“SPIKE! You’ve got to help!”
Spike reluctantly struggled out from his bed and away from a dreamland of gems (and a certain pony who shared his interest in them). He’d been getting to a particularly heart-racing moment where the walls of the Crystal Caves had tumbled inwards, trapping him and Rarity inside… thank Celestia that Luna hadn’t walked into his dreams tonight.
Yawning, he shook his head clear of sleep and rubbed his eyes, only to realise it was still pitch dark outside. The moon was bright and heavy in the night sky, yet the lights in the Golden Oak library had been switched on to full brightness.
“Twilight,” he groaned, slightly annoyed at the rude awakening, “you need to sleep. You can’t be up all night studying again— “
He was met with the rather chaotic sight of a hyperventilating Twilight on the floor of the library. This would usually be an expected sight with a pony of Twilight’s temperament, especially near the due dates of assignments from her mentor. Yet as far as Spike could remember, he’d seen Twilight complete a friendship report yesterday after sorting out a spat between the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
Despite this, frayed red quills were scattered amidst heaps of books and overturned lecterns, splatters of ink staining the crevices of the wooden floor. The ladder lay askew, having fallen over, and all her previous files and even flashcards had been thrown about. It was almost as if Rainbow Dash had crashed in through the window again.
Spike frowned. It wasn’t like her to make such a mess. Even when panicked, the purple pony always stressed upon the utmost importance of organisation. But here she was, muzzle quite literally buried in a dusty pile of books as she burrowed through it with her hooves.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. And then sotto voce, “Didn’t you just make me rearrange the entire library two days ago?”.
Twilight popped her head out from underneath An Unabridged History of Equestria. Her usually impeccable mane was completely frazzled, the fringe ruffled by static and sticking out at all angles. Her purple pupils were rapidly shrinking to pinpricks, eyes twitching as she grinned a little too widely.
Oh no. He’d seen this look before.
“No!” Spike yelled. “Twilight, you’ve got to snap out of it! You’re not going to be tardy, you’re not going to be banished, you’re not going to be sent to magic kindergarten. For Tartarus’ sake, you just finished a report for Princess Celestia yesterday! You heard her the last time, she clearly told you she didn’t need a letter every week, and you’ve already got one!”
“That’s the thing, Spike!” Twilight yelled. “I don’t!”
“Oh, come on Twilight, it’s too early for this!” Spike sighed. “Sure, a report on how you taught them the importance of sharing by splitting a hayburger into three may not be the most interesting— or valid, as I’m pretty sure they were about to buy more— but it’s certainly better than all those ‘Want it, Need it’ shenanigans!”
Twilight glared at him, and he laughed awkwardly, but the manic grimace disappeared from her face.
“Yes, Spike, I finished the report.” she hissed. “Though as you very tactfully pointed out, it may not be the most engaging.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Oh, Spike, it’s absolutely terrible, the princess is going to be so disappointed in me.”
“Twilight. What is it?”
“I can’t even bear to think about it, I don’t know how I could’ve made such a mistake…”
“Twilight,” Spike hissed. “Quit beating around the bush. What did you do?”
“I LOST IT!” she yelled, finally exploding, and then slumped onto the ground on top of a mound of unused scrolls.
Stunned, Spike looked down at the defeated unicorn.
“I had it all ready, and I was going to copy it out today in case I did lose it— but it’s gone. I’ve searched everywhere and I can’t find it.”
“Calm down, Twilight,” Spike sighed, relieved it was nothing worse. With Twilight and her overblown reactions, you could never know.
“What do I do, Spike?” Twilight said forlornly, looking up at him. “The Princess hasn’t heard from me in months. And I… I hoof wrote this report because I haven’t written to her personally in so long… not that it would matter.”
Spike noticed her shrink more into herself, the faintest blush appearing on her cheeks.
