//------------------------------// // Meanwhile, in Ponyville // Story: The Heart of Gaia // by noteperson //------------------------------// And the glory, the glory of the Sun shall be revealéd, and all ponies shall see it together… Twilight smiled to herself: her musical alarm was a success! It was much more pleasant to wake up to the sound of Handle’s Celestia than some jangling bell or a baby dragon poking you in the withers. She rolled onto her side to enjoy the music for a moment. … for the horn of the Queen hath risen it… Twilight would need to include this in her thank you letter to her mother. She had sent her this phonograph recording of the Los Pegasus Master Chorale yesterday, and it had served as the spark of inspiration for her latest invention: a simple musical alarm that required only the most rudimentary knowledge of optics and celestial mechanics to set up. And that wouldn’t work on days when morning clouds were scheduled. And that needed you to replace two pieces of string every time it was reset. Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t the most usable of contraptions, but when a filly was working without magic, certain allowances had to be made. Though Twilight could have simply enchanted a music box to play at a certain time of day, that wouldn’t be a very useful method for non-unicorns, now would it? Hm, but now as I think of it, something based on clockwork would probably be a bit easier to reset, if not to build. She opened her eyes to look at the device set up on her windowsill. A mirror and focal lens were directing a beam of sunlight which had burned through two strings in succession: the first had dropped a small weight to flip the switch of the phonograph’s turntable, and then a second had dropped the phonograph needle onto the spinning disc. With the lens properly aligned for the position of the sun in the sky at the desired time on any given day of the year, it— Twilight sat bolt upright in bed. The shadows in her room were all wrong. It was already afternoon! She had seriously overslept! She shot a sharp look at her reflector-and-lens assembly. She couldn’t help but notice that the lens was skewed far from the position she had carefully set it in to awaken her at the third hour on the dot. “Spike!” The little dragon poked his head into the door of the bedroom. “Hey, Twilight. Gosh, you must have stayed up late last night.” Twilight just might have stayed up until the ninth hour of the night working through Tipple’s Causality Violations Under Curved Magical Manifolds, but she waved that aside as a distraction. “Spike, did you adjust that lens this morning?” “What, that thing? I think I sort of bumped it when I crawled up there to squish a spider, but I moved it back.” “Arg!” Twilight couldn’t help but facehoof. This alarm concept definitely needed work. “Uh, are you okay?” “No, Spike, I am not okay,” Twilight replied in a clipped tone. “Thanks to a certain dragon, I have slept far too late, and my entire schedule for today will need to be re-written.” “Oh.” Spike scuffed a foot on the floor awkwardly. “Sorry.” Twilight heaved a sigh. Getting mad wouldn’t fix anything, of course. “No, it’s my fault, Spike. I should have asked you to wake me if I overslept. I guess I had a little too much faith in my latest invention.” She gestured lamely to the contraption under the window. “So, what time is it, exactly?” “Oh, it’s about half past noon.” Twilight looked ruefully down at her forehooves. “Ah. Well, I suppose I should get some lunch, then.” She looked up at her assistant. “Care to join me?” “I’d like to, but I think if you’re going out, I should stay here to watch the library. There are a bunch of colts and fillies in here today. I think they’re studying for finals. Plus,” he said with a teasing grin, “I’ve already had lunch.” “Yeah, that makes sense,” Twilight yawned. “Okay, I’ll see you when I get back.” Twilight rubbed the sleep from her eyes and rolled out of bed, landing on a pile of paper. She would need to find time to organize her notes from last night – argh, and she would need to find time to make a new schedule! Oh well, I suppose I can do that while I eat. After ducking into the washroom to freshen up and wash her mane, Twilight trotted down the stairs to her study, levitating her pile of bedside notes after her. She roughly straightened the sheaf and laid it on the desk, stifling another little yawn. Okay, Twilight, it’s list time! Grabbing a scroll, quill, and inkpot with her magic, she began her customary preparations for a trip out. “Find saddlebags? Check. Pack scrolls? Check. Quills and ink? Check and check! Oh, looks like we’re running low on quills, hm, I’ll add that in a minute… ah, datebook, check. Obsolete