Five Things That Never Happened to Twilight Sparkle
© Scribbler, April 2013
1.
“You should make friends, Twiley. College isn’t just for studying, it’s a whole package. Don’t avoid the social scene just because some dusty old book is calling your name.”
“There you are, Twilight!”
Twilight’s natural inclination to bolt and run raised its ugly head. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the other ponies at Canterlot University. She didn’t know them well enough to dislike them. However, they seemed to know her, which was a disquieting thing as she had never sought out any of them. The undergraduates looked up to her as Princess Celestia’s personal student with the kind of awe usually reserved for celebrities in the off-campus world. They were nice enough, Twilight supposed. By virtue of the fact they were at the university she knew they were studious and knowledgeable. Probably some of them had the ability to converse for more than five minutes about Starswirl the Bearded’s theory of temporal relativity, or Silvertongue the Gifted’s principles of esoteric mechanics. It was just that … well, after discussing those with the one pony in all Equestria who had actually met Starswirl and Silvertongue, talking with anypony else just seemed … redundant. Other than magic, what else was she supposed to talk about with other students with whom she had nothing else in common?
Undaunted by her lukewarm responses, the undergrads still often extended her invitations to things, though she suspected it was less to do with her own reputation as the life and soul of a party and more to do with the vague hope that if they did, the princess herself might drop by. And who could blame them? Princess Celestia was the beginning and end of Twilight’s social life since her brother went on his latest tour of duty.
Shining Armour. His words from the day she moved out of their family home and onto the college campus came back to her as she was confronted with three of the four most persistent students in the whole university. The location of their fourth member soon became apparent.
“Moondancer is having a little get-together in the west courtyard. You wanna come?”
They all leaned toward her eagerly. Twilight wasn’t great at reading facial cues or body language but they seemed genuinely willing to include her.
Nevertheless, her usual response hovered on her lips: “Oh, sorry girls. I’ve got a lot of studying to catch up on.” Her saddlebag was heavy with the tome she had been reading. It was only an old foal storybook, with big pictures and simple language, but it had been useful to re-familiarise herself with some myths and legends in preparation for the essay she was planning on indo-Equestrian cultural manifestations of magic in literature. Her brain itched to get back to her room and task Spike with finding her more reading material on the Mare in the Moon.
“Don’t avoid the social scene just because some dusty old book is calling your name.” Shining Armour’s parting words rang through her mind like a knell. “Books don’t get up and wander away just because you waited a few extra hours to read them. Have fun in other ways too, otherwise it’ll be your school graduation ball all over again.”
The graduation ball, which Twilight had skipped because nopony had asked her to go. Instead, Shining had found her in her bedroom at home, already going over the reading material for her college courses even though they were still an entire summer away. That was several years ago now. She had blown through her courses faster than anypony ever before her, gaining a degree and a Masters in half the time they should have taken since then. She still got a little thrill to think that she had come so far so fast that Princess Celestia herself was the only one who could teach her anything these days. Well, about academia, at least, though she had intimated Twilight should learn other things during their latest lessons.
“You should live life without regrets, Twiley. That brain of yours is big enough already. Don’t let your heart shrivel up in the meantime, okay, Brainiac?”
The three ponies on the path looked at her. The book in her bag seemed to grow heavier. She should say no. She wanted to look into the genesis myth some more. She needed to cross-reference the prophecy she had just read with more academic writers. She needed to …
“C’mon, Twilight,” said the mare who had spoken. “Don’t you do anything except study?”
“O-Of course I do.” Twilight clicked her hooves together, her voice only a little hesitant. “I’d … I’d love to come. To the get-together. With you. Love to. Yes. Um …” Why were they looking at her so strangely? “Thank you?”
“You would? Cool! You’re gonna love it. It’ll be so awesome!”
They surrounded her, sweeping her along with them towards the west courtyard. Twilight went along with them, smiling as they asked her surprisingly intelligent questions mixed in with effusive declarations of how much fun she was going to have and how pleased they were she had finally decided to join in.
