//------------------------------//
// Day 14: Tower Troubles 
// Story: Ponyville the Town of Youth 
// by Ironskull 
//------------------------------//

"Oh, how long have I been up here?" wondered Twilight aloud, her hooves wrapped around the tip of the pointy roof of the tower.  "I wonder if anypony is looking for me!  I bet they won't even notice that I'm gone!  And I'm cold, and I have a stomach ache, and I'm lonely..."

"Did somepony say... lonely?"

"Agh!" shrieked Twilight, now suddenly finding herself in between the coils of Discord's long body.

"Discord, you scared me!  I could have fell!  What are you doing, anyway?" she cried.  "Ever heard of personal space?"

"Oh, but Twilight," said Discord, not moving.  "I thought you just said you were lonely.  And as your good friend, I just wanted to ensure that you aren't feeling alone in your time of need."

"I am not comfortable with you hugging me like this!"

"But you are not alone anymore!"

"You're right!  I'm not feeling alone anymore, I'm feeling annoyed!"

"Well, it's an improvement."

"Discord, get off of me!"

"Oh, come now," said Discord.  "At the very least, you are suffering from this winter night temperature no longer, right?"

Twilight paused to consider.

"I suppose not..." she admitted slowly.  "But I didn't ask for this!"

"But Twilight!" exclaimed Discord in mock surprise.  "You should know that a good friend should be ready to lend a helpful paw!"

"Well, I suppose I was a little cold.  So...  Thank you?"

"What are friends for!" declared Discord happily.

"But do you think you could instead help me by getting me down from here?"

"It's not that simple, Twilight.  I can't just make this all right with the snap of a claw.  Well, actually, to be perfectly honest, I could, but I'm not going to."

"But why?" cried Twilight.  "Is this about 'not interfering with the experiment'?  I'm miserable up here!  If you really are my friend, you wouldn't just leave me here!"

"But I'm not leaving you here.  I'm right here at your side."

"Literally," remarked Twilight, rolling her eyes.  "Can you at least tell me if the others know that I'm gone yet?"

"Of course they know that you are gone.  They saw you leave!"

"That's not what I meant!  Have they realized that I have been missing for so long?  Oh, what if they forget all about me?"

"They are out there looking for you, Twilight."

"Oh, thank goodness..."

"Unfortunately for you, Ponyville is a fairly large place, and the Ponyville tower is on the opposite side of the town, and those foals aren't exactly organized in their search.  You might be stuck here for a while.  Unless..."

"Unless?" asked Twilight hopefully.

"Well, you could simply leave the same way you came up."

"But that's just it!" cried Twilight.  "I don't remember how I got up here!"

"Don't you?" asked Discord in surprise.  "How interesting.  Then what do you remember?"

"I remember being really excited when the others asked me to handle Thesaurus.  Actually, I didn't even consider that I wouldn't be able to do it.  Except... I did do it.  It's right here," motioned Twilight, pointing at the inanimate book laying beside her.

"Continue..." urged Discord.

"Well, I don't actually remember much of what happened after that," said Twilight.  "I guess I was just started running as fast as I could without even thinking about where I was going.  I was far too excited to pay attention to where I was going or what I was doing.  Perhaps my subconscious took over for me.  All I know is that when I finally was able to think straight, I found myself up here, and I don't know how I got up here because I wasn't paying attention when whatever happened to put me up here actually happened!"

"Why were you so excited in the first place?"

"Well, part of the reason is because I ate about half a dozen of Pinkie Pie's sugar loaded cup cakes.  They were good, but now I have a stomach ache...  And the other reason is that...  Well, I got to share the happiest moment of my life with some of the others.  I... kind of let myself get carried away?"

"Most interesting," said Discord.

"But why are you asking me all of this?" asked Twilight.  "You somehow know what we're up to all the time!  You must have seen what happened.  Please tell me what happened!"

"Oh, but it's simple!  You simply jumped!"

"Jumped!  But how?"

"That's the real question, isn't it?" said Discord in delight.  "Perhaps you are capable of feats that you thought you were not!"

"But the only way I could have reached this place is with magic!"

"Let me tell you a little something, Twilight.  I've been thinking, I know now that friendship is magic, but is magic friendship?"

"Huh?"

"Let me finish.  Clearly, not all magic is friendship; dark magic is a clear example of that.  Dark magic is fueled by hatred, so it cannot possibly be associated with friendship."

"I don't understand."

"I suppose you wouldn't.  I don't understand it myself, actually.  But it would appear to me that there is some kind of relationship between certain kinds of magic and one's emotions!  And, as you will surely agree, your friend Pinkie Pie has a very special kind of magic, and it's not the sort you would expect from an earth pony, is it?  And Pinkie Pie is in fact the happiest, most excitable pony in all of Equestria.  And I don't think that that is a coincidence."