schedule, check. Money for lunch, there we go. Hm, notes to organize if I have time at lunch – check! So, let’s see… go to Daisy Café, eat lunch, make schedule, organize notes, stop at Quill and Sofa, come home, start following new schedule… okay!” Twilight neatly rolled up the scroll, tucked it into her saddlebag, and turned back to the stairs. “Hiya, Twilight!” “GAH! Ah… hi, Applebloom.” “Oh, sorry if I startled ya. I just don’t get it: I couldn’t sneak up on anypony when we were practicing to be ninjas the other day!” “Uh… huh. Um, shouldn’t you be in school right now?” “Uh, but it’s Saturday.” “Ha, oh, right. Well, um, how are you today?” “Oh, Twilight, it’s terrible! Exams are next week, and I feel like mah head is going to burst open if I try an’ fit one more fact in there!” The little filly looked down at the floor bashfully. “But I know you’re just about the best at studyin’ there ever was, so I was wonderin’ if you could share some of yer study-secrets with me…” Twilight smiled at her affectionately. “Oh, Applebloom, of course I’m happy to give you some tips on effective study habits. For any topic, it’s important for you to try to learn the key concepts before you move on to the details. Now, what you ought to do is sit down with your notebook and write out, on a nice, clean piece of paper, the main ideas and concepts from each lecture. Is there any particular subject that’s giving you trouble?” “Well, it’s vocab and hist’ry, mostly. There’s just so much memorizin’ to those!” “Ah, well I think I have just the trick for you.” Twilight turned and, pulling open a drawer in her desk, produced a pile of small cards with a flourish. “Now, do you know what these are?” “Index cards?” “That’s right! I use these to make up a new card catalog whenever I reorganize the library.” Which I do entirely too often. “Now, when you need to memorize structured information, like a set of words and their definitions, what you can do is write out the word on the front of a card and the definition on the back. Then, you can use the cards to drill yourself until you’ve got them all memorized.” “Oh…” Applebloom marveled, goggle-eyed at receiving wisdom from the master. “Now, for an unstructured subject like history, there are a few good mnemonic devices you can try.” “Pneumatic devices? Like on that Cider-Squeezy thing?” Applebloom asked incredulously. “Ha ha, no, mnemonic devices. Those are just special strategies to help you remember something. I’ll bet you know some already. Did Cheerilee teach you a special way to remember the names of the planets, for example?” “Oh, yeah! ‘Her Aunt’s Griffin Ate Popped Corn.’” “Ha, yes, that’s the one I was taught, too. And you know how it works, right? Since the first letter of every word matches the name of a planet, we can use that to remind us of their name and order: H for Hinnes, A for Aphrodame, G for Gaia, A for Ares, P for Peus, and C for Cronus. And it’s a lot easier to remember that sentence than a list, isn’t it?” “Shore is!” “And that’s just one kind of mnemonic device. I’m going to teach you another one that was really useful to me when I was a little filly. Close your eyes, and imagine a room in your mind. Now, let’s fill that room with objects to help you remember the important elements of a particular subject. Let’s say you want to remember things about the First Condominium. You could put a pair of lamps in there to remind you of Celestia and Luna – put them up on the mantle, to symbolize them ruling over all the ponies. Put a broken clock on the wall to remind yourself of the defeat of Cronus, and an out-of tune music box for Discord. You could also put a picture of Winona in there to remind you of the Lupine War, and a snowglobe on the mantle to remind you of the Treaty of Snowy Summit. Do you see?” “Oh, wow, Twilight! That’s really neat! What should I think of for the Emergency?” “Ha, Applebloom, this will only really work if you do it for yourself. You need to fill your own mental rooms with items that will remind you, not me or anypony else, of the topics you need to remember. They don’t even need to make sense to me, so long as they work for you!” “Oh boy! Ah’m feeling a lot better now, Twilight! Is it okay if I go and try it out right now?” “Ha ha, of course! But, don’t forget to take these index cards.” “Oh, right.” The little filly grasped the stack in her mouth. “Bayh!” she mumbled, and scurried back down the stairs. I suppose you can’t schedule for everything. Twilight smiled to herself. Her smile widened as she passed through the main room of the library and saw Applebloom talking animatedly to the other Cutie Mark Crusaders about the neat trick Twilight had just taught her. A cry of “Cutie Mark