The Week - Thread One
Chapter 25 - The Week - Thread One
Twilight woke up with a loud yawn. There was no warmth shining through her windows telling her the sun was still below the horizon. She checked the orrery, her internal clock, and contented herself that she had simply woken up early.
Her ears twitched at sound from across the room and she expanded her senses.
A pony was sitting in the middle of the woven carpet with one of Twilight’s note crystals. Magical diagrams were swirling through the air occasionally shuffling and reordering. When Twilight ran her magic through the projects, they seemed to be schematics for a building or castle.
Finally, her brain processed the fact that there was another pony in her room, and she rolled over to face the intruder. She could still sense the guards outside her door alive and well so her brain continued its sluggish plod.
“Who are you?” She said sleepily with a yawn.
“I’m you from the future, remember?”
Twilight bolted upright in her bed, blankets tumbling to the stone floor.
“Where did you disappear to yesterday? When I was done with court I couldn’t find you anywhere; I had been hoping we could talk more... And what are you doing in here?”
“You may have told the guards that I was a guest, but you forgot to tell anypony to prepare a room for me, so I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. I’ve been working all night either here or in the library,” said Older Twilight.
The younger of the two Twilights crawled out of the bed and began analyzing the runes flowing around her. They were architectural plans and seemed somehow familiar. It seemed some of them were marked as “original plans” while another much more complicated and elaborate set was marked as “revised.”
“What is this?” she asked.
“The palace of the two sisters. Before we blew it up, of course.”
Twilight noticed rolls of paper piled around her counterpart and felt a flutter of excitement.
“Are those the blueprints from the archives? Do you have magic that lets you read? Or do I heal my eyes before I become you?”
“Yes and no.” Future Twilight paused and put a hoof to her head. “Could you not yell. We haven’t had a chance to actually fix anything - still in the planning phase. Have to lay a good foundation to support the weight.”
“Sorry…” Twilight looked down before fully processing the words. “We? Wait, how did you read them if not with magic?”
“We? Sorry. I meant ‘I.’ I got Celly to read them to me.”
“Celly? Why would she-” and then it struck her. “She knows you’re a Twilight? That you’re me I mean. You’re not in disguise right now, how did you explain that? Two of us being in here, how did you explain that to her?”
“I could have just told her the truth.” Older Twilight spoke barely above a whisper.
“You told her about time travel?”
“Why does that upset you? You were the one who told me that you trust our creation. Why do you keep the extent of our magic hidden?”
“I… I do trust her. It’s me. All of this still doesn’t feel real. But if I tell another pony then suddenly there is all this pressure. Like if Rainbow Dash knew would she want me to be using it to deliver warnings and messages about deployments and orders to last week? I hardly understand this all myself; how am I supposed to explain this to another pony?”
“And?”
“Why are you dragging this out of me? You know the answer!”
“Actually… Things are so scrambled up here. I don’t remember a lot of the details about how this week is supposed to go. This conversation in particular. It’s refreshing really, being on this side of things and still not knowing the script. Part of me kinda hopes I will mess up, but afterwards it’s a bit sad; I eventually remember the conversation and realize it went exactly as it was supposed to be.”
“But you’re me, so you should know anyways, even without time stuff involved.”
“Scrambled remember-”
“You keep saying that; what does that mean?”
“I told you. I have two sets of memories. Some things are bad, major disparities. Other things are more minor, different emotional reactions, different color fabric on the bedsheets, and so on. Every single time I think of something I get two responses.”
“But-”
“Just drop it. You will understand eventually. Now answer my question. Why don’t you tell her?”
“I guess… I’m worried she will judge me. The thing we first made wouldn’t have, but… I don’t know about Celly. What if she thinks less of us when she learns about Empress Sparkle?”
“Thanks. That helps me a lot actually. I needed to know where to sort this.”
Twilight felt the diagrams all shifting around.
“What are-”
“You worry too much you know. She won’t judge us.”
“You were the one who told me I shouldn’t trust her!”
“Did I?”
“Yes! Maybe? You said something like that. We talked about a lot of things yesterday.” Twilight paused for breath. “So she knows now? How did she react?”
“Calm down. I didn’t tell her. I told her there being two of us was part of an experiment, and in a way that’s true. Experimentation is the best use of this week, after all.”
+++
Twilight stalked the hallway with a grim scowl. Elsewhere in the castle was somepony who looked just like her, only not. Layers of illusion disguised the doppelganger as a small and timid pink unicorn. Dealing with her future self in short bursts was one thing that Twilight could abide, but she could not stand having that other Twilight around on a long term basis.
It had only been two days since she had arrived.
