CANTERLOT CASTLE, YEAR 2012 AC (AGE OF CELESTIA)
Twilight Sparkle loved books.
To her friend Minuette, this was an understatement. She shook her head and sighed, reflecting on the task at hoof. She and her other friends Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts were about to do the impossible: try to get Twilight to go to a party.
At that moment, Minuette noticed a purple unicorn mare trotting up the road, reading a huge book. This was in fact Twilight Sparkle, the friend of Minuette, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts, and the personal student of Princess Celestia herself. Minuette smiled and trotted over to Twilight.
“Twilight! There you are!” she said, smiling at her friend. “Moondancer’s having a little get-together in the castle courtyard. You wanna come?” All three of them stared at Twilight, who blinked.
“Ooh… Sorry girls.” Twilight put her book away and smiled nervously at her friends. “I’ve got a lot of studying to do.” She then ran off, leaving her friends in the dust.
Minuette rolled her eyes. She then turned to Twinkleshine and stated something that may or may not have been true, for it was speculation: “That mare makes more time for books than she does for her friends.”
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Twilight Sparkle ran into her library, slamming the door against the wall. “Spike!” she shouted. “SPIIII-KE!”
“Right here, Twilight!” Her purple and green dragon assistant Spike stood up from where he had fallen, for Twilight had hit him with the door. “What’s up?” He picked up the red-and-yellow present that had fallen next to him, and Twilight noticed.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the present.
“Oh! It’s a present for Moondancer. I heard she’s throwing a party?” Spike said.
“Yes, she is. However, I need you here. The fate of Equestria could be at stake!” Twilight said matter-of-factly. Spike raised an eyebrow at that.
“Really?” he said, kind of sarcastically.
“Yes, Spike!” She rolled her eyes at her assistant’s disbelieving. “Get me the book Predictions and Prophecies. ASAP! It’s very important!”
Spike ran off to find the book. Twilight started pacing and levitating many different books around her to find more information.
“Here it is!” Spike was standing on top of a very tall ladder, waving the book in the air. Twilight grabbed it with her magic and started to read it. When she finished, her face was pale.
“It’s worse than I thought. Spike, write a letter to the Princess!” Twilight shouted. Spike grabbed a piece of paper and a quill, and gave Twilight a thumbs-up.
“Alright. Spike, write this down: Dear Princess Celestia…” Twilight began, but was quickly drowned out by a roaring noise.
“Spike?! What is going on?!” she shouted. Spike quickly made his way over to Twilight’s side.
“I don’t know!” he replied, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. “It started when I started writing on the paper!”
Twilight levitated the paper over to her, read it, and then glared at Spike. “Did you just grab a random piece of paper off of a desk?!”
“Uh…” Spike said. “Maybe?”
“This was a spell sent by Princess Celestia herself! I was supposed to test it and then tell her my findings!” Twilight moaned. “You just caused it to activate, and by writing on it, you changed the spell!”
“Sorry…” Spike said, embarrassment coloring his voice.
By now, the roaring noise had grown as loud as the Royal Canterlot Voice, which Twilight had only heard from Princess Celestia occasionally. Now, there was a sort of vacuum in the room as well, causing things to start flying around. Twilight dug her hooves into the floor, and Spike grabbed onto Twilight’s leg.
“This is not good!” he screamed, stating the obvious. Twilight nodded in response and prepared to make a shield around her and Spike so that they could escape the chaos without being affected by the vacuum.
Her horn glowed with magic, ready to make the shield. Twilight concentrated, preparing herself for the task.
However, once she concentrated on her magic, she stopped concentrating on her hooves. They had been dug into the floor of her room, but now the pressure had let up. She let out a minor shriek and suddenly found herself flying up towards the ceiling, which now had a silvery bowl-shaped object in the middle. Both the vacuum and the roaring noise seemed to be coming from that same bowl.
Suddenly, she felt something pulling on her tail. She looked down to see Spike, who had fallen off of Twilight’s leg, grabbing onto her tail and screaming as he was whipped around with the wind. Twilight picked Spike up with her magic and held him close, as the bowl got closer and closer. Suddenly, the two of them were sucked in, and everything turned green.
Twilight tried to scream, and found that there was no noise muffler inside the bowl. She and Spike both screamed – loudly – as their surroundings swirled around them. The only things that were around them were lots of green and some sort of clock shape, almost as if they were being teleported somewhere. Suddenly, the green disappeared, and Twilight fell out of the sky and into a fountain.
“What the-?!” Twilight spluttered. That was when Spike fell right on top of her, dunking the wet purple unicorn back into the fountain.
Moving Spike out of the way, Twilight sat back up, jumped out of the fountain, and shook herself, causing water droplets to spray out of her mane and tail. She looked around, noticing that they seemed to have teleported to a completely different location.
“Spike… I don’t think we’re in Canterlot anymore.” She lifted Spike onto her back and continued to look around, but more nervously than before.
“What? Of course you’re in Canterlot!” an unfamiliar voice said. Twilight jumped back, only to be faced with a creature that she had never seen before. This creature was pony-like in shape, with cloven hooves and a long ruff around its neck. It appeared to be female, due to the creature’s long eyelashes. A fork-like shape protruded near the top of her head, and Twilight assumed it was like a unicorn’s horn.
“My apologies for scaring you,” the creature said. “I was just shocked. You don’t know where you are? Welcome to Canterlot! That was an amazing entrance, by the way.” Twilight was confused.
“Um… I don’t mean to be rude…” Twilight began, “but… what are you?”
“Oh! You’re not being rude. I’m a kirin!” The creature – kirin – smiled and pointed to herself. “It’s okay if you’ve never seen one of my kind before. We grew up in a small village, and for the longest time, we couldn’t even speak! But then Applejack and Fluttershy came to us and helped us see that we needed to be able to talk. Our leader’s name is Rain Shine, and she has an assistant named Autumn Blaze. Autumn Blaze was actually instrumental in helping us learn to talk again!” Twilight’s eyes were the widest they had probably ever been.
“Wow… That’s a cool story! May I ask a question, though?” Twilight asked. The kirin nodded. “Actually, it’s two questions. One, who are Applejack and Fluttershy?”
The kirin gasped. “You don’t know who Applejack and Fluttershy are?!” Creatures around them stopped and stared, and Twilight grinned nervously, waving at them.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, who doesn’t know the Element of Honesty and the Element of Kindness?! It’s ridiculous! They’re also part of the Council of Friendship!” The kirin jumped up and down happily.
Now it was Twilight’s job to gasp. “Element of Honesty?! Element of Kindness?! Spike, maybe we are okay after all! Nightmare Moon didn’t return after all! The Elements of Harmony stopped her!” Spike smiled at that.
“Oh, Nightmare Moon returned in the year 2012 AC – Age of Celestia. That was about eight years before the year 1 AT… it’s the year 20 AT right now, so…” The kirin was rambling, but it caught Twilight’s attention.
“Wait… it’s the year 20 AT?! What does AT stand for?!” Twilight’s thoughts were spinning.
“Oh, wow! You really need to read a few books!” The kirin giggled, and Spike snorted at the thought of the irony in that statement. “AT stands for Age of Twilight, silly! Princess Celestia retired twenty years ago, and our princess is Princess Twilight Sparkle!”
Twilight’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. She heard Spike say, “Wait, what?” to the kirin, but it was faint. Maybe the kirin responded, but Twilight had no idea. Twilight Sparkle had passed out.