High above them, Princess Celestia stood on her balcony and watched as her faithful student was whisked away. She smiled to herself. Those were good ponies, she knew. They were younger than Twilight but that was no bad thing. Youth could sometimes teach age a great deal. Perhaps Twilight was finally going to make some friends after all, without the need for her to intervene more than a few hints during lessons.
The next day, when the sun should have crested the horizon to welcome the Summer Sun Celebration, it did not rise. In Ponyville, citizens froze in horror as their celebrations were invaded by a legend whom nopony recognised. In Canterlot Twilight stared in horror at the dark sky and neither she nor her new friends had any idea what to do.
2.
“What do we do? They’re eating all the food in town!” Fluttershy’s voice faded into the hubbub created by the chattering, feasting little bugs currently laying waste to Ponyville’s food stores.
As if on cue, Applejack gasped. “My apples!” She galloped away, head-butting and bucking ineffectively at the creatures as she headed out of town towards Sweet Apple Acres.
“We’ve got to do something!” Twilight wracked her considerable brains for the answer. Getting rid of them using earth-pony methods hadn’t worked. Neither had pegasus aerial tricks. The only option left should have been the most obvious, she thought as it arrowed to the front of her thoughts. Why hadn’t she considered using magic before? “I’ve got it!”
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Rarity turned to look at her expectantly. Of course they were expectant. She always knew what to do, even when she didn’t.
“I’ll cast a spell to make them stop eating all the food!” Twilight declared triumphantly. She bent her forelegs and summoned a dieting spell she had learned years ago when her roommate at the Academy asked for help to avoid cream cakes before she outgrew their graduation robes. If she keyed the spell to affect their desire for all food, not just one type, that would surely make the bugs stop eating.
Twilight’s eyes popped open as another thought arrowed through, splitting the first with cold logic. If she stopped the bugs from eating food, would that make them stop eating entirely, or would they just start eating other things? Her roommate had successfully abandoned cream cakes but developed a terrible obsession with sprouts and cabbage, which had created a methane problem in their room until the end of the year after Twilight discovered she couldn’t undo the spell. What if something similar happened now and she couldn’t undo that either?
She needed to rework the spell – and quickly! Concentrating, she shifted the charm participles within the enchantment framework, adding a word-magic seal for good measure. It was clumsy spell-casting her old teachers would have pursed their lips at disapprovingly, but she was pushed for time.
“Stop eating Ponyville and the food within it!” she said aloud. Her horn radiated the magically enhanced instruction in an expanding circle until it reached the town limits. Even more bugs were vomiting up new versions of themselves there. Twilight gritted her teeth and pushed out extra power, grunting a little with the effort. “Nggg!”
Silence fell. Panting, Twilight raised her head. Every bug hung in the air wearing identical puzzled expressions. She watched with bated breath as one approached an overturned bucket with a single apple still inside. The bug nibbled at the apple, ditched the idea with a disgusted noise, revolved around the bucket for a moment and then flew away from that, too. Twilight beamed. Success!
“You did it, Twilight!” Fluttershy said with delight.
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash pumped her hoof. “Now we can try rounding them up again and not worry about them eating – yowch!”
Twilight whirled to see Rainbow Dash shaking out her hoof and glaring at the bug that had flown up to her. It weaved from side to side as if hypnotised by her movements.
“The little cretin bit me!”
“Ow!” Rarity cried out. “Ooh, get away, you horrid things! Ouch! Ow, ow, ow, ow!” She turned in circles, kicking out at the creatures that were biting her haunches like gigantic fleas. Wherever the bit they left nasty red weals on her white coat. Except that weals didn’t show through fur, Twilight realised as Rarity shrieked louder. The red marks were on skin where her fur was suddenly missing. “Get them off me! Get them off me!”
“Oh!” Fluttershy tumbled out of the air, the bugs that had been nesting in her mane now fastened onto her face and neck. Whatever she was trying to say vanished into gurgling whimpers. Twilight ran over to her, blasting the bugs away with raw magic she didn’t bother weaving into any spell. “T-Twilight.” Fluttershy stared at her with wide, shocked eyes. She was bleeding from dozens of tooth-shaped cuts. “What’s going on?”
