The Sun and the Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab

by Fuzzyfurvert

228. Science Vs by UhOh

by UhOh

***

“How did this happen?” Celestia asked, struggling to keep her voice even. Her attempts at maintaining the portrait of serenity were foiled by the ruffled feathers of her wings and the churning of her mane. She was further undermined by the faint cries of panicked ponies as well as the stench of fire filtering in through the open windows from the streets of Ponyville.

The young dragon shuffled awkwardly under Celestia’s demanding gaze. “Well,” he started, dragging the word on unnecessarily to delay the inevitable, “you know that arrangement we have where I tell you when I think Twilight’s doing something that violates the immutable laws of the universe and/or common sense [again] and you save the world by distracting her?” Spike chuckled anxiously and straightened his spines. “So, Twilight must have figured it out ‘cause she had an interesting counter-offer wherein she creates a gem large enough to keep me too occupied to snitch on her until she’s reached the point of no return.”

A large crash issued from somewhere behind Spike as a truly massive, half-eaten gem the size of two fully-grown stallions fell through the floor of Twilight’s Ponyville castle and landed in the entryway. The young dragon winced. “I am very, very weak.” He added remorsefully.

Celestia sighed and mentally set the counter in her mind labeled “Days Since Last Twilight Sparkle-Related Accident” back to zero—someday it would get into double digits but not today. The alicorn princess decided that since she’d gotten all the useful information she would get out of Spike it was time to depart and seek out the other players in this latest disaster. One of them had to know where her special somepony was hiding out.

**

“How did this happen?”

Luna was careful to keep her expression free from any amusement she may or may not have been feeling. Her sister was starting to look a little rough around the edges, so to speak, which was a pretty good indicator that it was time for the merriment to reach its end. “Well, to be honest, we’re not entirely sure. I do recall lecturing Twilight Sparkle on the impossibility of the ancient legends—earth ponies simply didn’t have the technology at the time—but I know not when an academic argument turned into practical application.”

Celestia’s gaze darkened, it should have been threatening but Luna was—as was the norm for these conversations—too busy trying not to make demeaning mental comparisons on the similarities of her sister’s grumpy expression with that of an unruly storm cloud. In an effort to keep her royal composure Luna redirected her gaze to the windows behind her sister. Unfortunately the view was equally amusing, albeit in a slightly different way. Twilight really had outdone herself this time, that pillar of fire could probably be seen from Canterlot! Her amusement was ended quickly when her sister entered her personal space and loomed over her.

The white mare made a great show of sniffing Luna’s breath. “No doubt that was somewhere around your fifth bottle of wine based on the smell.”

The deep blue alicorn nodded thoughtfully. “Your words ring true. I believe that I was rather deep in my cups at the time of Discord’s arrival.”

“Discord?”

“You rang?”

The irritatingly-familiar, high-pitched, nasally voice reverberated in Celestia’s head—an even more familiar ache began to throb behind her right eye. It was a pain she’d long considered to be associated with any length of time spent with the embodiment of chaos. She bit back a sigh and mentally added the impending conversation to the list of things Twilight would have to atone for. Out of the corner of her eye she spied Luna slinking away—shrewd, if more than a bit cowardly. There would be time to hunt down her sister later, right now she needed an explanation for the towering inferno that had appeared on the edge of town and was responsible for rendering Ponyville temporarily subtropical in the dead of winter.

“How did this happen?” Celestia asked dully, already steeling herself for an answer she wouldn't like.

Discord leaned back in the air, snapped his claws, and willed a bean bag chair into existence. “An excellent question, my esteemed equine ex-enemy. To answer to the best of my considerable abilities will require time and visual aids. It all started when you catapulted your captivating, canny, cohort into princessdom. Newly winged and newly crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle spent years—”

“I’m more interested in current events, Discord. Today’s events, specifically.”

Discord gave Celestia a crooked smile which she promptly dropped to the floor. This did nothing to forestall the gleam growing in his eyes. “Oh, but why didn’t you say so?!” A large projector manifested in place of the throne room’s stained glass doors and fuzzy images began to flicker to life. The draconequus fast forwarded through many years, pulled out a sheaf of papers from thin air, and began his narration. “Twilight’s day started when she was awoken by ‘the radiance of the sun’.” The images on the projector resolved themselves into a scene from Celestia and Twilight’s bedchambers. Two familiar forms, one purple and one—

A blast of golden magic restored the doors to their original form. Celestia drew in a deep breath and snorted pointedly. Plumes of smoke were beginning to eke from her coat and Discord took the opportunity to turn the life-sized Celestia and Twilight plush dolls back into thrones. He figured it was probably better to save that one for their next anniversary. If he pushed Celestia anymore today he would have to join Twilight in whatever hiding place she’d found.

