//------------------------------// // 0. Hypothesis // Story: Analog // by Petrichord //------------------------------// The worst part of sleeping at the Ponyville Castle, Rarity decided, was when she was unable to get her beauty sleep. The worst part of not being able to get her beauty sleep, of course, was having to listen to the echoing of every hoofstep and the muted babbling of every conversation right outside of her bedroom door. It was also the best part of not being able to get her beauty sleep. Having her sleep disturbed always made the next day worse, of course. Unpleasant noises were louder, ugly colors stuck out more, and the sort of things which required focus – dress-making, for instance – felt exponentially harder. It wouldn’t be so bad if one noise didn’t keep her up just long enough to hear another, and so on, and so forth, until she had spent hours lying in her bed, exhausted and uncomfortable, unable to willingly push herself over the brink. But sometimes it yielded the juiciest tidbits of gossip. Twilight and the rest of their friends never seemed to think that she might not actually be asleep when she had her door shut and all of her lights turned off. Of course, she was a responsible eavesdropper. Mostly. She hadn’t told anypony when Fluttershy had practiced reciting her little love poem in the hallway. She hadn’t said a single word when Twilight talked to Applejack about her crush. Which, come to think of it, was rather rude of her; out of all the ponies to discuss matters of love with, how could Twilight trust a boor like Applejack, but not a refined and educated mare like herself? Still. Rarity was positive that Twilight never knew who sent her the parcel of somewhat suggestive photographs of her crush. Furthermore, Rarity was positive that even if Twilight did figure out who sent her the photos, she would not be able to figure out which photographer covertly took them – or who had paid the photographer to take them in the first place. She had been most generous in assuring his silence, much as she had been generous in picking only the choicest photos to send to Twilight. She was positive that Twilight had appreciated the photographs, regardless of whether or not she would ever discuss them with anypony. Generosity, after all, was its own reward. The clattering of hooves down the hallway interrupted her thoughts. Case in point: It was crass for anypony to run through the hallways during the evenings, but that hadn’t seemed to have deterred one of her friends at all. Still… Swiveling one ear towards her bedroom door, Rarity listened to the hoofsteps. All of her friends had a different gait, even when running, and it wasn’t hard to pick one out from the other. Applejack’s heavy galloping couldn’t possibly be mistaken for Fluttershy’s delicate canter, or Pinkie Pie’s inelegant and uneven prancing. Rainbow Dash, of course, never bothered to run anywhere when she could fly. But this run was none of those. It was fast, but metronomic; a musical score could have been set to the tempo of the hoof falls. Rarity removed her blinders, rubbed her eyes and sloughed off of her bed. Twilight Sparkle was second only to Fluttershy in respecting her need to sleep, and it was peculiar of her to charge haphazardly around in the middle of the night. Peculiar and exciting. As quietly as she could manage, Rarity crept over to the door, opened it wide and peered down the hallway. Just in time, Rarity caught a glimpse of Twilight’s tail bobbing as she hurtled down the hallway, whipped around a corner and vanished. Rarity followed, softening her gait so that it was almost silent; discretion was more important then speed, after all. Still, her lack of speed cost her: Rarity tailed Twilight down one hallway, then another, each time falling further away, until Rarity turned a corner and saw that Twilight had disappeared. Ponies less familiar with the castle might have found themselves lost. Months of living in or around castle, however, had earned Rarity some semblance of familiarity with it. A little further down the hall, on the door to the right, was the great hall. If Twilight ran in there, Rarity thought, she’ll have wanted to call a meeting. Or the cutie map must have wanted her. One of the two. But when Rarity looked through the door, Twilight wasn’t there. So she wasn’t going to the great hall. But she couldn’t have dashed off to see one of the girls; this route would have been circuitous and unnecessarily long, and if one pony out of their group would avoid taking indirect routes, it was Twilight Sparkle. So it had to be something located close then the great hall. Storage, perhaps? “…The antechamber library” Rarity whispered, a small smirk twitching onto her face. If there was one thing Twilight valued more then friendship, it was books; if there was one thing she valued more then books, it was research. But it was the still the middle of the night, so if something had caused her to run to the castle library at these hours... “Twilight”, Rarity mused, “Whatever has caught your attention?” Surely, it wouldn’t be remiss to take a peek at what Twilight was doing. Friends should be open with what they did, of course; being dishonest was a most ungenerous thing to do, and keeping secrets – even if only for little things like these – was the height of