//------------------------------// // Prompt #200: Crisis // Story: Ponywatching // by ThunderTempest //------------------------------// "Celestia," hissed Twilight, in the dead of night, as she crept into the Solar Chambers in Canterlot Castle, "Celestia, are you awake?" "Hmmm?" groaned Celestia, levering herself up in her bed and pulling her eyeshade off. "Princess Celestia, can I talk to you?" asked Twilight, climbing up onto the bed. "Twilight, You've known me for  two hundred years. You've been a princess for most of those, you don't need to call me princess," said Celestia, her voice slurred by her half-awake brain. "Also, it's two thirty in the morning. Couldn't this have waited?" Twilight did have the grace to look ashamed from what Celestia could make out in the darkness. "While I'm grateful for everything, Princess, lately I've been feeling particularly morose and uninterested in everything." "Go and read a book or something, then," said Celestia, as she tried to settle back down."That always cheered you up before." "I can't. I've already read the entire contents of the Canterlot Archives. I think it's something deeper than just feeling down or sad," said Twilight, shifting closer to Celestia. "You're probably just having a mid-century crisis, Twilight. Go and find a project that inspires you, and just let me sleep," said Celestia. "A mid-century crisis?" asked Twilight "Yes, that's perfect. Celestia, I officially quit my job!" cried Twilight. "I'll take you off the Solar and Lunar rosters then," mumbled Celestia from under her pillow, as Twilight bounced out of the room. ********* "In complete fairness, Luna, I was half-asleep at the time," said Celestia, as she and Luna flew towards a quarry that had sprung up just outside Ponyville over the months since Twilight's midnight declaration to Celestia, "I thought that it was going to be like her other projects when she was younger, where she'd be done in a few months." "And you brought me along, why, Celestia?" asked Luna "Because I have no idea what she's been doing, and there are times when Twilight terrifies me, Luna. Because I do forget how driven she can be when she wants to be. If she has, as Cadence put it, 'dived head first into the deep end', then I want back up." "Ah, so I'm your shield," said Luna, as the two sisters winged in for a landing. "Defensive assistance," insisted Celestia, as her hooves touched down on rock and soil, and the two crossed the magical barrier that encompassed the quarry, and both sisters had their breath taken away. Because they suddenly found themselves on the moon, and a short distance in front of them, they could see Twilight flying around a skeleton of a metal structure. "Hello Celestia, hello Luna," said Twilight, magically projecting her voice into the elder alicorn's heads, but remaining focused on her work, magically fusing another piece of steel to her framework. Celestia turned to Luna, casting a quick spell of her own, projecting a small bubble of air around the two. "Now do you see what I mean when I say I am occasionally scared of Twilight? That spell, or anything like it, has never existed before," said Celestia, as they walked towards Twilight's construct. Once the two sisters got close enough that Twilight was contained within the air bubble, Twilight flew down. "You said to find a project that interested me, Celestia," said Twilight, "so that I could get over my mid-century crisis." "Mid-century crisis?" whispered Luna, out of the corner of her mouth as she suppressed a laugh. "It was two in the morning, Luna," Celestia whispered back, "It was the first thing I thought of." "So," continued Twilight, unaware of the sister's commentary, "I decided that I was going to build a spaceship!" Twilight struck a pose, and magicially summoned the chalkboard on which she'd drawn her plans. "I should be finished in about fifteen years if all goes well. Anyway, how's Cadence doing?"