“Of course it matters,” he said gently. “You’re her star pupil, Twilight. She loves you in a way she loves nopony else. Don’t worry, we’ll find the letter. All we have to do is retrace your steps. I know I didn’t scribe this for you, and I don’t think you wrote it in the library, so if you went back to where you did write it…”
Twilight’s eyes widened slightly. Her attention trailed off from Spike’s words as she began to imagine the glow in Celestia’s eyes as she opened a handwritten letter from her pupil. The glow in her eyes whenever the Princess of the Sun looked down at her, her smiling eyes that Twilight secretly hoped were reserved just for her. When Twilight looked into those eyes she saw eternities of sorrow and experience, but also radiance and unbridled power. Those eyes set her heart pounding from awe, and lately, a feeling she couldn’t quite place. A feeling that followed her into dreams during both the day and night.
Twilight knew those feelings were probably just the product of intense admiration for the Princess (and possibly from her drastic need for approval, stemming from what she’d read about in a book about “parental issues”). But seeing the princess happy lifted her spirits like nothing else did.
She had to get that letter. Springing up and slinging on her saddlebag, she turned to the baby dragon.
“Search the library again, Spike. I’m heading to The Hayburger, I think I left the letter there.”
Spike waved her off as she raced into the velvet night and slammed the door behind her. Whistling, he walked back to his bed with no intent of searching for the letter. Twilight had already searched everywhere, so why should he?
Suddenly, his eye caught a long scroll strewn on the floor amongst the others. On the top, it was titled, ‘A Statistical Analysis on Sharing’. Though the paper was a different kind than what was usually used for letters to the princess, Spike sighed in relief. He picked up the letter and sent it to the princess in a burst of green flame, glad the search was finally over.
Then to ensure there would be no more Twilight-frenzied disturbances, he wrote a note: I found the letter, sent it to the princess. Pasting it to the front door of the library, he walked back to his bed and flopped down in exhaustion.
Twilight Sparkle pranced out of The Hayburger, the letter found and safely placed in her saddlebag. She’d have to re-write it as it was slightly splattered with grease from being left on a table.
She did feel slightly guilty for keeping Spike up on a futile search, but was in no hurry to go home. The night was beautiful, the canvas of stars a breathtaking work of art. Was it their gleaming brightness… or the fact that they seemed to be arranged in the shape of her mentor’s visage? She reddened as she began to stare longer upon it…
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“Ahh!” Twilight whipped around, to see the Princess of the Night on the path behind her, her eyes and mane glowing amidst the dark.
“Princess Luna!” she exclaimed, starting to bow, but Luna blocked her with a navy hoof.
“There is no need to bow, Miss Sparkle, for it is we who are indebted to you,” she said in her low, calm voice. She looked at her, eyes twinkling, “And perhaps our sister, even more so.”
Twilight’s eyebrows raised, as she opened her mouth to respond, but Luna continued on.
“Equestria is…rather full of dreams tonight,” she said slyly, sneaking a sideways glance at her. “And so we retire for a moment.”
Twilight looked perplexed, unsure how to respond, and Luna tried not to grin as she recollected a particularly passionate dream she’d walked in on involving her and Celestia. Her attempt to conceal her amusement was made significantly more difficult by the fact that she’d just witnessed a dream of a rather similar nature between her sister and the purple unicorn.
Oh, the boundaries and differences between them (not least the height difference), the way Celestia lately seemed increasingly disappointed with each passing day she didn't receive a letter, the slight tension that seemed more prominent than ever since the defeat of the changelings— it had all been leading up to this, hadn’t it? The way they couldn’t stop glancing at each other while Twilight Sparkle sang at the wedding— love was certainly in bloom between ponies other than the married couple. The way young Twilight is ogling the sky tonight…
“Tell me, what reason hast thou for being out at such an hour?” Luna asked, changing the subject to avoid blurting out what she’d seen right then and there.
“Oh! Uh, I misplaced a report that was for Princess Celestia,” Twilight answered, “I just went to find it and I’m heading back now to have Spike send it.”
