that might salvage the situation, if there was any hope at all of restoring harmony without violence? Every time she thought of Celestia's words, the urge to reply grew thinner and thinner. She felt the quill slipping from of her telekinetic grasp, and the only thing that kept it from falling wasn't the thought of Celestia's approving voice...

Twilight saw Rarity and Rainbow Dash at a table over teacups and magazines. She saw Applejack smiling alongside her family in the glistening sunlight. Pinkie Pie bounced gleefully across Sugarcube Corner and Fluttershy nuzzled Angel while smiling.

Clenching her jaw, Twilight plunged herself into the parchment like a deer sprinting through the woods. Her pen strokes were swift, dark, and determined. The whole process went by faster than she had anticipated, and in less than half-an-hour, she was staring at her finished work. She took several deep breaths, meditating on her work, hoping that they carried her concerns cohesively:



Dear Princess Celestia,

I have read your last letter to me over and over faithfully, and I still have a hard time believing that the order you've given is the only solution to this spreading evil of which you speak. Please, Princess, if you will take the time to consider my words here, it will mean the world to me.

You are capable of such intensely powerful magic, and you have taught me so many gifts of sorcery over the years. Would it not be possible for the two of us to come up with a way to put my five friends in some sort of containment so that the dark seeds planted within them could be kept from spreading root? Could there possibly be some way of purging them, carefully and secretly, without the agents of this new and present darkness taking notice?

We've overcome so many terrible forces before, and all of them just as antithetical to the essence of harmony as this corruption you speak of. The power of friendship—channeled through the very companions you are now asking me to eliminate—was what took Ponyville back from Discord. The spirit of love and harmony is what drove Queen Chrysalis and her hive away. A communion of kind hearts even overcame the hate of King Sombra when he was just inches away from reclaiming the Crystal Kingdom.

Can we not use this same power, this same force of goodness and benevolence, to bring the Bearers of the Elements back to the light?

These are not just ponies destined to carry magical pendants; these are my friends. I care for them, I cherish them, and I cannot imagine them ever turning evil to such a degree that the only harmonic solution would be to destroy them altogether. The essence of harmony, after all, is in its tranquility and persistence of well-being. How can this be upheld through the utter destruction of five precious, priceless souls, regardless of their worth to me?

Please, Princess, I must know more. I apologize for the forwardness of such a request. I'm sorry if my faith has wavered to such a degree that I must question your wisdom, but I have to understand just what it is that we are dealing with. If you could find it in your heart and mind to explain this evil to me, to elaborate on just what needs to be done in order to preserve the sanctity of Equestria, then I would be immeasurably grateful.

I've included in this letter a list of spells that I've been working on throughout the last two years that I've spent in Ponyville. They are new and improved experiments in magic, projects that I have been undertaking on my lonesome since you assigned me to this village as your ongoing apprentice. Perhaps you'll find new and refreshing opportunities in their descriptions, and maybe we can utilize what I've learned in order to find a more amiable solution to this problem together.

As always, Princess, I will abide by your wisdom and grace. I just humbly ask if you are sure that all options have been fully considered, just as you have always taught me to anticipate any potentiality of a given experiment.

Sincerely, your good and faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle




After several read-throughs, Twilight managed a confident smile. The letter was perfect, or at least as perfect as she could make it. She trembled slightly as she slid the written copies of her spells in with the scroll and applied the ribboned seal. What she was about to do, no matter how strongly-worded, was the first and only time she had ever come close to defying the Princess' will. It was not something that Twilight enjoyed doing, but she forced herself into the act for fear of having to do something she would enjoy infinitely less.

It was still dark outside. Twilight could hear Spike's snores from the base of the library's stairs. There was no sleep, only waiting. Twilight took the time to sit and gaze at the framed photographs on a nearby end table. She reflected on the past, on how distant her memories were, and on how life was threatening to run out of cheerful recollections altogether.

With a shudder, she closed her eyes and meditated.