Crusaders-Memorizers!” sounded out behind her as she stepped out the front door, followed quickly by a hiss of “Quiet! This is a library!” Twilight surveyed the midday scene in the town square. A great many ponies were out enjoying the weather or doing some weekend shopping. Mayor Mare and Judge Lime were walking together on the veranda of the town hall – Twilight made a mental note to go see the mayor with her windmill idea this week – and a traveling magician was putting on a small pyrotechnic performance at the front of the building. Meanwhile a pair of fillies who apparently didn’t feel a strong need to prepare for their finals goggled at jewelry in the shop window across the way. You’ll regret that, Diamond Tiara… Twilight strolled across the square, waving hello to Carrot Top as she passed her vegetable stand, and turned a corner onto the quiet sidestreet that played host to the Daisy Café. She settled down at a table on the patio to enjoy the fresh air. Smileshine, the owner, came out to greet her, bringing a menu and the bowl of fresh daisies that came free with every meal. The pale yellow earth pony winked at Twilight. “Would you like the lunch menu, dear? Or will this be breakfast again?” Twilight grinned at the gentle ribbing – her irregular sleep schedule was becoming rather infamous around town. “Ha, the lunch menu will be fine, Smileshine.” “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order, then.” She moved on to check on the family at the next table. Twilight glanced over the menu; there appeared to be some nice specials today, but she was already fairly certain what she would be having. She took a mouthful of daisies and chewed thoughtfully. Her mind made up, she lifted off her saddlebags and pulled out her quill, inkpot, datebook, the expired schedule, and a blank scroll. She was already hard at work recasting her weekend schedule when Smileshine returned with a glass of icewater, a generous lemon wedge perched on the rim. “Mind made up, dear?” “Oh, yes. I’ll have the GBLT.” “Green branches, lettuce and tomato, very good. Would you like that on sourdough or wheat toast, dear?” “Oh, sourdough, I suppose.” “I’ll have that right out to you. Now, don’t let me interrupt!” Twilight gave her a thankful smile, and returned her attention to the half-finished schedule. By the time Smileshine returned with her plate, she had finished that task, checking it off her list with a satisfied swoop. As she chewed the crisp sandwich – no one could make a GBLT quite like Smileshine! – she moved on to reviewing her notes from last night. She had been trying to find an error in Prof. Tipple’s work, but to her consternation, his prediction of a breakdown of causality under certain conditions appeared to be a valid solution of the Einstride field equations. Well, I doubt there’s enough magical energy in the entire world to warp the aether field sufficiently to achieve these conditions, in any case. Still, that dismissive thought wasn’t entirely satisfying to Twilight. Twilight was reflecting that the more she learned about the world, the less she seemed to know, when she was startled back to reality by an orange bouncing off the back of her head. “Hey!” she squawked, turning around to glare that the unicorn couple sitting behind her. “What was that for?” The hunter-green stallion blushed deeply. “I’m so sorry, miss, I, I don’t – this sort of thing never happens to me…” “Oh, you don’t make a habit of hurling fruit at unsuspecting ponies?” “No! I mean, my levitation spell misfired…” His blush deepened, and he turned away from her gaze. Twilight was incredulous. Levitation spells were the most basic form of unicorn magic: they were simple, reliable, took little energy for light objects, and essentially never misfired. They certainly never misfired badly enough to throw a lifted object away. “We’re so sorry, miss, he really didn’t do it on purpose,” said the teal mare sitting with him. “Here, let me get you cleaned up…” She lifted a cloth napkin and proceeded to slap Twilight full in the face with it! “What is your problem?!” Twilight cried, jumping to her feet. She had never met a ruder pair of ponies! “I – I don’t understand! I was trying to daub your – honey, what’s happening?!” “Oh, forget it,” Twilight snapped. Her good mood had completely deserted her. She quickly pulled some bits from her saddlebag, tossed them onto the table, and repacked her papers. Behind her, the unicorn stallion was focusing intently on a daisy left in the bottom of his bowl. His face etched with concern, he gently lifted it and floated it in front of his face – but after a moment it flew off into the street. “Honey bun, I think we need to go see the doctor – something is very wrong