Screams started to echo around Ponyville. Ponies streamed out of Sugarcube Corner, where the bugs that had been feasting on pastries were now feasting on customers. Rose galloped past, shrieking at the buzzing mass clamped onto her belly and chest. Caramel pawed at his head, where several bugs had already reduced his mane to shreds and were starting on his scalp. Bon-Bon rose onto her hind legs to scrape off the bugs attached to Lyra’s ears, which were now nothing more than stumps, only to fall back with a strangled scream at the three burrowing happily into her own stomach with affable chitters.
Twilight’s left hind leg exploded in pain. She kicked out, but stumbled when she tried to put the hoof down again. Why was that leg suddenly shorter than all the others? A bug flew into her face, preventing her from being able to look and see what had happened. The sudden faceful of wings made her jump back, stagger and fall on her side, her vision swimming with the white-hot agony crawling up her haunch. She summoned more raw magic to her horn, the sound of her friends’ cries only slightly lessened by the bugs crawling into her ears.
Her revised spell had worked. They weren’t eating Ponyville or the food anymore.
For the first time, Twilight wished one of her spells had failed.
3.
“Come now, Twilight Sparkle.” Discord placed the cone he had just created against the pink cloud above her head. Abruptly the rain that had been following her around for the past hour ceased and the cloud morphed into delicious cotton candy. “You’ve got to get into the spirit of things.”
The spirit of things? What spirit? She had failed in every task she had tried to accomplish. Misery settled like a lead weight in her stomach. She had failed to prevent her friends from being corrupted and then failed to save them afterwards. She had failed to find the Elements of Harmony until it was too late and then failed to implement them. She had failed to stop Discord from spreading his awful chaos and failed to make even a dent in it even with her most powerful spells. After her friends abandoned her outside her home, she had wandered around Ponyville trying ever more dejectedly to fix things, but all to no avail. Like an infectious disease, chaos spread outward from Ponyville and she could do nothing to curtail its range.
Most of all, she had failed to accomplish anything Princess Celestia had asked of her. Equestria was doomed, her teacher probably hated her for so many failures, her friends would never be her friends again and her family would be ashamed of her. Who could possibly be proud of a daughter or sister who was so big a failure she couldn’t even figure out a simple riddle before it cost her everything she held dear? So much for Braniac Sparkle. Shining Armour would probably call her … something else now, if he ever spoke to her again. She couldn’t even use her notorious intellect to think up a new nickname. She was pathetic.
Discord licked up a massive clump of cotton candy with every sign he was enjoying it. Or maybe he was enjoying her misery. Maybe he would produce another cone and turn her into something to be consumed. At least then she wouldn’t feel so bad.
“After all,” he continued, spreading his arms wide. “This is your new home.”
Twilight looked around. Ponyville wasn’t even a shell of itself. She felt sick. She had done this. It was all her fault. Her self-assurance had drained away, leaving her grey and washed out and … a failure.
“Not anymore,” she replied morosely. She took a few steps towards her home, which was at least still right-side-up. Then she stopped. Spike was in there. Spike had always had faith in her. She couldn’t bear to face him now. She couldn’t bear to face him or anyone else ever again. She could leave Ponyville but what would be the point? The whole of Equestria was doomed and it was all her fault.
“Yes!” Discord yelled gleefully, dancing like he had all her happiness as well as his own. “Harmony is finally dead!”
His words reverberated in her ears, slinking into her mind and along her veins like poison to her wretched heart. Harmony wasn’t dead. Not yet.
Twilight turned and walked slowly back to a place she had passed earlier. She had tried to magic away an orchard of bullfrog trees and instead turned them all into operatic marshmallows. The confectionary choir gathered along their red and yellow branches with a chorus of finely tuned ooh-ing and ahh-ing, the music taking a turn for the dramatic as she headed up an incline that had not existed there yesterday.
There didn’t used to be any ravines in the middle of Ponyville. There certainly weren’t any with giant candy canes at the bottom. Twilight tried one last-ditch blast of magic to turn them back into the meadow. The canes shattered into shards of stained glass, as if she had summoned the windows from Canterlot Castle. She could see her reflection in the pieces: a grey, grim failure, no use to anyone anymore.
