//------------------------------// // S2 Ch 4: Calendars // Story: The Story of Twilight Glow // by Jeweled Pen //------------------------------// Twilight laid on the ground, her eyes wide as saucers, her heart pounding so hard she was certain it would explode at any moment. Why. Why had it come to this? What had she done to deserve this? There was no point to it. No point to anything. A part of her wondered if she had died. Was that explosion something else and her mind just refused to process it? Maybe there had been some problems with the court mages. Her room wasn’t too far from their rooms. It was completely understandable that some explosion or another had overtaken them and, as such, had enveloped hers as well. Yes, that had to be what happened. It was the only logical explanation. Because the alternative was… That a small, pink earth pony had somehow launched herself out of Twilight’s closet drawer, complete with two party cannons, a cupcake(that she could still taste. It was chocolate. Not bad), a dozen balloons and at least two pounds of confetti. All somehow crammed into a drawer that was just barely big enough to hold her pens and spare paper. Twilight laid on the ground in shock, staring at the roof and struggling to regather herself while the pink pony rambled on about something. She couldn’t process it. Sure, the ringing in her ears from the close up cannons had long since died, but her mind still refused to accept what was going on. What had happened. She caught the odd word here and there. Shining? Birthday? Eight layer cake? What? Slowly she began to tune herself into the conversation while the pink pony hopped around the room, seemingly unaware of the shock she had put Twilight through. The earth pony couldn’t help but note Spike was sitting on the bed, looking only slightly less confused than her, though mildly amused. Finally, the writer got to her hooves with great difficulty and stood up, shaking her head. “Pinkie. Pinkie?” “And then we’ll go get some smores because you don’t have to be camping to have smores you know it’s just marshmallows and--” “PINKIE!” Twilight yelled, shaking the mare out of her word explosions. The other earth pony froze and glanced to her. Moments later she burst into giggles. “T-Twilight, y-your mane!” “What?” Twilight asked, before looking in the mirror. Her ears drooped and she heard Spike let out a guffaw. The shock had managed to make it stand on end. Her cheeks turned red and she galloped to her night stand, yanking out a brush and doing the best she could to at least straighten it a bit. Once she was finished, she took a slow, deep breath and turned to the other mare. “Okay. Pinkie. As I was saying. What are you talking about? Why are you even here? Did Nightmare Moon send you?” The pink pony giggled and shook her head. “Of course not, silly! Your brother did!” Twilight blinked a few more times. “You’ve… met my brother?” “Of course! You didn’t think I’d come all the way up here to see my new best friend all the time and never visit her family, did you?” Twilight stared for a few more moments. She imagined the pink mare meeting Cadence and Shining. She couldn’t deny that the thought did seem quite humorous to her, making her draw a hoof up and chuckling softly. “I… see. And my brother sent you to me?” “Well, no. Not per say.” “Well? Then why are you here?” “Because it’s almost your birthday, silly! Why didn’t you tell us?” Pinkie said, grinning from ear to ear. Twilight stared some more, blinking. “What? It’s not my--” She then paused and did some mental calculations. Then shrugged. “Huh. Yeah, I guess it is. So?” The pink pony’s mane actually deflated. “So?” “Well, it’s not important,” she said with a shrug. “Age is just a number used to apply set restrictions on the legal privileges a pony is allowed to access. I hit my last important one a while back, so it’s not like there’s any more age limits I’m hitting,” she said with a shrug. Spike sighed. “Only you could make a birthday seem boring.” Twilight shrugged. “I’m sorry? But I usually just skip them. Sometimes Shining and I will get dinner in the city, but I don’t-- err, Pinkie?” The mare looked like she was going to start crying. “I’m… sorry? What’s wrong?” “You… don’t have birthday parties?” “I’m a little old for that, don’t you think?” “But… but what about Spike?” Twilight stared for a few moments, moving her mouth as she tried to process the question. Finally, after a few moments of her mind refusing to process it, she skipped straight to the point. “What about Spike?” “You’re almost his mom, you need to set a proper example for birthdays!” Pinkie said with a nod. Now Spike was full on laughing, holding his stomach as he fell back on the bed. Twilight stared, her mouth open. There were no words. “Zgrrgz?” she managed to say intelligibly. “Uh huh!” Her mind attempted to reboot itself, finally giving up and engaging safe mode. She stood there for a few, long seconds and then uttered words she almost instantly regretted. “F-fine. Just do whatever you want.” Pinkie squealed with delight, hopping into the air and, somehow, making more balloons fly. “You won’t be disappointed, Twilight! This’ll be the best birthday party EVER!” And then, as quickly as she appeared, the mare was gone. To Twilight’s surprise, when she looked down, all the confetti was gone as well. All that remained to assure her that she didn’t in fact have a psychotic break from too much studying were a few balloons hovering in the air. Finally, she turned to Spike, glaring. “I’m happy you find this so amusing.” He snickered, leaning up. “H-hey. She’s