here.” Twilight, however, was already striding away, her saddlebags drifting after her. Stepping into the street, she returned her bag to her back only to be splashed with the sugary contents of a mixing bowl that came sailing out of the second story window of the house across the street. “Did somebody put a ‘throw food at me’ sign on my back?” Twilight asked, half in earnest, twisting around to peer at her flanks. With a sigh, Twilight resolved to skip visiting the quill store – she just wanted to get back to the library before somepony tried to pelt her with rotten vegetables. However, as she stepped back into the town square, the peaceful scene of small town tranquility she had observed not an hour before had been replaced by utter pandemonium. The roof of the town hall was all ablaze, and ponies were running around in a panic. The magician she had seen performing earlier stood before it, hooves to his face, apparently frozen in horror. Meanwhile Mayor Mare was trying to arrange a bucket brigade from the well to the hall, but, to her mounting frustration, the unicorns drawing up the buckets kept flinging them in random directions rather than passing them along the line. “Stop that at once! Do you think this is a game?” she screamed at a cyan unicorn Twilight recognized as Lyra. “I don’t know why this is happening,” Lyra cried back, bursting into panicked tears. Twilight now realized something very serious was going on – however, before she could investigate the situation further, she would need to put out this fire. She quickly cast a spell on herself she had learned on her most recent visit to Canterlot and, in a booming voice that filled the entire square, shouted “STAND BACK, EVERYPONY!” Her voice cut through the din of shouting and collapsing roof beams as two dozen heads swiveled to look at her. After a moment the crowd backed away from the burning structure. Twilight firmly planted herself in a four-footed casting stance, and began to strain at casting a powerful spell. Slowly, water began streaming up out of the well and levitating in an amorphous blob. As Twilight strained harder, her horn throwing off an widening incandescent cone, the stream thickened until it filled the entire width of the wellshaft, and the water blob quickly grew to enormous size. With one final heave, Twilight tossed the huge ball of water at the burning roof, which was extinguished in a cascade of hissing steam and breaking timbers. Twilight collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. Mayor Mare galloped up to her. “Oh, thank you, Twilight Sparkle!” Twilight, too worn out to speak for the moment, nodded in reply. “And as for you,” the mayor continued, rounding on the red-caped showpony with an expression of cold fury, “what do you have to say for yourself?” The magician was agog. “I swear to you, Mayor, I only cast a sparkler spell.” “You mean to tell me that” - the mayor thrust a hoof at the smoking ruin of the hall’s roof - “was a sparkler?!” “It was, it was, I swear it to Celestia!” “You can swear it to Judge Lime, if that’s the story you want to stick with. You’re under arrest for reckless endangerment and destruction of public property!” Twilight struggled to her feet. “WAIT, MA-“ she paused, silently dispelling the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Wait, Mayor. I think he might be telling the tru-“ “Help! Help! Um, help!” Twilight’s head snapped around to locate the origin of the cry. Sugarcube Corner. Twilight turned and galloped into the bakery. Mr. Cake lay off shouting. “Oh, hello Twilight.” He sounded remarkably calm, given that he was being jerked around the room upside-down as a wailing Pumpkin apparently experienced a power surge. “You know, the baby books led me to believe she would be past this stage by now,” he remarked, his head bumping along the floor merrily. “Now, if it’s not too much trouble, could you do something before I get a concussion?” Twilight cast a quick counterspell, and Mr. Cake collapsed gratefully to the ground. Twilight could now actually feel violent fluctuations in the aether buffeting against her horn. While that could make it seriously difficult for unicorns to control their magic, it could actually do physical harm to a baby like Pumpkin. She quickly stepped to where the infant lay wailing and, lowering her horn, cast a suppression field over the little foal. She turned to Mr. Cake, who had risen unsteadily to his feet. “Are you okay, Mr. Cake?” “Oh, never better, Twilight.” He winced as he touched the large bruise atop his head. “Okay, I’ve probably been better. But thank you for that, I was—“ A blood-curdling shriek erupted from the direction of the Carousel Boutique. “Rarity!” Twilight cried, dashing out the