//------------------------------// // Bad Timing // Story: Shadow Grave // by Composer99 //------------------------------// “… having established that while friendship qua friendship cannot itself be quantified, given the output of pony magic is quantifiable, it was at least theoretically possible to …” “Snnnnxx” “Spike,” Princess Twilight Sparkle hissed. “… keeping in mind the difficulty of creating replicable tests of the phenomenon …” “Hwhng nnnngg – ” She hissed again, a little louder, “Spike!” Twilight cringed at the annoyed muttering from the ponies sitting around her. Why, oh why did we have to be in the front row for this? “… we have created what we believe to be a satisfactory experimental methodology to test the hypotheses our theoretical work has generated …” “Mngaph kngngk wmmmmm” Twilight prodded the dragon lying on the floor next to her, frowning. “Spike!” she hissed as loudly as she dared. “Wh-wha? Oh! I’m awake! I’m awake!” Spike exclaimed, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes. Some of the nearby ponies in the audience shot him dirty looks. The elderly pony standing at the podium on the nearby stage, pointing back at what to Spike was an incomprehensible blur of lines and patterns, pressed on without giving so much as a hint of having been perturbed. Twilight glanced around. Much to her relief, not only was the speech continuing, but just a few feet away, Princess Celestia was still gazing up at the presentation with rapt attention, while beside her, Princess Luna also sat on her haunches, fiddling with her hooves. Neither looked towards the disturbance Spike's brief nap had caused. “I can’t believe you’re nodding off during Professor Tome’s keynote speech!” Somehow, Twilight managed to whisper quietly enough not to earn the ire of the surrounding ponies while still conveying her exasperation. “Come on, Twilight,” Spike groaned, “it’s just so stuffy in here.” He stretched. His outburst earned the pair more disapproving glares. Princess or no Princess, making a scene during a presentation at an academic conference was simply not done. (The time for making a scene was after the presentation, during the question and answer session, if there was one. Twilight recalled conferences in which some sessions which had nearly devolved into hoofticuffs.) Feeling culpable, Twilight shrunk into herself in response, ears folded down and wings pressed against her flanks. “Eheh,” she giggled nervously. “Okay, Spike, I suppose I could have looked into the ventilation in more detail,” Twilight conceded, yawning as they made their way to the large table laden with snacks. “It’s all right, Twilight, it’s not your fault Dusty Tome went on for so long. And besides, you were doing too much work organising this conference as it was.” Spike narrowed his eyes at the thought. “I should know,” he muttered. “My writing claw is still sore.” “Professor Tome has been invaluable by carrying out formal research into the magic of friendship that I’d never have time to conduct with all my royal duties,” Twilight reminded him firmly. “Also, he wasn’t that long. He only went over his allotted time by twelve minutes and forty-three seconds!” Spike stopped and stared for a moment. “Only?” he managed. Then he gave a dismissive wave of his claw and continued, saying, “Whatever. Let’s just get some food and get outside. It’s too nice an evening to spend it all in here talking about boring academic stuff.” “Boring!?” Twilight gasped, taken aback. “I’m sure you mean exciting,” she said huffily, before perking up. “Professor Tome, Starlight, and I have been collaborating on some of his work. We’re publishing a paper together soon!” She clapped her forehooves together and grinned like a filly, before getting suddenly nervous. “We-ell, once it gets through the reviewers, that is.” Twilight had almost forgotten how vicious unicorn academics could get when reviewing a paper for publication. Starlight, who had never done anything like it before, had been in tears after their first draft had come back with commentary. Spike was already loading up a plate. “Have I mentioned how grateful I am that you got sent to Ponyville and became Princess of Friendship, instead of doing research on magic for the rest of your life?” Twilight’s horn glowed as food, surrounded in the dark raspberry aura of her magic, lifted itself off the platters and onto her plate. “You know something, Spike? So am I,” she admitted with a smile. They walked out into the gardens adjoining the palace in Canterlot, where Princess Celestia had graciously allowed Twilight to host a conference on magical research. Around them were other conference attendees making idle small talk, or discussing one of the conference’s many seminars and discussion panels, or happily anticipating the final event of the conference: the formal dinner banquet that would close out the proceedings tomorrow. “Don’t get me wrong, I love research – the hours poring over experimental data, gatherings like this one, the thrill of seeing your name in prestigious journals,” she went on, “but my friends mean so much more to me than all this does, and if we hadn’t gone to Ponyville, we’d never have met them!” “Not to mention unearthing the Elements of Harmony, becoming a Princess, and saving Equestria only a dozen times,” Spike added. “Although I was kind of hoping you’d admit you found all that jargon and talk about standard deviations and… and stuff, just as tedious as I do.” Twilight smiled fondly, looking out across the garden into the distance, where she would have seen Ponyville had it been daytime. “Oh, Spike,” she said. “Anyway,” Spike went on, “I’m sure you’ll have lots of time to do research. You’re an alicorn princess! Don’t they live, like, for ever? I mean, think about how much you could get done in the next thousand years or so! Even if you only could spare an hour a moon, you could still spend as much time experimenting on whatever you wanted as most ponies would in a lifetime!” Spike then took a large apple fritter off of his plate and took a big bite out of it with a contented hum. Twilight looked back down at Spike. “You know, I haven’t put a lot of thought into how long alicorns live. I mean, Princess Celestia and Luna have lived an awfully long time, but maybe that’s just them, and Cadance and I – and you’re too wrapped up in that fritter to pay attention, aren’t you?” Spike shook his head, as if snapping out of a trance, cheeks bulging. He held half of the fritter in his claw. “What? Oh, sorry Twilight, this is just really good. Applejack make it?” “Either her or Granny Smith,” Twilight answered. “I knew I would ask her to help when it came time to plan the food. The Ponyville Apples make the best apple foods in Equestria, and they’re not far away so a big order wouldn’t cost much, and… and a whole bunch of other reasons so I didn’t feel like I was being nepotistic except I don’t need go over all that again, and … you’re back in your fritter coma, aren’t you?” “Mmmmmm…” Spike moaned with satisfaction as he chewed up another big bite of fritter. Twilight looked back out towards Ponyville. “Applejack was telling me she had something special planned for today,” she said, more to herself than to Spike. “What was it again?” “She’s visiting her parents,” Spike replied through half-chewed fritter. “You know, in the cemetery?” “Oh, right, thanks Spike, I – oh.” Twilight stood still for a moment, her smile fading. