Promises
Chapter One
"You promised..." the mare muttered as she sobbed into the other’s neck. Supporting her, a tall mare with an alabaster coat, mane flowing in the unseen winds of a star, had tried her best in comforting the smaller’s woes. She was still trying even now, but words had failed and she could only provide closeness and what warmth was accepted. For days and days, the young mare had sought to be with her in the hopes of lessening the grief of the unknown, despite the inevitability of it all.
"You promised, Celestia," the lavender mare cried again. "I wouldn’t have to leave them. That’s what you told me. But you lied to me... Why? Why did you lie to me?"
This was the first time since Twilight had arrived that a question was directed at the Princess herself. It surprised her a little, and she hesitated with her answer.
"I... Twilight, I," she sighed. "I’m sorry, for what little it’s worth. Terribly, incredibly sorry." She stared at one of the room’s walls, though her focus was elsewhere. "Many ponies think I am all-knowing, but that is not so. I make mistakes, and this, believing your ascension to not grant you the same gift and curse as I and Luna." Pain and regret in her expression, she looked down at her beloved student. "It was one of my gravest mistakes. I can only ask you to forgive me, my dear Twilight. But you don’t have to. By all means, hate and loathe me, if you like. It is only your right." Celestia sighed again as she looked down at her former student. There was a hint of a smile in her mien, assured that Twilight would only need some time to accept things as they were now.
The younger alicorn had stopped sobbing some time during the last few minutes, though she still was breathing heavily. "I want to hate you, I really do. But I... I can’t. You’ve been a good teacher to me, cared for me. Almost... like a second mother." Eyes reddened from her tears, Twilight finally stood and looked out of the western window. The sun was low, though it was not yet time for the Solar Princess to set it. "I’ll have to think, Celestia, a lot. But I’m not exactly sure what will come of it."
Celestia nodded, a serene smile hiding her conflicting emotions. "Whatever it may be, Twilight, I’ll accept it. I trust you to come to a good decision."
"I won’t bother you anymore, then, Princess. I already made half of Equestria grind to a halt by keeping you from holding court for days on end." She chuckled a little despite herself. "I would wager that many ponies enjoyed their sudden vacation. Until later."
Without waiting for Celestia to acknowledge the little joke, Twilight set off for her rooms in the palace. They were located in a whole new wing that had been added over the last few decades. Among others, it housed the second-highest tower of Canterlot. The spire of Princess Luna’s personal Observatorium was the only building reaching further upwards. From the ground, it looked as if it kissed the sky.
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"No, no, no! Why can’t I find anything that might actually work?!"
Tired and more than a little upset, Twilight watched dozens of tomes, books, and scrolls orbit around her, having tuned out just as many others that were on the ground, carelessly discarded. "Even the accounts of Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever contain nothing of use! And they were two of Equestria’s the greatest scholars!" A pulse of magic threw the valuable writings into all corners of the room, deemed just as useless as all else that she had consulted. Surely there were older works, ones containing more powerful magic?
"But I can’t ask Celestia... not now. And Princess Luna would most likely talk to her about it. So, books, but I’ve been through all relevant content already, what’s in the public libraries, anyway. Maybe there’s a secret library..? But wouldn’t Celestia have told me about something like this by now? So even if there’s a secret library in the castle, I wouldn’t know where to look." She shook her head. "No, I’ll probably have to do this by myself. I just... I just need to think of something good. But I’ll need time, a lot of it, more than I have, much more." Twilight began pacing around the room, already missing Spike’s occasional insightful quips. But the young dragon had gone to watch the dragon migration. He wouldn’t be back for at least a week.
"Time. How do I get more? I can’t go into the past anymore, I used that scroll for that ridiculous stable loop decades ago. Stupid. I was so stupid! But... wait, no. I do have as much time as I need, don’t I? I’m immortal. But they aren’t. So they need more, how can I give them more time? Does a cockatrice’s stare kill or merely petrify after extended periods of time? With some luck there are no side effects? Nnno, that’s too risky. The Elements? No, they’re back in the tree. I wouldn’t want to risk it being corrupted again. And we don’t have other ponies to use them. And Discord mentioned once that he’d been fully aware during his imprisonment. So that’s not a solution, either." Still pacing, she began to collect and re-shelf the books from earlier. The menial task proved to be relaxing enough for her to calm down and avoid an 'episode'.