door and across the footbridge. She burst through the door of the boutique at a full gallop, careening to a halt as she tripped over a clotheshorse. “Rarity, what is it?” she shouted, leaping to her feet. Rarity was standing at her work table, wearing her reading glasses. She turned around with a pout. “Oh, Twilight, it’s awful, simply awful. I have been working on a dress for a very important customer; I can’t name names, but you’d know her, believe me. I wanted to have it ready for her tomorrow, and I've been right on schedule. A moment ago I happened to notice this seam is stitched a bit crookedly, and I wanted to resew it. But when I grasped the thread, my horn had some sort of spasm, and look: I tore it! My own dress! Oh, Twilight, this is the worst. Possible. Thing!” Twilight gave her friend a sardonic look. “That’s it?” “Yes, that is most certainly ’it’. This will take at least a day to repair, you know.” Twilight sighed. “Okay. Just – just don’t use your magic for a few hours, Rarity. Something’s going on with the magic field in Ponyville, and it could be dangerous.” Rarity looked up with a startled expression. “What is it, Twilight? Can I help?” “I don’t know, to be honest. Just, try to stay indoors, and don’t use any magic.” “Oh! But Sweetie Belle is still at the library. Will she be safe there?” “The library!” Twilight gasped, wheeling about as a thousand scenarios of doom played across her mind. Twilight once again galloped across the town square. As she ran, she cast the Royal Canterlot Voice spell once again. “UNICORNS OF PONYVILLE!” she thundered. “DON’T USE YOUR MAGIC! I REPEAT, IT IS UNSAFE TO USE ANY MAGIC AT THIS TIME!” She continued to shout her warning until she reached the library, where she paused to dispel the voice a second time before bursting through the door. To her vast relief, rather than a scene of panicked chaos and burning books, she saw only little fillies and colts quietly studying amongst the dusty tomes. “Hiya, Twilight!” Applebloom called out. “Lookit these notecards we made up!” “Sh!” said the portly little earth pony at the next table. Twilight walked over to their table and gave their proudly displayed flashcards a cursory glance. “Oh, yes, those are very nice, girls. Listen, I think you all should stay here for a bit, there’s something strange going on – so just don’t leave without telling me, okay?” The Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged a worried look. “Is everything okay, Twilight?” “Yes, yes, everything will be fine, just promise me you’ll stay here for now?” “Okay, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said. “Great, now do you girls know where Spike is?” “I think he went upstairs a few minutes ago,” replied Scootaloo. “Okay, I need to go see Spike for a minute, but I’ll be back,” Twilight said in the soothing tone of voice which is most prone to unintentionally worry perceptive little colts and fillies. She turned and headed for the stairs. * * * “Great, now how are we supposed to focus on studying?” asked Scootaloo. “Well, we could try makin’ more cards…” Applebloom mused. “What, when there’s something exciting or dangerous going on in town?” “The only ‘dangerous’ thing I’m worried about is my mom if I don’t ace this exam,” murmured Sweetie Belle. * * * Twilight wandered up the stairs to the library’s second level. “Spike, where are you?” she called out. “Up here, Twilight!” came the reply from up the stairs. “Hold on, I’m com- *hic* *thump* Urk.” There was a long pause, and then Spike spoke again in a much more nasal tone. “Uh, Twilight, can I get some help here?” Twilight trotted around the curve of the stairway to find him lying on the stairs in some discomfort, with the end of a scroll protruding from his nose. “Oof,” Twilight said with a wince. “Hold still for a second.” She carefully extracted the parchment from the little dragon’s sinus cavity. “Ah, thanks. Geez, burping up those letters is usually bad enough. If the Princess wants to start sending them up my nose, I may need to go on strike.” Twilight unfurled the scroll, which was in the Princess’ graceful, swooping hornwriting, but appeared to have been written in great haste. My Dearest Twilight, I shall be arriving in Ponyville within the hour. Please meet me at the Town Hall, and arrange for the mayor and local magistrate to attend me, as well. I have also issued a ban on high energy spellcasting in your province for the next three days. Please pass this information along to the magicians of Ponyville as quickly as possible. I will explain all upon my arrival. Yours, Celestia “What is it, Twilight?” Spike asked, craning his neck to get a view of the brief note. “I don’t know, Spike. But I think we’re about to find out.”