Accompanied by a histrionic crescendo and Discord’s maniacal laughter, Twilight jumped.
4.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and comfort my bride.” Shining Armour swept past Twilight, his expression more ominous than she had ever seen it before. “And you can forget about being my Best Mare. In fact, if I were you?” He paused, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was saying it either. “I wouldn’t show up to the wedding at all.”
Twilight gawked incredulously at his departing tail. Her big brother had sometimes got mad at her when they were foals, sure, but never like this. They had never truly fought before. Any sibling spats had cleared up quickly and he had never, ever looked at her the way he had just looked at her: like she was something he had stepped in that he wanted to scrape off his hoof as soon as possible.
She sank to her haunches in utter shock. How could this have happened? She had been trying to protect him, not ostracise herself from him. How couldn’t he see that? Everything she had said had been because she loved her brother and wanted him to be safe. Okay, so she had been wrong on a few things … okay, a lot of things, but her intentions had been good. That had to count for something, right?
Right?
“C’mon, y’all.” Applejack could barely conceal her anger. “Let’s go check on the princess.”
Even her friends were mad at her? But she had been trying to do a good thing! Why was everything going so wrong?
Before anypony could see the tears in her eyes, Twilight leapt to her hooves and galloped out of the doors. She ran blindly, pulling up short when she heard voices ahead of her.
“Wh-why does she hate me so much?” Cadence sobbed. “We used to be so c-close.”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Shining soothed. “Twiley doesn’t hate you, sweetie. She’s just a little … overwrought, that’s all.”
“Overwrought is complaining about the c-colour of the flowers in her m-mane, or the length of her h-hemline,” Cadence choked. “She’s going to r-ruin the weddiiiing!” Her sobs became muffled, no doubt as Shining pulled her close and let her cry into his mane. Or maybe it was his chest. Maybe they were hugging. Loving couples hugged, didn’t they?
“No she won’t,” Shining said more firmly. “I won’t let her.”
Twilight’s heart lurched. She hurried out of the castle, avoiding the main corridors where she might meet other ponies from the wedding party. Instead, she escaped through one of the servant entrances by the kitchens, which emptied out onto a side-street. Once there she vacillated, unsure where to go. She couldn’t go back inside. She had been awful to Cadence and, by corollary, to Shining. She could have gained a sister. Instead, she may have just lost her brother.
Choking back her own sobs, Twilight picked a direction and ran. Should she go home? Mom and Dad might understand. Or maybe they wouldn’t when she explained what she had done. She couldn’t spoil the wedding for them too. The sign for Canterlot Central Station loomed ahead of her like an omen and she cantered gratefully towards it.
She consulted the timetable and saw that the next train back to Ponyville was due to start out in ten minutes. Fate seemed to agree with her that it was time to leave. She charged the ticket to the royal account they had all been given codes for when they arrived to help organise the wedding. Princess Celestia would understand. Twilight cringed as she remembered the princess’s expression when she had teleported around Cadence, throwing accusation at her like pieces of sharp gravel. Now she was away from the castle, and with Shining’s explanations ringing in her head, her suspicions seemed stupid. Her behaviour, on the other hoof, was not just stupid, but cruel.
Help organise the wedding? No. Help ruin, yes. Shining was right; the wedding would be better off without her participation.
Twilight sat in the carriage as the train rattled its way out of the capital, not looking out of the window once.
5.
Buoyed by the success of her anti-gravity spell, as well as not needing to use it to stop herself falling on her head this time, Twilight stepped unthinkingly towards the Crystal Heart. Immediately she set hoof on the light blue star mosaic on the floor, a noise like the largest sword in the world being unsheathed cut through the air. Not even the whistle of high-altitude wind was enough to block out the distinctive noise of an alarm spell being triggered.