She wanted to simply wring all the answers out of the enigmatic pony, or at the least get her older self to help with saving Equestria. However, whenever they would sit down, one of two things would happen. Either some business of state would arise and Twilight would need to leave, or she would get fed up with the pony and need to leave.
The last time they had talked was early morning before breakfast. When Twilight woke up she realized another day had passed without any answers, and she vowed to get them.
As soon as she had been able, Twilight had stalked the time traveler down. She found her quarry sitting by the statue of the twin sisters in the garden, and she asked her counterpart for help. With two of them they could do anything.
“It won’t matter in a week.”
“What are you doing that is so important?”
“I’m trying to think.”
“How can you not help?”
Nearly every one of their encounters since the other Twilight had first arrived followed a similar script. She understood that, if the timeline was going to change, maybe having the other pony help with the sun or with defense was not a great use of time, but she could still do more than just sit there.
Even if things would be different, ponies were still suffering now.
A loud resounding gong stopped Twilight in place. The gong sounded again and her muscles tensed until she remembered it was the second week of the month. She shook her head in self chastisement and resumed heading down the hall ignoring the rest of the monthly test. In schools fillies and colts would practice hiding under their desks and teachers would be checking emergency glow orbs, but everypony else would be going about their lives as normal.
Canterlot had not been attacked since Rainbow Dash had become Captain Commander.
Twilight looked up to see Celly approaching.
“Hello, Princess.” And then in a more conspiratorial tone, “Are you still handling it well?”
Twilight resisted the urge to groan. If her future clone was not planning on helping, the least older Twilight could have done was not made her life harder. Instead she had, perhaps intentionally gotten herself caught by Celestia out of disguise in the her study on that first day.
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s really not that stressful.”
Twilight still couldn’t believe the ridiculous lie Older Twilight told Celestia about a bilocation spell. There were so many better ways to explain two Twilights other than Twilight “splitting her mind,” even without resorting to telling her the truth.
“I’m glad. I was worried at first. When I first started creating many splinters for the Solar Guard it was a bit difficult just keeping track of things.”
And that was all she said as she fell in besides Twilight on their way to the Magisterium. Twilight was having a hard time gauging Celly. The white and pink pony kept on shooting her glances. Twilight had expected her construct to say more, but instead there was just silence. Twilight thought about what her older double had said about Celestia.
No. I trust her, but - Something has changed...
Twilight grit her teeth as the realization came crashing down on her. Older Twilight must have said something to Celestia.
The meeting of the Magisterium went about as well as could be expected with Twilight’s mind figuratively in at least ten different other places at once. By the time the meeting was over, her frustration towards the cause of her distraction had reached new limits. Twilight waited for the other members of the Magisterium to leave.
Celly was the last one out.
“Oh, Twilight… Rarity had mentioned to me yesterday that she wanted to fit me for a dress after the meeting today, so…”
Twilight waved her hoof. She had larger problems.
“What is she up to?”
Twilight knew she had a problem. She could not trust the pony she was to become, and neither could she trust the pony that she once was. She did not know enough about the former, and there were too many holes in her memory to trust the latter. She did not even know who future Twilight had talked to or what she may have said. All she had was herself in the now.
Could another Twilight turn Celestia against me?
Twilight began to ruminate on all of the damage a pony from the future could do with only a weeks worth of foreknowledge.
What if she lied about the diverging time lines? What if she lied about being from only a week in the future?
Twilight was ashamed at how long it had taken her to ask those questions. It had seemed so natural to believe words spoken in her own voice. Of course, that made them the perfect vehicle for deception. Twilight did not believe that Older Twilight could have gotten to everypony. Simply not enough time had passed, and in the end she made a gamble and talked with Silver Heart.
Considering how recently she had approved funding for internal security surveillance, the unicorn already knew a shockingly large number of spells for keeping track of another pony’s activities. Twilight had spent most of the previous day with her Chief of Magical Intelligence, going over his repertoire of surveillance magic. She had been discreet about her motivation, simply saying she wished to better understand how he was implementing his new budget.
Twilight wove a spell around the door, locking it. She would rather be in her study, but the Magisterium chamber would give her the space she needed. Finally, satisfied that the room was secure, Twilight cast the second part of a spell she had begun early in the morning.
An illusion of a unicorn formed in the middle of the room. The pony's surroundings were also shown in the illusion but for only a few paces in any direction. Sound began coming from the illusion as the unicorn started walking in place, the surroundings seeming to slide under hoof.
Unlike some of the other surveillance spells Silver Heart had that projected images useless to blind ponies, Twilight could follow this one with her magic.