dishonesty. ***************************************** Twilight Sparkle, in Rarity’s opinion, should have been exactly the type of pony to always keep her workspace immaculate. But tonight clearly disproved her assumptions. This library was a sty: opened books were strewn over the floor, diagrams with incomprehensible symbols were haphazardly tacked onto the walls and piles of papers clumped up on most of the available walking space. At the center of it all was Twilight; with bags under her eyes, and with mane completely askew, she was telekinetically lifting a large stack of papers in the air in front of her and, quill in mouth, scribbling over one of the pages like mad. She looked far beyond suspicious, Rarity decided. She looked dangerously obsessed, teetering on the verge of insane, and a proper explanation was in order. Clearing her throat loudly, Rarity stepped into the room. “Twilight?” Twilight gasped and spun to face Rarity. The quill fell out of her mouth as her concentration lapsed, and the stack of papers fell, scattering into dozens of leaflets strewn over the floor. “I-I-I-I-I. I. Rarity?” Twilight gasped, horror spread over her face as her eyes flicked back and forth between Rarity and the cluster of fallen papers. “Darling! I’m so, so sorry about that. Here, let me help-“ “No! It’s okay!” Twilight chirped, eye twitching as she lifted the scattered pages off of the floor. “I made sure that the hue of each of the different selection of notes that I was using was different, and numbered both sides of every page. It’ll honestly be more helpful if I clean this up myself.” Twilight began humming as she hovered pages off of the floor and began restacking them in a pile. Rarity peered at the stacks of paper on the floor. “Darling, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but these two stacks are both eggshell.” “No, no! They’re not!” Twilight piped as she scrabbled more pages into the pile. “The one on the left is off-white. I checked.” “Twilight, I dare say that I’ve spent a fair share of my life examining color swatches, and these are both eggshell. And the three stacks of paper that you had in front of you are all ivory, but now you’ve gone and mixed some of them together.” “Rarity, I haven’t-“ “Twilight. Read me the contents of page 9, please?” Twilight cleared her throat as she lifted one page in front of her. “Self-actualizing paradox may occur as a result of attempting to manifest multiple self-entities over the course of psychological jaunting, as a result of duplicating internal structure without allowing for an external body to differentiate different factors; see also equation #9.2 and equation #12.4 to verify-“ Twilight gasped, eyes flicking up to Rarity as her mouth snapped shut. “…Twilight?” Rarity probed. “What exactly have you been working on down here?” “I can’t tell you”, Twilight mumbled, setting the stack of papers down on the floor and averting her eyes. “Darling? You most certainly can. I dare say that part of the responsibility of being a good friend is openness and communication. And when you’ve distressed yourself to the point of virtually ruining your appearance and your surroundings-“ “They’re not that bad-“ “Twilight, have you LOOKED in a mirror recently? Apologies for any offense, darling, but you’re rather…unkempt.” Twilight shook her head. “I don’t happen to have a compact on me”, Rarity huffed, “But surely you must have a mirror around here SOMEWHERE.” “Well…” Twilight trailed off. “...Right! I did have one relocated to the library recently, when I was researching mundane detection techniques against Malkavian drinkers. It should be behind the bookcase facing true east.” “…Malkavian what?” “I’ll tell you about them later”, Twilight replied, telekinetically moving the bookshelf out of place and pulling out a leg-sized mirror. “There hasn’t been a sighting of any in Equestria since-“ Twilight fell silent as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. “Do you see what I mean?” Rarity sighed. “…I guess I’ve been somewhat distracted, haven’t I?” Twilight mumbled. “I’d call this more then merely distracted, Twilight. I’d call this running yourself absolutely ragged, and I’m positive that nothing that you could be working on is more important then getting rest.” Twilight set the mirror down and shook her head. “This is the POINT, Rarity. I need to be able to finish this before I get any rest.” “What could you possibly be working on, then?” “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.” “You can, and you will. Otherwise, I dare say that I’ll wake up the rest of the girls, and we’ll all have a nice chat about-“ “NO!” Twilight shouted as she scrambled over to the door. “Please, Rarity, you can’t.” “Then what can this, ah… ‘self-actualizing paradox’, I do believe. What could it be about?” Twilight bit her lip as she turned to face Rarity, staying silent for a second or two. Then, head drooping, Twilight sighed. “Promise you won’t wake up everypony if I tell you?” Rarity shook her head. “I can’t promise you that, darling. Not until you tell me exactly what it is you’ve been researching, anyway.” “I was just…” Twilight faltered. “…I thought I would tell everypony in the morning, and make it be a happy surprise. I’ve been working on it for days and days, and I just thought now about how to finish the equations, so I thought I could take care of the problem now, and…really impress everypony when we were all having breakfast together.” “So you didn’t want to tell us because…?” “I didn’t want to wake you up!” “Twilight. We both know that I meant ‘why haven’t you told us about it before?’ “. Twilight sighed. “It’s…I know you and everypony else would have tried to stop me. You would have thought that it was a bad idea.” “That’s not exactly a good start, darling.” “But I know what I’m doing! I looked over historical accounts, I did my research on alicorn biochemistry and thaumaturgy. I mapped out all the equations and triple-checked them to make sure the spell would go off properly-“ “Twilight, WHAT Spell?” “The spell to defeat myself once and for all!” Silence overtook the room. “…Do come again?” Rarity sputtered. Twilight’s eyes shone with something frenetic: a manic, exhilarated edge far beyond the tilt of sanity. “It’s simple. You’re familiar with Nightmare Moon, right?” “I…yes, but I don’t understand what you’re getting at, darling.” “If Princes Luna became Nightmare Moon due in part to severe psychological stress, it stands to reason that there has to be some sort of mental component involved in the process of becoming a nightmare…something. Now, obviously, everypony can’t be at risk for that, or the world would be running rampant with nightmare ponies, and I KNOW that most of us have been put under rather intense duress, right?” “…well-“ “Exactly” Twilight continued. “So it’s got to be some unique – or semi-unique factor – related to her. I thought about what sort of aspects might trigger that sort of response for a long time – connection with the moon, or devotion and lack therof of subjects – and none of it made sense. I mean, until I stepped back a few days ago and thought of the most obvious thing.” “Which was?” “ALICORNS. It’s got to be something due to the way that Alicorn cranial physiology works. Which, I should point out, is a largely untapped field of research. There’s so much to learn about how they – we – I– work, and it’s going to be so exciting to find it all out!” Twilight giggled, bouncing up and down in glee. “But I’m going to assume the nightmare-ish component has something to do with how Alicorns work. And the correlation with it lines up! I don’t think Princess Celestia or Princess Cadence have suffered from the sort of conditions that trigger this – but they’re certainly the individuals closest enough in terms of body functionality. I mean, this is all given that I’m working with a small pool of data. If I could run a few more tests, this would be a VASTLY more interesting and involved study, but I suppose this is how great researchers are supposed to begin!” Twilight beamed, unfazed by the uncomfortable look on Rarity’s face. “…So.” Rarity began. “What you’re going to do is…” “Oh! Well, since it applies to ME, since I’m also an Alicorn, I’m putting everypony else at risk because I exist. But after our encounter with the Tantabus, I realized that negative emotions can interact with dreams, and dreams can interact with reality. And the process can be reverse-engineered! It’s just a simple application of dream logic and the thaumaturgical sciences. So I just need to cast the right spells before I fall asleep, go into my own dream and defeat my latent nightmare self before she ever wakes up and possesses me.” Rarity’s jaw fell open. It took her four seconds to realize that it had dropped, and her attempt to shove it back in place with her hoof caused her teeth to click together, breaking the silence. “Amazing, right?” Twilight beamed. “wh-NO. That is a…a PHENOMENALLY stupid idea, for so many reasons. You’re going to enter your own brain-“ “Princess Luna did it before.” “YES. And it worked out rather POORLY for her, until her friends – us – intervened.” “Well…maybe she just didn’t think about the variables as much as I did! I mean, I made absolutely sure that this would be completely foolproof-“ “And if it fails?” “I prepared contingency spells! Lots and lots of them.” Twilight said, gesturing towards the stacks of papers scattered across the floor. “Most of them are supposed to work from inside the dream, in case I’m feeling desperate. But I layered a few counterspells that should function independently of my REM cycle. Even assuming absolutely everything else goes wrong, I should still have a way to wake myself up.” “And if your “nightmare self” simply opts to kill you instead?” “That, ah…wouldn’t happen, right? I mean, it’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t have been tried before, I mean…” “You don’t know for sure.” “I don’t know for sure.” Twilight chewed her lip and looked at the floor. “Then…regardless of the fact that you’re going it at all, why is it important to go NOW? Charging haphazardly into life-threatening situations without having planned everything out in advance isn’t like you, Twilight.” “I don’t have any time-“ “Clearly, you have at least a little.” “That’s…What I mean is…ugh.” Twilight huffed, scratching her forehead. “What I mean is, ah. How was yesterday?” Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Silly distractions won’t get you anywhere, darling.” “It’s related! I promise! It’s just…did anything bad happen yesterday?” “…Not that I’m aware of?” “It doesn’t have to be major, Rarity. It could be something like having a hard time thinking up a design for a dress, or maybe Rainbow Dash was annoying, or…” “As far as I can tell, Rainbow dash behaved no more poorly today than she usually does.” Rarity paused. “…Though I suppose Applejack has been bothering me, as of late.” “Oh?” “It’s not entirely your business, darling. But yes – I feel as if she has been keeping secrets from me, much as you have been doing. It’s dishonest and unfair – particularly as she’s supposed to be the Element of Honesty, after all.” Rarity was pleased to see Twilight’s cheeks flush. “Ah…” Twilight gulped, then rallied. “I’m sure that if she is, she probably has a good reason for it. But anyway…ah. That’s what I mean, anyway. You were annoyed, right?” “I’m still annoyed, Twilight.” “And that’s a negative emotion, right?” “…Yes?” “So if you take that, and…maybe if your breakfast burned a few days earlier, or if you realized that one of your dress ideas wasn’t working out the way you wanted it to, and you had to start over from scratch-“ “Those would all be negative emotions, yes, but-“ “So they add up! Those things add up, day after day, and there isn’t all that much we can do about it. And if the nightmare…thing, if it’s based on negative emotions, then it grows stronger every day it’s inside me. And what happens if I can handle it now, but I can’t handle it later?” “…I don’t know”, Rarity mumbled. “What if I won’t be able to defeat my darker side in a year? What if I won’t be able to do it in a month? A week? I have no idea how much longer I’m going to be stronger then it, Rarity. I’ve done as much as I can, and I don’t think I can do any more, but every day that I waste on other things is a day that could be the difference between…” Silence. In the cluster of moments that followed, neither pony looked the other in the eye. Rarity broke the silence first. “All of those would really add up, darling?” “The big ones and the small ones. Every last bit of sadness or disgust or anger or ressentiment. Don’t you think that it wasn’t a sudden thing for her? It must have felt like it was a long time coming, the moment when…you know.” Rarity nodded. “And you think this will happen to you?” “I think the question is when. Unless I try to do something about it. Which, I mean…” Twilight dipped her head towards her notes. “That’s sort of what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Rarity looked at the stacks of notes and sighed. “…It makes sense, right?” Twilight asked. “Yes. Yes, it does. Unfortunate as it may be, your logic…” Rarity trailed off. “…I wish I could have more time to think about this, though. Are you sure-“ “Every day-“ “-Yes. That’s what I thought.” Rarity sighed again. “And I’ll assume that the other reason you told none of us was because we would delay you, if not try to stop you.” “Correct.” “Then why can’t we go with you, darling? I’m sure that everypony else would be willing to listen. If we didn’t help a friend in need, what kind of friends would we be?” Twilight’s face sagged, and her shoulders slumped. In seconds, she looked as if she grown many seasons older. “I thought about that, too. It was one of the first things that I thought of, asking everypony to help me with this. I thought that if it helped Princess Luna, it’d help me, too.” “Wouldn’t it?” Twilight shook her head. “Princess Luna beat the problem on her own, as soon as she thought about it a little. All we did was make it worse. We gave the Tantabus room to grow, let it creep into the dreams of everypony in Ponyville. If you and everypony else shows up with me, then it could put you in danger. Or it could feed off of your negative emotions and grow even stronger. Or it could split itself off into clones, one for each of you. Or a million other things.” “But we could help, too.” “You could. Things could be easier if you came with me. But they could be harder, too. They could be impossible. I know that I can handle what my other self throws at me, but if you girls showed up, then I don’t know if I could. And this is the sort of thing that I really, really don’t want to mess up. It’s not any of you, I promise.” Something hollow had sunk beneath Twilight’s irises: a raw, exhausted ache that cried desperately for resolution. “I need to do this”, Twilight pleaded. “I need to keep everypony safe.” One second lapsed into several as Rarity stared at Twilight, her expression indecipherable and neutral. At last, Rarity exhaled and shook her head. “You still won’t be able to keep everypony safe from your horrible appearance, Darling.” Confusion creased Twilight’s brow for a second, before her face split into a grin. “You really…you’re okay with this?” “Oh, well I’m certainly not ENDORSING it, Twilight”, Rarity scoffed with a smirk. “I’m simply not saying anything more on the matter. But on an unrelated note, whenever you finish with…whatever endeavor that we may or may not have discussed, you’re going to have a serious makeover.” “Absolutely, Rarity. Thank you. THANK you. I promise you, you’re not going to regret a thing.” Twilight bounced up and down with glee, and a large hunk of mane fell in front of one of her eyes. Rarity winced. “I already am, for multiple reasons. Of course, I’m not sure I could dissuade you even IF I didn’t trust you, but you seem to have thought this through thoroughly. More to