"Can I prevent time from passing for them instead of giving them more? That should be possible, but how, exactly? Maybe Starswirl the Bearded’s texts have something..." Almost idly, she picked one of the ancient wizard’s tomes - this particular one re-bound less than a century ago - and began looking for ways to stop time, preferably applicable to an individual or a with a small area of effect.
By the time Twilight set the book down, early night had turned into late morning. A servant brought the sixth cup of coffee since midnight, neglecting to comment on the dark rings under Twilight’s eyes. Once the alicorn was alone again, she downed the heavenly liquid in a single gulp, then resumed her work. Dozens upon dozens of scrolls were filled with written theories and calculations.
"Progress," Twilight muttered smugly as the quill touched down on the parchment yet another time.
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The first two times it knocked on her chamber’s doors, Twilight didn’t even register the sound. Upon the third time, her ears twitched in recognition, but only by the fourth, now rather more insistent knocking did her mind register it properly and respond, "Yes, do come in," she mumbled with barely enough volume for the pony outside to hear her.
In came the Princess of the Night, silhouetted by an eerie light. Twilight looked up, her concentration wavering and a smile appearing on her face. "Luna! I didn’t expect you to visit." Barely a moment later, she raised an eyebrow."And I really have to get that magilamp in the corridor looked at. What brings you here?"
Luna returned the smile briefly, moving further into the room and lying down on the one pile of pillows that wasn’t covered by parchment or paper. "You missed our monthly stargazing, Twilight. I also have heard that you all but barricaded yourself in your room? I merely wanted to see whether there was a reason for this and if I could perchance aid you in some way?"
"Oh, ah. What’s the date?" Twilight seemed a little uneasy even to the untrained eye, fidgeting a little with the scroll that currently was suspended in her magic.
"You have last been seen outside this room when returning from my sister’s chambers. That was three days ago, Twilight, and the servants have barely received requests for food from you. Have you slept at all, and eaten properly? Or are you... having an episode?" the dark-blue Princess tentatively asked. "Some of us are, I admit, a little worried."
"Oh! No, I’m quite alright, Luna. I’m just doing some research, you see. There’s nothing to worry about, really." Smiling a little too widely, Twilight attempted to usher Luna out of the room. This was met with little success.
"Research is supposed to look quite different, Twilight. You know that. It does very much look like you’re obsessing over something, and I believe you are quite aware of how unhealthy living like this is, even for an Alicorn. Need I remind you what happened the last time? Half of Canter-"
"Yes, I remember! No, you don’t have to remind me. I know what all this looks like, but I promise, I’m not obsessing over anything." Twilight knew that was a lie. She was in a strange mood, trying everything she possibly could to finish her current line of research, so suddenly inspired by a stray idea that popped up merely days ago. But it would work, she was convinced of that. She’d just have to find the right ritual. Luna, however, looked entirely unconvinced by the promise, looking at the sheer mass of parchment gathered in the room while raising an eyebrow.
"Whatever the case, Twilight, I must insist that you accompany me and Celestia at dinner this evening."
"No! I mean, no. Thank you, but I’ll be alright. Really." For a few moments, Luna merely stared incredulously at the lavender pony, her mind refusing to process what had just been said. Not wishing to meet Celestia? Surely this was an impostor, a changeling, she thought briefly.
It took Twilight a few moments to realise that the other Princess might not have been entirely aware of what had happened a week ago. Time to remedy that, Twilight decided.
"Right, um, how do I explain this the best? Well, some stuff happened and I sort of really don’t want to see, meet, or talk to Celestia right now. I’d actually prefer to avoid thinking of her, too."
Slowly, the Lunar Pony nodded. "I... see." She was somewhat suspicious of the explanation, though Luna had indeed been informed by Celestia regarding the events of last week. "Very well then, if that is so, then you surely won’t mind me casting a spell on you? Merely to alleviate some ponies’ suspicions concerning what happened recently."