The illusion had started at the beginning of the day when Twilight first cast the spell. With a wave of her horn the pony’s steps became a blurred trot. A table slid into the illusion and future Twilight sat down. From out of the illusion another pony appeared with a plate of salad. Twilight twisted her head, waving her horn a second time, and the illusion sped up again.
Come on, show me what you’re planning
Hours passed by in minutes and still the unicorn just sat at the center of the illusion, only saying a word or two to passing ponies. Twilight slowed the illusion down when it looked like her twin was about to do or say something, but instead she just held her head between her hooves.
Twilight focused the image and could sense something running down Other Twilight’s nose. More blood.
Maybe… Maybe she is just in a lot of pain…
Suddenly the older Twilight looked up towards where Twilight was sitting.
“Come on, I’m not stupid. I may be a bit of a mess right now, but I can still remember that you would be watching me.”
Twilight moaned in frustration. How could she be so annoying? The day was almost over and she had gained no useful information. She sped through the rest of the recording to current time and saw that her quarry was once again in the gardens.
Twilight was going to have a word or two with… herself.
Why haven’t those language professors gotten back to me? I don’t care if they think my request is a waste of their time or doesn’t make any sense. If I don’t hear back soon I’m just going to make up my own words, proper syntax and linguistic heritage be damned.
With a pop she teleported from the room.
“Are you here to distract me?”
“It’s been three days and all you do is sit around and eat.” Twilight growled at the other pony.
“I told you, I’m thinking.”
“Plotting is more like it.”
Older Twilight turned away from Discord’s statue and then continued, “Look, I know you don’t believe it, but what I am doing is going to benefit us.”
“Why aren’t you doing anything to help anypony?”
“Nothing will matter at the end of the week. I told you that.”
“That doesn’t matter. This isn’t like us.”
“That’s exactly the point. No reason on doubling up on effort. I expect the other version of me, if she is a clever pony which I know that she is, will be acting like us enough for the both of us.”
Twilight stormed off in a huff. She had better things to do than deal with a reticent time traveler.
Twilight maintained her monitoring each day, and each day was the same. At least once a day they would have a confrontation, and their discussions were almost always identical. Twilight would occasionally feel pity for her double when she saw the pony clutching her head in pain, but at least it seemed like the nosebleeds had stopped. The only pony future Twilight ever really seemed to have any significant conversations with was Celestia, and Twilight felt like she was missing some important piece of context to those conversations.
Of course that was up until Twilight had to spit out her tea while reviewing the surveillance spell.
Future Twilight was sitting in Twilight’s study without a single layer of illusion, appearing as an alicorn for all to see. There was a knock on the door to which Future Twilight replied, “come in.”
Diamond Justice entered.
“Princess.” Diamond Justice bowed.
“One thing I have always admired about you is your convictions. You can be honest to a fault you know. It’s surprising you made such a good prosecutor. You remind me more of Applejack than your parents in a lot of ways.”
It was hard to judge through the surveillance illusion, but Twilight thought Diamond Justice seemed confused, but he rose from his bow anyway.
“Well. I was hoping to talk with you about what happened at my wedding.”
“All is forgiven.” Older Twilight’s head seemed to sag under some invisible weight.
Why does she sound so sad?
“No… I mean, yes, I’m sorry about my outburst, but we really need to talk about certain things. You were right though that it was the wrong time and place.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry Diamond Justice. I’ve heard what you have had to say. I know what your arguments are. I have no interest in hearing them again.”
“But! You didn’t even-”
“I can’t do it. I’m so sorry, Justice.”
“What?”
“It was just… I thought that perhaps right here I could hop. That there might not be any need for the vase to break in the first place. But what is done is done, and I fear what the ramifications would be here if I were to act in this singular moment of time. What would happen to me if my strand does not remerge? What happens if the strands never split? It was a mistake, but a necessary one.”
“Aunt Twilight, you aren’t making any sense.”
“Leave me Justice. I have much that I need to accomplish. But know that I will always love you, my nephew.”
Great, now I have to track him down and I’ll be the one apologizing.
Other than that frustrating interaction. the only interesting thing of note was that future Twilight began to look up the schematics and designs of other famous castles. Unfortunately, Twilight still could not get an answer why.
It had been six days since her doppelganger had arrived and all she had to show for it was headaches of her own. It seemed like they just got worse after every conversation, and the stress was just building up. Tomorrow would be her last full day before whatever calamity was supposed to befall Equestria came crashing down on her.
Of course, she thought wryly, that assumes Older Twilight isn’t lying to me. But, I suppose that possibility is not mutually exclusive with something horrible happening to Equestria in just two days.