doing my birthday, it’s only fair she does yours too.” He paused for a moment, before… “Mom.” He promptly fell back again, laughing uproariously. She rolled her eyes and stepped towards the door. She had been tired a few moments ago as she had just woken up, but now her heart was pumping like an engine and the adrenaline in her system left her wide awake. The mare sighed when she took a seat in the dining hall, a hoof rubbing her forehead. She couldn’t imagine what went through that pink pony’s head some days. Balloons? Confetti? Perhaps fire works? Whatever it was, it was insane and she now couldn’t help feeling a little miffed that her friends hadn’t at least warned her when they sent her to that bakery. Her and Pinkie weren’t even that close, she had far more interactions with Rarity, yet the mare didn’t seem the least bit interested in her birthday. She sighed and gave a shrug, chewing idly on her hay muffin. She couldn’t imagine why anypony would make such a big deal about a birthday. It happened every year, like clock work. Everypony came together, sang a song, gave gifts and then cut the cake. It seemed like a dreadful waste of the day. And what was the point? To make her feel special? Her friends didn’t need to spend a day celebrating her to make her feel special, they already-- The muffin fell from her hoof and she stared across the hall, her eyes wide. She swallowed after a few moments, before jumping to her hooves and galloping out of the hall, leaving her meal behind herself. That beautiful, wonderful, amazing pink pony who she could never, ever give enough praise to had figured it out! ------ Twilight flipped through the books, frowning more and more as she worked. She’d lay claim to one of the chalk boards in the library and it was now covered in calculations that made sense to nopony but herself. Towers of books surrounded her, like an impenetrable fortress of knowledge. The librarians whispered amongst themselves, but none dared disturb the tyrant tosser, for fear of her wrath. When the earth pony finally let out an angry cry of defeat and collapsed to the ground, knocking a few of the stacks over, the librarians scattered like frightened flies. “It’s impossible,” Twilight muttered. After a few minutes, one of the younger librarians slowly stepped forward and gave a nervous gulp. He would have gladly taken a trip through the magical and sometimes fatal under vaults, where only the most dangerous of tomes were stored, over approaching such a dangerous mare. But he had the least amount of seniority and so the task fell to him. Also, as he was the newest, he’d be the easiest to replace. “Err, miss Glow?” he asked softly. “Is there anything I can help you with?” “No,” she muttered with annoyance. “Not unless YOU can tell me what Nightmare Moon’s birthday is.” “… I’m sorry? Err… is this trivia? From your book?” “No, no,” she muttered. “Figures. I spend weeks gathering every piece of information, but I don’t remember the important things. ‘When’s your birthday, what kind of cake do you like?’ Go figure, right?” She got to her hooves and stared at the board. “Oh, Celestia’s birthday was easy,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “She only had two hundred and seventy-five different dates for it over the last few millenia. But Nightmare Moon’s? Or Luna’s? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! It doesn’t help that all past records of her tend to, well, be in the past. I swear it feels like it’s just a myth sometimes,” she muttered again. “One we’re all stuck in. No, no. There’s only hundreds of different possibilities of when it could be. On top of that, she’s the little sister. You know how many myths and stories there are on the birth of Celestia and Luna? Dozens! In some they’re born in the coldest day of the coldest year of the coldest blah blah blah. In other ones, they’re found at the birth of time. In still others, they are birthed on the founding of Equestria. None of it is consistent! Then, on top of that, the calenders and how we’ve done the weather have changed so gosh darn many times. Did you know we’ve changed how we register a year fourteen times in the last millenia alone? Six of those were in the last two hundred years!” The stallion nodded, wondering if she’d possibly be able to find him if he made an escape attempt to the under vaults. Did they have the life lines set up? With a nervous gulp, he slowly tried responding. “Perhaps you could, err, ask her?” “Oh, right, ask the super emotional, prone to anger princess of the night! That’ll end well!” Twilight said, then put a hoof to her forehead. “Did they even celebrate birthday parties a millenia ago? Ugh, if we had day and night, I’d suggest the winter solstice, but no. I’m honestly amazed anypony is even keeping up with the calender these days. Without a day or night, the whole point is moot. Well, I guess for seasons and… okay, it’s not moot at all I’m just really annoyed, you know?!” she said, before rolling over and hugging a book to her chest as best she could. “How could anypony hope to solve this? How in the world COULD anypony solve this? Starswirl the Bearded couldn’t do this and he had magic at his hooves. I’m just an earth pony. I can’t do this.” The stallion shuffled from hoof to hoof, beginning to suspect the danger was passing. “… Well, there’s no other option, then. I’ll have to just do it the good old fashioned way. Dates be darned.” “Miss?” he asked. “Do what the old fashioned way?” She glanced towards him with a crazy gleam in her eye. “Why, throw Nightmare Moon a surprise birthday party. What else?”