She had a split-second to act. Instinctively she leapt for the Crystal Heart. If she could just get to it, everything would be okay. She could knock it towards Spike, but he didn’t know how to use it and that would just make him a defenceless target. It was her responsibility to defeat Sombra. The Crystal Heart was the only thing that could defeat him. If she could just get to it before whatever magic she had triggered had time to materialise –
She grabbed the glowing crystal and held it to her chest as gigantic black shards knifed up from the floor around her. They formed a ring, encasing her within it. On the other side she heard Spike cry out her name and the sound of a distant snarl. Unable to land on all four hooves, Twilight slid on her shoulder and fetched up against one of the walls. She scrambled back at the cold-hot-slippery-stinging wrongness of it. She had encountered evil magic only a few times in her life and none of it had ever felt as bad as that brief touch. She cowered in the centre of the mosaic like a frightened filly who could hear the bully’s approaching hoofsteps.
King Sombra didn’t make hoofsteps. He did, however, hiss like a demonic snake as his vaporous body seeped between the shards and reformed beside her. Four armoured hooves alighted with the grace of a pony half his size and bulk. Twilight gasped and backed away, stopping only when her tail brushed the opposite side again. Pain shot to the roots of every hair, freezing her in place when she jumped away from it again. She was caught between them. She didn’t want to get any closer to Sombra than she could help, especially since he was eyeing the Crystal Heart in her hooves like a tasty snack.
“Twilight!” Spike called from somewhere behind Sombra. “Throw me the Heart!”
Sombra’s head snapped sideways, as if his ear had been bitten by a tick. He sneered, flicking a surprisingly solid hoof. Several horizontal shards slid from the vertical walls, even more spearing up from the floor around Twilight. Spike cried out again, this time in pain. The cry ended abruptly.
“Spike!” Twilight called desperately. There was no response. Dread washed through her, followed by pure rage. She felt the base of her mane begin to crackle as her fury swarmed up her horn and began to manifest itself as it had once done on a cliff outside Froggy Bottom Bog. “You monster!”
Sombra stared at her contemplatively. It was far too calm an expression for the situation. His mouth curled into a smile that showed sharp white teeth. So far Twilight had only ever heard him laugh. It was a dark, oily sound, but nothing compared to his voice when he actually spoke.
“So much power for one so small,” he murmured. His voice rolled over her, trailing a shiver that ran from her horn to her fetlocks. “So much … potential. You are not like the others.” He stepped towards her.
Twilight held the Crystal Heart behind her back. “You can’t have it!”
Sombra only smiled wider. Every available gap in the walls immediately filled with obsidian shards and a roof swooped into place above them. Twilight was left in darkness lit only by the eerie green light of Sombra’s eyes. They drew closer, though he still made the barest sound with his hooves. This time she couldn’t back away. When she tried, something sharp dug into her shoulder-blades.
“It is already mine,” Sombra purred. He actually purred, consonants twisting together to lock in his vowels as solidly as he had locked Twilight into this cage. “It was always mine. It will always be mine.”
“Not anymore!” Twilight tried to keep the tremble from her voice. “You won’t win!”
Her friends would come. She kept that thought uppermost in her mind, using it as a shield against her rising panic. If Sombra was in here with her, he couldn’t be out there detaining them. They would come to help her, just as they had when she was facing Nightmare Moon. They would get here in the nick of time, just like last time. Sombra would be defeated, the Crystal Empire would be restored, Cadence would be fine, Shining’s horn would be healed and they would all go home – all of them, including Spike, who might be hurt but would certainly be fine with some medical magic and –
In a flash of green, Sombra’s eyes appeared directly in front of her own. His breath blew into her nostrils. It smelled like bonfire smoke and that earthy odour she had last smelled in the Diamond Dog tunnels when they went to rescue Rarity.
“But little pony …” Sombra breathed. She didn’t need to see his mouth to know he was smiling.
The Crystal Heart was prised from her grip, though she tried to turn to keep hold of it. She lit her horn to see better just as something touched her right forehoof, lifting it above her head, presumably so she couldn’t retrieve the Heart. Something else traced her left shoulder, leaving the same cold-hot-slippery-stinging wrong feeling as the wall. The sensation paralysed her. The light in her horn died. The touch moved to her stomach, the small of her back, her flanks, her hind legs, her ears, everywhere at once it seemed – lightly, like a cloud of smoke rolling over her.
“I’ve already won,” Sombra purred.
The dark shards contained sound so well that not a single one of Twilight’s screams escaped.
Fin.