She was in the Magisterium chamber again reviewing her surveillance spell watching Older Twilight in real time. Her future twin was in the Sun Study and was not wearing any illusions. The pony turned towards her and began speaking through the spell, as she had done several times through the week.
“There is something that has been bothering me for awhile now, but it has taken me awhile to organize my thoughts enough to realize what it is. I should have remembered from being you and watching me talk about it, but those memories were buried deep.”
“Hmm. I wonder what’s that?” mumbled Twilight.
“It has to do with the something that happened back at the wedding.”
Twilight jumped in surprise at the response before it was followed up.
“-And no, I can’t hear you. I’m not the one using the spy spells. I just remember your question now,” said Older Twilight.
“Ok so-”
“There is an experiment I need to perform to resolve my concerns. I told you earlier that this week was about building and experimentation. The one is for the other. Fate has handed us a blank check in regards to this week. I get to explore some of the… impulses that I have been worried about without a concern as to lasting consequences.”
“No!” Twilight’s eyes grew wide. She remembered some of the impulses she had forced herself to suppress. “Just because time is going to rewrite itself.”
“You won’t be happy about this, so I recommend you don’t watch even though I know you won’t listen.”
From the edge of the surveillance spell Twilight saw a projection of Celly enter the room with Older Twilight.
She felt her blood run cold and ran for the door.
As she reached the thick doors of the Magisterium chamber she felt herself slam into a magical barrier. After a few seconds of slamming herself against it and throwing telekinetic force at it, Twilight attempted to teleport out of the room only to find that blocked as well. Realization dawned on her. Future Twilight, without the burden of the sun had a tremendous amount of magical power to spare, enough to keep Twilight trapped in the room. There was nothing she could do.
“What is she going to do?”
Twilight turned back towards the illusion and focused all her senses on it.
“Celly, there has been something bothering me since Diamond Justice’s wedding. It’s about something Rainbow Dash said.”
Twilight watched in horror as her future self approached Celestia.
And then watched as her future self leaned forward and kissed the construct. A moment later Celestia stepped forward into the kiss and Twilight dropped the spell in shock.
As the illusion dissipated she could hear the words, “you’re not her are you?”
Twilight didn’t use the spell at all the next day and neither did she see Celestia. In fact, when she thought about it she supposed she rather spent the day sulking.
As she was preparing to go to bed she felt a presence in her room.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to talk. This is our last chance really. Well… There is time tomorrow but we won’t talk.”
“You’ve got things all sorted out in there?” She felt tears forming in the ducts around her damaged eyes.
“For the most part. I still need to put on some finishing touches. I have a few other experiments to do as well.”
Twilight was crying now. “Why?”
“I told you not to watch.”
She threw a pillow at her future self. The pony stepped to the side and the projectile went out over her balcony.
Future Twilight interrupted her tears. “I think the question is why are you upset.”
“I don’t know alright! Is that why you do your stupid experiment? Well what were the results?”
Older Twilight shuffled her hooves, “The results were… inconclusive.”
Despite it all, Twilight laughed.
“So something bad is going to happen tomorrow?”
“No something bad won’t happen tomorrow, because of what you are going to do.”
“Are you going to hop up and down by any chance? Either now, or before whatever happens or doesn’t happen tomorrow happens?”
“No. Have you been to the tower recently? The vase is still broken.”
“So nothing else?”
“We should be thinking about getting Rarity and Stone Edge to adopt. They need another pony in their life.”
“What are you talking about?”
Older Twilight shook her head. “Sorry. As I said there are still some things I need to put finishing touches on. Um… I had an idea about our conversation when I first arrived. It won’t help us really change things, but might be useful. Next time you need to fight the Empress in your mind, if you ever do again, try imagining Celestia. It might help.”
Twilight felt her ears perk at that. It was the first useful thing she had gotten out of the time traveler. Silence stretched between them and the other pony seemed to be standing around awkwardly.
“Something else?”
“I… suppose not. I’ll let you go to sleep."
As Twilight made her way to court the next day, she realized it had been full week since her time traveling guest arrived. It was seven days since she had received her warning and still she had done nothing horrible.
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oooh, new cover art! :O Can't wait to read the new chapter <3
So I'm curious, what are those white streaks in the cover art?
Brilliant writing as the chapters before, even tho slightly confusing to a tired mind like mine. Twilight talking to Twilight about future Twilight and current Twilight and Empress Twilight... it leaves my head full with 'Twilight?!'