Twilight stared for a few moments before she realised what Luna was implying. "Um, I guess? Though I’d really rather keep working. I’ve a few experiments running that need regular checking on so they don’t go awry? Surely you understand that, Luna?" She was, in part, bluffing. Experiments were running, but oversight was not at all needed, only occasional checking for preliminary results. Whether Luna would buy that excuse, however...
The older Alicorn sighed, walking closer to Twilight. "A changeling, even their Queen, couldn’t possibly fake just how bad a liar you are, Twilight. Very well, I shan’t bother you any longer. Just be aware that, whatever may happen, I consider you both a dear friend and sister. Further, I am confident that Celestia has very similar feelings. If you ever need any pony to talk to, we will be here." She gently nuzzled the lavender princess’ mane during the last few words.
Twilight was a strange mixture of tensed and relaxed, her eyes lightly closed even as her jaw was tense enough for her to almost grind her teeth. The clump in her throat made it difficult to speak. "Thank you, Luna. I... I really appreciate it. But this is, it’s something I’d... prefer to do on my own." She only felt Luna’s nod.
"So be it, then. I wish you all the luck in the world for your project." The elder Princess proceeded towards the door. "Farewell, little sister."
Twilight was still looking at the closed door when a servant came in nearly an hour later, delivering a nice, healthy salad before removing himself from the young Princess’ vicinity. Slowly munching on the multi-coloured leaves and fruit, she finally nodded. "I’ll need it."
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During the next few days, Twilight noticed that servants were interrupting her work only occasionally to bring food and drink, whether or not she’d asked for any. She suspected that Luna had spoken with the cooks. The meals were a welcome distraction, however, giving her occasional chance to stop and think about the day’s work. Slowly, things were taking shape, the spells more and more promising with each iteration. But to make it truly lasting, she would have to devise a proper ritual and a counter-spell to end its effects when it was time.
Currently, Twilight was again eating a light meal, probably breakfast or dinner judging from the height of the sun. Currently, her thoughts were how she could explain the spell - or ritual - to a pony with little to no knowledge in the required disciplines. She would probably try explaining how she had taken Starswirl the Bearded’s noted regarding time spells, then carefully combined that with centuries of research into magic used for preservation of food and other non-living items. This required taking advantage of a loophole in the incompatibility of the two disciplines’ spell matrices by binding them to a third, compatible spell, something so complicated that only two centuries ago combining three disciplines into one spell had been considered all but impossible. Even today, none but the greatest and most powerful unicorns could even contemplate doing such a thing. It felt like child’s play to the alicorn.
I’m such a cheater, she thought as her mind wandered to the apparent ease of this binding. The end result, if everything worked out, would be deceptively easily described, though. Temporal Stasis. Not complete and perfect deactivation of the body or its functions, but rather disassociation of it from standard time. The great problem was powering this and sufficiently slowing the affected’s perspective of time.
With this basic spell, days and weeks would be perceived as mere minutes passing. Good, but not nearly enough. The goal was to make centuries feel like seconds, millennia like minutes. She needed to give them time so she could find a way around losing them. For this, she needed something that could deliver the needed amount of magic, the power of a ritual.
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"Attempt number 134, test subject is a grasshopper. Unlike the previous attempt, no anaesthetic spell has been used to keep it still. For some reason, the spell interfered with the ritual, resulting in spontaneous combustion of the subject. Will research cause once primary spell is found to work properly, and the ideal conditions for it to work. Proceeding with experiment now."
Twilight moved away from the magical dictation device, something she used when Spike was either unavailable or she didn’t want him to know what she was working on. It didn’t happen too frequently, but often enough. Regardless, as she kept narrating every single step, she took the green insect out of its small glass cage, placed it on the table, and restrained it with carefully harvested spider silk. She then proceeded with further preparations, drawing up the sigils and miniature ley-lines, all calculated to a staggering degree of accuracy.
"All preparations completed, test subject alive and, ugh, wriggling against its restraints. Casting experimental stasis ritual."