the point – I trust you, Twilight.” Rarity rested a forehoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “And when I wake up in the morning, I expect that you’ll be honest with us from now on about these sorts of things, okay?” Twilight nodded, eyes shining. “And seriously – I expect you to do something with your mane, at the very least. Fatigued or not, darling, it doesn’t become you to masquerade as a crime against nature.” Twilight sheepishly shoved her mane away from her eyes. “So, uh, then…is there anything else that you wanted?” Rarity shook her head. “I suppose I could reprimand you for disturbing my beauty sleep, but I’m willing to expand my discretion to one more topic of conversation. I’ll make myself scarce for now.” Rarity turned to leave, paused, then turned back around to look at Twilight. “Make us all proud, darling.” Twilight nodded, still grinning, and turned back to her papers. And Rarity, with a lighter heart, turned and exited the library. With a light heart, she passed the great hall; with a light heart, she snaked from one hallway to the next, and with a light heart felt genuine fatigue settle into her joints. It was only when she crossed the threshold to her bedroom that Rarity wondered whether or not she had done the right thing. Despite Twilight’s assurances to the contrary, there was something off-putting about her urgency to go alone. Her logic was sensible, with no obvious flaw. And Rarity knew that Twilight, no matter the method or the cause, would always try to do the right thing. As she climbed on top of her bed, Rarity’s legs felt like unworked stone; like the bottom of a pond, her head felt murky and unclear. Even as sleep struggled to claim her, her mind struggled back, until it coalesced into one last question: Why do I feel as if I’ve forgotten something? Then Rarity’s head fell against the pillow, and the dark beneath her eyelids swallowed up the world around her. ****************************************** The worst part of sleeping at the Ponyville Castle, Rarity decided, was when she was unable to get her beauty sleep. Case in point: Once again, hooves clattered down her hallway, and muffled voices babbled and shrieked behind her door. Having to listen to this sort of nighttime discourtesy even once was unseemly. Twice, though – that was rude beyond measure. Had Twilight Sparkle no respect whatsoever for courtesy? Her, or whoever it was, deserved a piece of mind. Rarity rubbed at her face and opened her eyes- Light. It was painfully light in the room. Scrunching her eyelids shut, Rarity dabbed at her face with her forehoof. The blinders weren’t there; she had forgotten to put them back on before she fell asleep again. Slowly, Rarity opened her eyes once more, gradually acclimating them to the room. Sunlight. She must have slept until daytime. A reasonable amount of rest, if not as much as she would have liked. “I suppose I’ll have to catch up on sleep some other time. Hopefully uninterrupted”, Rarity groused as she pulled herself out of bed and turned towards the door. Would it kill any of her friends to ask themselves- “Where’s Spike?” Even through the door, Rarity could tell that it was Fluttershy’s voice. “In the library.” The second voice unmistakably belonged to Applejack. “Ah needed him to go through her papers. Ah sent Rainbow Dash after him, too, to keep him focused” “A-and Pinkie Pie?” “Goin’ through Twilight’s room. Ah figured that if she had anythin’ else that might be important, it’d be in there.” Fluttershy said something, but the doorway rendered it inaudible. The bottom began to sink out of Rarity’s stomach as she crossed the floor. “Don’t fret none, alright?” Applejack piped up again. “It ain’t gonna do us no good to just stand around here worryin’. I need you to go fetch Nurse Redheart as quick as you can. Ah’m gonna head back to the farm and root around n’ the family remedy cabinet, n’see if maybe there’s somethin’ there that can help us.” “Is something wrong?” Rarity asked as she opened the door. Fluttershy and Applejack turned to stare at her from the hallway. Fluttershy trembled, eyes wide with fear and surprise as she stared at Rarity. Applejack, however, looked furious. “Oh. Looks like SOMEpony finally decided to wake up”, Applejack snarled. “Or did you figure that you wanted to get more beauty sleep in, n’we were making too much of a ruckus-“ “Where’s Twilight?” Fluttershy gasped and skittered back a couple of steps. Applejack’s face morphed from anger to surprise to confusion. “How in the hootenanny-“ “Feminine instinct. Is she in the library?” “Yeah, but-“ Rarity ran. Applejack’s voice faded as she turned a corner, then another, barely aware of the sound of her breathing, barely aware of the stretching of hallway or the vastness of the great hall or anything else until the library door loomed in front of her. Gritting her teeth, Rarity flung the door wide. There was Spike, curled up on the floor, and there was Rainbow Dash, flapping in place as she rested a hoof on Spike’s shoulder, and they looked at her and said words of surprise as she ran into the room and none of it mattered, because what mattered was Twilight Sparkle and Twilight Sparkle was sprawled like an unstuffed ragdoll in the middle of the library and Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving or breathing at all.