I wonder if the talk with her nephew WAS the 'horrible' thing or if it will happen during court... looking forward to the next chapter 
This does not surprise me for two reasons. First is the simple fact that the site's userbase has grown a lot since Equestria's Twilight was first published, and second is that one is a one shot and the other is a novel-length story. With a one-shot, the reader gets to go through initial interest, arc and payoff in one session and is able to make their 'final decision' on it right then and there. Longer stories, on the other hand, have much more potential for enjoyment, yet a lot of it remains as potential, and no matter how much more content a novel-length story has, each reader still only has one vote to give. Not only that, but since so much of the story is tied up in potential, many will wait until the story is over—not just to vote, but to read it at all.
At least, that's my perspective. I could be wrong on the details, but even so, in a way it would kind of strengthen the idea that one-shots are much simpler to judge.
5493096 Yeah what Caryatid said though I would make a point to add the genres as well, a Romance Comedy Slice of Life fic is obviously going to appeal to a broader audience than a Tragedy Sad Dark fic.
Yeah. That will be read as soon as you release it.
Anyway. I can't help but wonder what Future Twilight's deal is, being all secretive. Based on the spoiler... maybe she did not want to sadden Young Twi' - or cause her as little distress as possible.
For all I know, stuff's going down soon.
And what Cast-Iron said. One-shots, with... 'positive' tags, good writing and characterization tend to get much attention (if they are at the right place at the right time). They take less time and effort to read, while still being able to offer smiles/sadness/darkness/questions-of-what-the-heck-I'm-reading etc. I would guess that the readerbase for longer stories, especially with these 'negative' tags, isn't as large.
Oh well. I liked the chapter. We got a few glimpses into what's up with the Older Twilight, some headache for Younger Twilight and some cryptic dialogue.
I'm attaching a pasta-bin again, if you don't mind, that is.
I still think Twi's reaction to Diamond Justice at the wedding, though not uncalled for, was still the exact opposite thing Twilight wanted to do. Twilight could have explained that she did not want to be surrounded by yes-ponies. She could have gained Justice as both a trusted opinion, and a friend to rely on.
As to your very legitimate apprehensiveness to Misunderstanding becoming so popular: Well that's just how things are. One-shots have (almost) every advantage in the fimfiction rating system. I do love me some one-shots, but long form fiction usually has more worth. You've got to remember that fimfiction rates based on popularity, not quality or worth.
Oh and by the way, even though I'm liking your writing more every day, I still don't like Twilestia. I mean, sure, between your fics and the fan fiction Eternal, I've read some really good Twilestia. Doesn't mean I have to approve
5492614
Timelines, I wonder why nothing on opposite side...
I think Twilight has an even more important problem than her psychological issues: Her logic is constrained. Whenever she is talking to herself or engaged in time magic, she makes absolutely no attempt to fight or experiment with how time itself works. All she does is what she's supposed to do, even though logically the only way to not become Empress Twilight (or worse) is to not do what Empress Twilight did. Twilight is continually convinced by either her future selves or her gut instinct to not cause change when time is being interfered with, even though time interference itself is already unnatural and does cause change. It is a huge, self-perpetuating blind-spot in Twilight's rationality, and it just might destroy everything.
(This is also probably why Pinkie Pie was killed. She's good at alternative forms of sanity.)
one the too much.
ugh, time travel is so confusing. :/ still looking forward to seeing how it all plays out though.
5492506 5492614 5495022
The "streaks" did not come out exactly as I had hoped (I still need to learn more about brush settings), however they do have significance. I'll be a bastard and leave it at that.
5493419
The pastebin actually works out well. It's easy to use and makes me feel less incompetent when scrolling through the comments than just seeing a wall of my failures.
5488027
I'm a fan of Asmiov. Should I take this as a movie recommendation?
5493096
That's interesting. For some reason (I'm not sure if there is a reason) I was under the impression that the user base has shrunk. I also find your comment on longer stories interesting. I wasn't aware that people waited for stories to be complete to read (or vote for) them. It makes complete sense, but it's very different than how I approach in progress work.
5497653
Well, the size of the userbase in more recent months is hard to judge, but as old as Equestria's Twilight is (Jan 2012), the inference is easier to make. According to the site's statistics page, 10k ratings or so were made per week, wheras the most recent numbers are closer to 60k ratings per week. Don't get me wrong—1k upvotes is still an achievement to be proud of, but the vagaries of an older, long-unfinished story versus a new one-shot make comparing the two difficult at best.
5496263 I don't know why, but whenever I see your profile picture (but don't actually focus on it) It looks like the head is upside down XD
Nuuu! I caught up with the story! I now have to wait for new chapters and not just click next D:
Edit: Spelled "now" wrong :P
5506413 lol i don't know why.
oh and now* :P
I swear...Twilight is LITERALLY her own worst enemy at times...
Both of these need question marks.
Wow Future Twilight is a dick...