Luna furrowed her brow. Hadn’t she just seen a letter being sent via the dragon’s flare as she flew over the library? She said as much to Twilight in confusion, watching as the pony’s eyes widened and her ears flattened in what Luna could only presume to be cold dread.
“Princess, I must take your leave,” Twilight gasped hastily, and fled.
Whatever feelings Twilight had about Celestia, she knew they were wrong. Or at least, she’d reasoned that they must be. Celestia was her mentor, not to mention royalty— more experienced, knowledgeable and beautiful than Twilight could ever even dream of being. She was the kindest, warmest yet most powerful pony Twilight knew, and what was Twilight to her? Apart from being her student, she was just another subject like anypony else. There were elemental differences between them that could never be overcome. Celestia had seen her grow from a bumbling filly to a lanky teenager and finally, to an adult. And she had seen Celestia at her most powerful, rising the Sun above all of Equestria, and at her weakest, lying on the castle floor after being struck by Chrysalis.
But she was a mere unicorn, and Celestia an all-powerful alicorn. They were together, yet on parallel paths that would never meet.
Despite her rationale, the feelings had to go somewhere, and they did— through her favourite medium, writing. Twilight could write as well as she could read, and recently, when she’d lie awake, consumed by thoughts of the princess, she’d furtively taken to writing little stories about the two of them. They filled her whole chest with a fluttering warmth when they were re-read, almost as comforting as being wrapped in the wings of the princess herself. If it was not meant to be in reality, at least it was on the safety of paper.
Right now, however, she was questioning that safety as she galloped through Ponyville towards her home.
Please let Spike have sent anything else, she pleaded fate, a report I already sent, a bad piece of writing even, heck, even that rant I wrote about my friends that I forgot to burn…
She burst in through the door, the note confirming her fears that Luna hadn’t just been mistaken.
“SPIIIIKE!”
The dragon started as his eyes flared open to a crazed Twilight looking down at him.
“What did you send,” she hissed.
“The letter, of course,” he sighed, his sleep yet again disrupted. “Didn’t you see my note? I sorted it out for you.”
“Except you didn’t!” Twilight blustered. “Spike, the letter was still at The Hayburger! How many times have I told you not to send anything without my permission?”
“I’m sorry, Twilight,” Spike said dejectedly. “But I’m sure the Princess won’t mind. It was just a scroll titled something like a— a statistical analysis or—“
“A Statistical Analysis on Sharing?” Twilight shrieked, eye twitching.
“Yep! That’s it,” Spike said proudly. “Can’t imagine she’d complain about two reports rather than one!”
Twilight began to breathe heavily, the room swirling and caving in around her.
The dream she’d had after the night of the Gala— the way she shivered as Celestia wrapped a downy wing around her, leading her away from the crowds for a moment of peace— a moment of peace that led to something way more—
The ruminations. The extreme details. The sketches.
Clearly, the misleading name hadn’t helped. What was definitely not for any other pony’s eyes had just been sent directly to the one who should never, ever see them.
“SHE’S GOING TO KILL ME!” Twilight freaked, her voice briefly raising the entire library into the air and smashing it down as terrified birds flew out of it.
“Don’t be silly, Twilight,” Spike scoffed. “What’s wrong with a data report?”
“Everything! Everything’s wrong!” the unicorn wailed, and dashed out towards the train station.
“Gosh, overreacting much?” Spike huffed.
He looked around at the natural disaster site of the library, and was about to start cleaning up when he tripped over a broken shelf that had been rampaged through earlier. Pushing it aside, he noticed that all its scrolls shared the same title.
Wow, Twilight’s really into statistical analyses. Though that’s not surprising. Wonder why she keeps them all stored away.
Having nothing much better to do, he pulled one out of the box and began to read. And slowly, his eyes widened until they were larger and larger in his skull.
He raced after Twilight, the cleaning of the library forgotten.