Her horn lit up and a thin, barely visible rope of purple light began to snake its way from her horn towards the sigils. A moment later it touched the first sigil, which activated it and supplied the drawings with raw magic. In the blink of an eye, the drawings lit up in all possible colours before slowly turning white. Twilight took a deep breath. By the time she began to exhale, the sigils flashed white, briefly illuminating the room with a dazzling mosaic of blinding light and pitch-black shadows, somehow not taking the unicorn or her test subject’s eyesight permanently.
Twilight staggered into a table behind her, sitting down on her haunches after she hit it. "Th-that didn’t happen the last 133 times." She stared at the grasshopper, which had frozen mid-movement, no longer struggling mindlessly against its restraints. A quick spell confirmed that it was still alive, merely moving so slowly that it was imperceptible even when watching it for hours on end. For a short while, the scientist in Twilight was stunned into silence. She most certainly hadn’t expected for the ritual to work at last. But the insect appeared to be fully affected by the spell. Only a nearly imperceptible sheen with an orange sheen gave away that it wasn’t really dead. She caught herself staring and shook her head, then proceeded once again with her descriptions. This time, however, glee was clearly audible in her voice. Unexpected success always brightened her mood and excited her. The feeling of accomplishment was quite simply exhilarating.
Once all necessary tasks and examinations had been carried out and Twilight’s narrative completed, she put most of her equipment to the side. Then she turned to look at the subject. "Alright, this one was... I think about two weeks into adulthood. The species’ average lifespan is four weeks to my knowledge. If I wait one month, then apply the counterspell, it should live for another two weeks - for a total of eight."
Luckily, the counterspell was already in working order as she had used it previously to dispel lesser stasis rituals and spells. Thus, the only thing Twilight needed was patience.
If successful, she only needed a sapient test pony who could tell her about what they felt while in the ritual’s grasp. A pony she could trust to keep a secret truly secret, but who could afford ’vanishing’ for a week or two. Perhaps one of her personal guards? No, only after at least one test on something bigger than an insect. A cat or a dog, perhaps. Something bigger, at least. But she could think about that when the grasshopper safely came out of the spell.
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One month passed, during which Twilight caught up on the work she’d neglected in the weeks of sulking and experimenting, if only barely. There still were some reports from Manehattan to read when she put her papers aside to check on her stasis project. Spike she sent on a convenient errand, having timed running out of some difficult-to-get office supplies just for that day. During her trek, she deftly avoided any unwanted encounter or stumbling into a servant. She accomplished this thanks to decades of knowledge with navigating her wing of the castle as well as having planned a considerable part of it to boot. Further, she used several secret passages that only a select few servants and guards knew about. Even her best friends and the other Princesses didn’t know all of these pathways - the exception perhaps being Pinkie Pie.
Soon enough, the most magical mare in Equestria arrived in the chamber containing the experiment, quickly moving to the central table after activating her recording device. She spent a minute examining the green, now orange-tinged insect. "Subject has not moved from original position as far as I can perceive, though monitoring magic measured miniscule movement." She cast a life-detecting spell. "Subject is still alive, and I am now preparing the countermagic. If everything goes as it should, the subject will visibly struggle upon being released from stasis. Let’s put the theory to the test."
Her horn lit up, quickly and efficiently weaving the ritual’s counter, unleashing it upon the table. For a brief moment, the insect flashed green, then red. Then the spell dissipated and the animal struggled hard against its silken bindings. All monitoring spells returned nominal and fully expected readings, giving the Princess reason to take to the air and perform a loop, only not ramming her face into a computing device or wall thanks to the room’s sheer size.
"Right, so..." She landed again, then freed the tiny animal and brought it into a prepared habitat. It would hopefully live for another two weeks as predicted, thus making this iteration of the stasis spell, for now, the most successful one. "I’ll just have to be patient for now. I really hope it works and that bug lives long enough..."
Finally, bringing the insect’s containment with her, Twilight left the tidied-up room for her private chambers. She’d ask Spike to keep an eye on her subject and make a report every two days on its health. Two weeks and seven reports later, the grasshopper finally said its metaphorical farewell to the world, dead. For Twilight, this concluded the most difficult part of the experiment with a full success. Some refining of the spell would have to be done with larger animals, but she didn’t want to stretch things out for too long. It was time to invite some ponies for a little chat.