"Well... I suppose you do have a point.  But as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not in the mood for this right now.  I just want to get down from here."

Discord's face turned concerned for the first time that Twilight had seen him.  Discord seemed to notice Twilight watching him however, because his expression quickly turned neutral.

"You know that you brought this on yourself," he said, as though trying to shift the blame away from himself.

"Yes, I know," said Twilight.  "If I had not been so curious about your magic, I wouldn't have tried studying poison joke.  And even though you are the one that gave the poison joke plant, I'm the one that actually used it, and it's my fault that my Thesaurus came to life and caused such problems, and I wouldn't have eaten those cupcakes and trapped myself on this tower if I had not been trying to do my part to fix it."

"I don't suppose you've considered just teleporting down, have you?"

"Discord, I don't know how to perform such a complex spell!"

"Oh, don't you?  Well, I'm afraid rules are still rules.  I can't help you down."

"What?  But you can't just leave-"

"What I mean is, I can't help you directly."

"What do you mean?"

"My dear Twilight, instead of focusing on what you can't do, focus on what you can do!"

Twilight shot Discord an annoyed look.  "I'm trapped up here.  There is nothing that I can do!"

"Perhaps you should try looking around."

Twilight gave Discord a suspicious glance.  "Well, okay, but first you need to get off of me."

Discord snapped his claw and disappeared.

Twilight let out a sigh and carefully climbed down the slope of the roof and approached the edge of the tower.

Let's see, she thought to herself, looking down.  There's lots and lots of snow, some houses, snow, a couple of abandoned carts, more snow, Discord waving at me from a lounger in midair, and snow.

Only one of these things might be helpful.

She magically levitated a wooden cart.





"Argh!" cried Twilight in frustration as her makeshift ramp made out of planks salvaged from the cart collapsed.  Of course, she had known that there was no way it could possibly work.  After all, it was way too long to be able to support it's own weight.

This was a stupid idea, Twilight thought.  It doesn't help that Discord is watching everything I do.  All I'm doing is making a fool of myself for his entertainment...

Suddenly, a way to improve the design occurred to Twilight.  But, just maybe, I'll be the one to have the last laugh.





This is so much better! thought Twilight, looking down at her work.  It had been tricky and time consuming, but she had managed to attach the planks of wood to the side of the tower in a spiral pattern, which meant that the ramp would be supported all the way up.

There is just one problem, realized Twilight.  There's no way I'm actually going to set hoof on that thing!  What if I didn't do a good enough job?  What if it collapses under me?

She looked over toward Discord again, who gave her a thumbs up.

I'm making myself look like a fool again, and now I've defaced this tower without actually making any progress at all!  It probably looks ridiculous from where he's sitting!  It probably looks like a giant screw-

Wait.

...  Would that even work?

Uncertainly, Twilight lit up her horn and magically gripped the entire tower.

And began to twist with all her might.

There was a grinding noise, and then the entire tower began to slowly sink.

Despite the enormous effort she was outputting, Twilight allowed herself to smile.





Eventually the edge of the rooftop became level with the ground.  With Thesaurus in hoof, Twilight carefully climbed off of the pointed rooftop and jumped to the ground.

"Bravo!" cried Discord, who began to clap.  His lounger suddenly zoomed through the air and halted in front of Twilight.  "Even I didn't think of that!  But then again, you don't think quite the same way I do, do you?"

"Actually, it was kind of an accident..." admitted Twilight.

"Your point?  Most everything that I do is unplanned.  And I'm sooo glad that you figured out your own solution!"

"What would you have done?" asked Twilight.

"In your position?  I would have rung the bell."

"What bell?"

"Well, I was trying to give you a clue about it when I told you to 'look around', but you never did notice.  This tower here is a bell tower."

Discord snapped his fingers and there was a very loud and resounding 'DONG' sound from inside the tower, now embedded deep into the ground.  The whole town would probably be able to hear it.

"Are you kidding me?!" cried Twilight.

"I expect your fellow foals will be here any minute!" shouted Discord over the sound of the enormous bell.  "I'll just be leaving you to it!"

He snapped and disappeared.





"Twilight!" cried Spike's voice.  Twilight looked up to see Spike riding on Rainbow Dash's back.  He hopped off and ran toward her and threw his arms around her neck.

"Thank goodness we've found you!" he cried.  "We've been up all night looking for you!  Everypony was getting really worried!"

"Especially Spike here," added Rainbow Dash.  "He kinda freaked out just a teeny little bit.  But, um...  Twilight?  I just gotta ask.  What the hay happened here?"  She pointed to the rooftop sticking out of a mound of displaced dirt.

"How about I tell you over breakfast?" suggested Twilight.  "I'm starving."