Paws splayed out non-threateningly to convey goodwill Discord chuckled lightly. “I had nothing to do with this one. You know me, Celestia; I go where the chaos grows. I can’t help the fact that your somepony special is a walking chaos conductor. I’ve learned quite a bit from her over the years—who knew that if you’re orderly enough it comes right back around to chaos again!”

“Discord, I will ask you one time and one time only: where is Twilight?”

**

Travel to and from the astral plane always left one’s senses reeling for a moment. Not even Celestia, who traversed the plane more often than the other princesses combined, was immune from the disorientation. The sun princess took a moment and gathered her faculties before addressing her lover. “Twi?”

Twilight looked up from her notes and smiled at her princess. “Celestia! I’m glad you’re here. Come closer, I’d love to get your feedback on this—I must have watched it in slow motion a hundred times but the reaction is still fascinating. See? Six seconds in when the mixture has dispersed across the lake it self-ignites—which, of course, is the whole point—but the degree of the conflagration was completely unexpected. I’d wager just a small batch of this substance could burn for, I dunno, decades, given how much I used I'd be shocked if it anything could put it out any time before the next century…” The purple alicorn trailed off as she realized that her marefriend wasn’t sharing in the excitement of scientific discovery which meant that she was missing something fairly important. The day’s events replayed in Twilight’s mind at breakneck speed as she tried to suss out what it was she missed. “…And I left a giant tower of Konik Fire burning unattended on a lake outside of Ponyville, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Sorry about that, I guess I got a little carried away.” Twilight watched the birth of the pillar of fire on the astral viewing screen once more. “At least I proved Luna wrong; Konik Fire was totally a possibility for earth ponies to have used given the materials they would have had access to at the time.”

Celestia rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “You know it’s the frequency of occurrences like this that prevent us from having nice things, right?”

Twilight sniffed disdainfully. “It’s just that kind of attitude that impedes the march of scientific progress.” She lit her horn and gathered her charts, data books, and hastily-scrawled on bar napkins up into a tidy pile. “Besides most of our things are fireproof anyway.”

Celestia pursed her lips in a valiant effort to avoid smiling. ‘Don’t encourage her. Twilight isn’t cute when she gets like this. Encouraging her will only lead to waking up in stirrups again “for science”.’ Knowing she was fighting a loosing battle Celestia elected to cut her losses and return to the mundane realm, taking Twilight with her.

Naturally Twilight picked up on both the hint of a smile and the fact that Celestia was trying to prevent it from spreading. Fairly sure that she wasn't in any real trouble with her marefriend Twilight gave her best winsome grin. “If it makes anything better, we can chalk today up as yet another victory of science over naysayers.” She paused and leaned into the slightly taller mare. “You’re not mad, are you?” She asked, her voice raised slightly as to be heard over the noisily crackling hundred foot tall pillar of fire beside.

“Of course I’m not mad." Celestia said smoothly in honeyed tones. Oh, she might have been a little mad. "I’m not even all that surprised.” A little surprised too.

Twilight pouted. “When you put it like that you make me sound like some sort of repeat-offender, delinquent, ne’er-do-well.”

A deadpan glance was given to the merrily burning inferno the citizens of Ponyville were hailing as a sign of the end of days. “Perish the thought.” Celestia nuzzled her marefriend briefly before pulling away with a teasing nip to the ear. “In fact to prove I’m not mad I’m going to be waiting for you in our chambers. Feel free to join me just as soon as you put out that little fire.”

There was a flash of light and the sun princess disappeared in the instant it took Twilight to process her words. The instinctual objection died in her throat as she realized its futility. Purple eyes beheld the former lake, current towering pillar of fire; her previous achievement was now her formidable obstacle. With a concentrated show of false bravado the mare puffed out her chest and glared at the fire. “Science vs. Seduction, huh?” Twilight’s horn lit up as she approached the flaming lake. “I’m gonna be honest; for once I don’t like your odds, Science.”

Comments

[Europa]

So I guess you can sum up Twilight's experiment as...

Uh Oh?

[BarrenBaron]

Talk about going down in a burning ring of fire!

[Foals Errand]

Seduction wins... Fatality

I had to

[Fuzzyfurvert]

4826626
youfoundasecret.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/vlcsnap-2013-03-13-14h35m58s140a.png

[blade1976]

Ha. OK that was great.

[Oddboy]

Playing with super napalm and setting a whole lake on fire? Twilight's Awesome stat just levelled up!

[Misplaced Mage]

Celestia sighed and mentally set the counter in her mind labeled “Days Since Last Twilight Sparkle-Related Accident” back to zero—someday it would get into double digits but not today.

Eh, a TwiCon Level 3 event, at best. Ponyville was barely threatened, much less the whole of Equestria or the rest of the universe.

[Lunar Eclipsed]

4827885 i love watching an entire lake burn after dumping in a few hundred gallons of military grade napalm