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she whispered. Caught up in his final bite of fritter, Spike hadn’t noticed her change in mood, and had soon wandered away. Twilight stood there for a moment, suddenly quiet and still. The Castleof Friendship was dark, save for lights on in the library. Therein, Starlight Glimmer yawned loudly while poring, bleary-eyed, over pages of notes and calculations. “I’m on the verge of getting this, I just know it,” she muttered to herself. She stood up from sitting and looked over at the thick pillow she’d brought down into the library for the purpose of testing out her spell. With a determined blow of air out her nostrils, she took the pillow in her magic, then tossed it into the air before concentrating furiously on her spell with a grimace. There was a pulse of light from her horn, and then the library was still, but for her heavy breathing and the magic still aglow on her horn. Starlight opened one eye, then the other. The pillow wasn’t on the library floor. She dared to glance up. The pillow was seemingly stuck in the air, as if it had stopped just before descending to the floor. Starlight’s breath caught in her throat with excitement. “I – I did it!” she exclaimed, her previous tiredness forgotten. She beamed proudly, grinning from ear to ear like a foal who has just been promised a trip to Whinny World. She trotted up underneath the pillow, staring up at it, her lips pursing and brow furrowing anew. She spent five seconds watching the pillow… ten seconds … fifteen … “I wonder how long I can make – urk!” Starlight felt suddenly clammy and short of breath. Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest. Near panic, she released the spell, and the pillow came crashing down, bouncing off her back and onto the floor. As soon as she had stopped the spell, her heart had begun to slow to its normal pace. Starlight slumped onto the pillow, trying to catch her breath. After a moment, she had recovered enough to stand up again. She made her way back to the desk, taking a quill up in her magic. “Better write that down,” she muttered. “Side effects of this version: symptoms of maintaining the spell beyond twenty seconds include the following…” Twilight Sparkle leaned against the stone railing of a balcony, hooves crossed over the railing. She sighed forlornly as she gazed down at the darkened, distant shape of Ponyville before looking up to the moon and stars hanging in the night sky. She hung her head with another sigh, turning neither her head nor ears when she heard a soft clip-clop of hooves on stone behind her. A soft murmur of conversation from inside faded as a door swung shut. “Feeling melancholy, Twilight Sparkle?” came Celestia’s gentle voice. Twilight twisted her head and gave a wan smile. “Princess,” she said, acknowledging the other’s presence. “When I saw how listless you were at supper, I knew something was wrong. I’d ask if something had gone wrong with your conference, but I see from your face that it’s not so small a matter as that.” Twilight stepped away from the balcony rail and nuzzled Celestia. “Oh, Princess, I - I just - I mean… Spike brought up alicorn longevity earlier today, and I hadn’t thought much about it before, and then he reminded me that Applejack is visiting her parents, but they’re in the cemetery, and that was something about alicorn longevity I just hadn’t thought about, and I’m not sure I could bear outliving my friends for centuries, and now I can’t think about anything else, and - ” “There, there,” Celestia murmured, lowering her head and raising a hoof to embrace Twilight. Twilight took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes with a hoof to clear away the sudden wetness. They stood in silence together for a moment. “Twilight,” Celestia eventually said, “I’ve left many friends behind over the years. It gets a little easier with time, but only a little: I must admit that the ache of missing them never really goes away. I don’t believe this is something I can help you with in my capacity as your former mentor – you’ll have to work through your thoughts and feelings in your own way, in your own time. Your friends in Ponyville might be able to help, even if they can’t fully grasp what you’re going through.” Twilight took a few steadying breaths, taking in the warmth of Celestia’s embrace and letting it calm her. “I – you – you’re right, Princess. If anyone can help me cope, they can. I just don’t know if I can get through what’s left of the conference tomorrow.” “Never fear,” Celestia said brightly. “If you need to return to Ponyville in the morning, I’ll move a few things around, and ask Luna if she can do the same. Between us, we will make sure everything goes off as you planned as best we can.” Twilight smiled weakly. “You’re sure you could do all that – for me?” she asked. “Twilight, I won’t pretend we Princesses don’t have any kind of hierarchy among us, however informal it may be, but we are still colleagues and, so I would like to think, on our way to becoming friends in a way that was not possible when you were my student. In that spirit, if you need to return to your best friends for their counsel and support, I will do what I can to support you as well. I know you would do the same for me.” “Thank you, Pri - I mean, Celestia,” Twilight said as they shared another hug. “I don’t know how I’ll get over the idea of outliving almost everyone I care for, but knowing I don’t have to face that future alone makes me feel a little better already.” “Anytime, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said. Twilight gasped suddenly. Startled, Celestia pulled away from her. “I just realised, if we’re going to go home in the morning, I’d better pack. Oh! And get you the checklist for tomorrow!” Twilight cantered towards the door, opening it with magic. “Spike! SPIIIIKE!” Celestia smiled and snickered softly, shaking her head as she walked slowly back to the ballroom.