The Reason Why Starlight Glimmer Can't Have Coffee

by Twilight Glimmer


Never Again

It was a warm morning in Ponyville. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and Starlight Glimmer was drowsily stumbling to the dining room. She was holding multiple quills and parchments with her magic. As soon as she reached the dining table, she stopped levitating the items and laid her face down on the table and groaned.

“Good morning, Starlight,” Twilight said. “How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t. I’ve been up all night working on students’ schedules for next semester.”

“I appreciate you taking your job so seriously, but staying up all night isn’t a good idea, trust me.”

“I know, but deadlines are coming up and I need to finish everything. The only problem is figuring out how I’m going to stay awake all day.”

Twilight thought for a second. “I have an idea,” she said. She walked to the kitchen and prepared a cup of Novabucks™ coffee. She handed it to Starlight. “Give it a try, it’s really helpful and tastes amazing!”

Starlight stared at it for a moment before taking a sip. “Hmm, it tastes weird, but good, she thought. She took another sip, and another, and another, and several more after that. Pretty soon, her ‘I survived the Summer Sun Celebration!’ mug was empty. “Hey Twilight, can I have some more?”

“Sure, there’s some more in the cupboard. Cheerilee needs me to help with a field trip to the Tree of Harmony, so the school is closed today. I have to go, but you’re free to do whatever you want. See you later!”

“But, Twilight, why not just have someone else watch the-” SLAM! “-school?” Starlight sighed. “I guess that clears my schedule for the day. Oh well, at least that means I get more time to drink coffee.” She stared at the cupboard. “So many brands,” she thought. “Bolgers, Seven O’Clock Coffee, Faxwell House; Ooh! Caffeine Craze! That one looks good!” She made herself a cup and took a sip. “This tastes amazing!” she exclaimed. She finished the rest of it in a few big gulps. “Maybe I should make another!


Spike slowly got out of his bed. He looked at the empty canopy next to him and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Wow! I don’t remember the last time I got to sleep in this late! Plus, Twilight’s gone all day, so I get a day to relax and read comics.” As he was walking to the kitchen, he started hearing high-pitched giggling that seemed to get louder the closer that he got. He assumed that Starlight found something amusing in the morning paper. As he drew closer, however, he realized that high-pitched giggling was slowly turning into maniacal laughter. When he opened the kitchen door, his jaw dropped. Starlight was hysterically laughing as she was building a humungous chandelier out of utensils.

“SPIKE!” Starlight shouted. Spike jumped back. “I’m so so so so so glad that you’re here! Do you think that you could maybe possibly help me hang this up somewhere?! I built this so quickly that I didn’t have time to think about how or where I was going to hang it up! Do you think that Twilight will be okay with me using all of her utensils? She probably will be, right? Great! Go get the ladder, Spike! I want to put this up super super quickly!”

Spike was completely petrified. He was about to ask Starlight if she’d finally gone off her rocker when he noticed an empty container behind her. He picked it up and realized what had happened. “You drank the entire bag?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!”

“Nope! Relax, Spike, I’m totally fine! This castle is really dull, don’t you think? I think that this whole place needs to be redecorated, stat!”

“Redecorated!?”

“Yep! I’m going to go find some polka dot wallpaper! Ooh, maybe I can hang my chandelier over the fireplace! This is going to be super super super fun!”

As soon as Starlight ran to find her supplies, Spike flew to his room as fast as he could and locked the door. He grabbed a bat and a helmet and hid under Twilight’s bed. “Why does somepony always have to go insane on my days off?!”


“In conclusion, the Tree of Harmony has a very important purpose in Equestria. Not only does it stop the Everfree Forest from overgrowing, but it reminds us that if we work together, we can overcome any obstacle! Does anypony have any questions so far?” Complete silence filled the room. Cheerilee suddenly perked up.

“Thank you, Twilight, for helping me with this field trip and for that incredibly thorough 2-hour lesson on the Tree of Harmony. Now, if everypony has their things, we can head back to town.”

“But, I still had more to go over about-”

“Alright, everypony line up in an orderly fashion. Make sure to stay with your buddy so no one gets lost!”

Twilight sighed disappointedly and started casting a forcefield spell.


The castle was a complete mess. Polka dot wallpaper was adorning some walls, crudely done drawings on others. Books of all sorts were scattered across the floor, some of them with pages missing or colored over. Several tables were knocked over and many of the windows were broken. And in the middle of it all was a jittering Starlight, reading book after book, finishing at least 1 per minute. Spike was still hiding under Twilight’s bed, wondering if he’ll ever be able to see the light of day ever again.

As Twilight walked up to the front door, she got a strange feeling. She was hesitant about opening the door for a moment. Suddenly, she heard a loud BANG! followed by screaming. She threw open the doors and rushed inside. She took one look at her home and her favorite books scattered on the floor and yelled at the top of her lungs “WHAT THE BUCK HAPPENED HERE?!” She heard a loud clamor coming from her bedroom. She growled and flew down the hall to her room to see Spike cowering on the floor and Starlight holding a stick with marshmallows on it. Starlight looked over at Twilight and started jumping up and down while talking fast enough to rival Pinkie Pie.

“Oh, hey, Twilight. How’s it going? Whatcha been up to? I’ve had so much fun today! First I built a chandelier out of your kitchen utensils, I hope you don’t mind. Then I decided to redecorate your castle because it looked so dreary and dull before, I made sure to add lots of polka dot wallpaper just for you! After I did that I wanted to draw you a picture. I couldn’t decide what to draw so I ended up drawing thirty-seven thousand, five hundred twenty-two pictures! I’m super super proud of all of them! Then, I remembered how fun reading was and decided to read every single book in your library! I read the spellbooks first and I tested out some of the spells on your windows! Most of them broke, but that’s okay, they didn’t go with the new decorations anyway! I wanted to keep some of the pages to give to you on your birthday in ten-point-five months, so I tore them out! My favorite thing that I did today was learning how to divide infinity by two! Isn’t that fun fun fun!?”

Twilight’s eye began to twitch. “First of all, how much coffee did you drink today?!”

“Well, I had one cup of whatever you gave me, and eight cups of Caffeine Craze!.”

Eight?! That’s super dangerous, Starlight! That brand has twice as much caffeine as most other brands! I only use it when I stay up all night working! Even then, I only make a single cup!”

“You’re missing out, Twilight! That was the best thing that I ever drank! I would have had more if the container wasn’t empty!”

Oh, I’m going to have a long talk with her later about this,” Twilight thought. “And secondly, you can’t divide infinity by two! Infinity is an indefinite number, so you can’t divide by anything except one!”

“It’s easy! Here’s how I did it.”



23 minutes later...



“But-but-but, HOW?!” Twilight stammered in disbelief.

“I’m not sure how. Do you know? Because I have no idea!” Starlight said with a maniacal grin on her face. “I also don’t know why I suddenly feel very sleepy...” Starlight collapsed on the ground, Spike, who had been watching everything take place, worriedly ran over to Starlight and checked for a pulse. Twilight let out a small chuckle.

“Don’t worry, Spike, she’s going to be fine. She’ll wake up in a few hours and will be back to normal by then. I’ll carry her to bed. After that, I’ll salvage the books while you help me fix the castle.” Spike tiredly groaned.


The next morning, Starlight woke up to a throbbing pain in her head. She was about to get up when Twilight walked into her room and gave her a deadpan stare. “Twilight? What happened?”

“What happened was that I learned to never let you drink anything with caffeine in it ever again.”