EqD Writer Training Grounds short stories by Georg

by Georg

W17 - Princess Celestia’s Most Memorable Birthday Present - A Twilestia Story

Week 17 - Princess Celestia’s Most Memorable Birthday Present - A Twilestia Story

After the Inspiration Manifestation spell had been cleaned from Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle finally has time to shop for Princess Celestia’s birthday present, but in the end, she discovers that her affection for Celestia is best expressed by creation. On a large scale.

EqD Prompt:
Another pony is somehow imbued with the Inspiration Manifestation spell.

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17 - Inspiration Manifestation
-or-
Princess Celestia’s Most Memorable Birthday Present - A Twilestia Story

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Equestria’s newest princess was pissed.

There was a scale to Twilight’s moods, and over the last dozen or so years of his life, Spike had observed enough of them to have developed a full wall-sized chart complete with color coded warnings and appropriate flags to fly to provide an evacuation warning to the neighborhood. It was by no means a linear scale, with happy at the bottom and angry at the top, oh no. This was Twilight Sparkle, after all. There would have been a series of n-space fractal tesseracts on this theoretical scale labelled ‘Stay out of the basement at all costs if you value your present shape and genus’ for when she was in an experimental mood, and ‘Don’t ask, just go buy more ice cream’ for when she returned from a particularly bad date, and even ‘Agree with everything Twilight says and don’t pop her happy bubble’ for when she returned from a meeting with Princess Celestia.

Then there was ‘Pissed’ on the chart. Not pissed on, or pissed off, but just plain ‘Apologize even if it wasn’t your fault for whatever got her this way’ pissed where it was best not to read comic books or express joy in any fraction of life for fear of elevating that mood to hither before unknown heights of pissedness.

“Spike, I can’t believe you ate that book just to keep it away from Rarity! I know she was possessed by Dark Magic—” and somehow Twilight managed to pronounce the words capitalized “—but there had to be another way. Hold still.”

He had lost track of just how many times Twilight had cast the Dark Magic purging spell on him that evening, but this time there was just barely a little flicker of green, a far cry from the first time she had used the spell on him and filled the entire room with green smoke.

“Princess Celestia’s birthday is tomorrow, and I still don’t have a present for her, Spike! Even though we spent all day together cleaning up the town, side-by-side as a proper princess and her grown-up student should, it was still a horrible imposition on her schedule, and she probably is going to spend all day tomorrow catching up instead of enjoying herself and it’s all my fault. Well, except for the part where you gave the evil book of Dark Magic to my friend!”

“I said I’m sorry, Twilight. Did you want me to help you pick out a present for her?”

“NO! I mean no, Spike. There are a few stores still open this evening, so you just go to bed and I’ll find something.”

~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

“I can’t find anything!” moaned Twilight. “And I’ve searched every store in Ponyville, even the ones I had to ask the owners to come unlock them so I could see for myself.” She sat down in a damp patch of grass and regarded the night sky, or at least would have regarded it if the entire sky had not been taken up by a huge stack of clouds awaiting assembly for a good morning soak. There was something about the clouds that called to her, something green and insidious that vaguely resembled the vast quantity of Dark Magic that she had spent most of the day cleaning out from Ponyville. Then inspiration struck with a peal of far-off thunder and a green glow that filled her eyes and her magic with power.

“If I can’t find the perfect birthday present for Princess Celestia, I’ll make the perfect birthday present!”

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~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~

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“Good morn to you, Princess Sleepyhead.” Princess Luna was feeling in a chipper mood as she whisked the covers off Celestia’s bed and teleported them to the laundry for good measure. “Rise and shine. The castle staff is preparing a cake for your ‘surprise’ birthday party. Shall I alert the Canterlot fire patrol to be standing by?”

There was a noise much the same as the mud in the untouched depths of a swamp would make when an unwary hoof was pulled out of it, a somewhat gummy and moist noise that linguists would despair at attempting to match to any known Equestrian dialect. A delicate Yixing teacup nearly as old as the drinker levitated down to in front of Princess Celestia’s lips, and the noise repeated, somewhat more muted and with the distinctive slurp of morning coffee vanishing to fuel the day⁽¹⁾.

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(1) Had a certain coffee supplier in the Canterlot market known the identity of one of his regular customers, he certainly would have used that phrase in his advertisements.

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“G’morning Luna.” The contents of the cup gone, the cup was levitated back up to be refilled as the Sun rose, slowly and with considerable popping of joints and subliminal creaks, until Celestia put both forehooves on the floor of the bedroom and began blindly looking for her slippers.

“Here you go, my delightful and incredibly older sib.” A pair of comfortable fuzzy slippers slipped (because that’s what they did) under her forehooves, and with great effort, Celestia managed to open one eye through the crusts of a good night’s sleep cut off far too soon.

“How can you be so chipper in the mornings, Luna?” After a disparaging look at her teacup, Celestia gulped down the contents and held it out to be refilled again. “And you’re using my good tea things for coffee again.”

Luna yawned before nuzzling her sister, staying away from the Royal Morning Breath that lingered with the intensity of the blazing sun. “It’s all that I can do to keep my eyes open this morning, dear sister. With all of the work we did yesterday, I’m pooped.”

Celestia raised one Royal Eyebrow. “You floated around Ponyville with your earbuds plugged into your music and pointed at spots we missed.”

“A vital portion of any clean-up effort. ‘Twould be a shame if any Dark Magic remained. Now, come. My beautiful moon needs her rest as I do.”

Celestia followed her sister to the balcony in the morning gloom with her eyes nearly shut. She had walked this path for so many years that at times she thought about going through her entire daily ritual with her eyes closed, if it would not have been so troublesome to explain her experiment to so many curious servants. As she could feel the easing of the moon below the horizon, Celestia focused her will on the sun, feeling a joyous happiness of life flood through her veins that made coffee seem like jasmine tea. She luxuriated in the morning rays with a deep breath, feeling the morning flow through her mane in rippling strands behind her even as the discordant crash of Luna’s coffeepot splashed hot coffee across her hooves. She opened her eyes with a jolt and was just on the verge of asking her sister what was wrong when she saw it too.

A moment later, the fragile cup that had endured Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Twilight Sparkle’s years of training fell to the floor alongside the remains of the coffeepot, crashing into thousands of antique pieces of clay.

Silence reigned over the balcony, and after a considerable time regarding what she could see in the sky, Celestia thought that it seemed to be reigning over the entire city of Canterlot too. Perhaps she could get it a throne.

Luna was the first to make a noise, a somewhat strangled snort of merriment that ended with a, “My.”

After another timeless moment, Celestia contributed, “Oh, me.”

Waiting for further enlightenment seemed futile, and Luna added, “Twilight, I presume?”

Celestia turned her head sideways and squinted at one particularly detailed cloud in the distance. After a lengthy consideration of the scientific accuracy of the cloud sculpture in comparison to her lack of progress on the Royal Diet, Celestia nodded.

The towering banks of clouds over Ponyville and much of the surrounding area had been lifted to great heights overnight and spread out across the sky with Twilight’s acute attention to detail and order. There she had applied her hitherto unknown skill in sculpture along with her new pegasus magic to create a set of cloud-sculptures that boggled the mind in size, scope, and content.

Particularly content.

In particular, content involving the affectionate relationship between Equestria’s oldest and youngest princess.

Very detailed content.

In some circles, it could be considered educational.

In other circles, there were other words that could be used for it.

“I am most impressed with Twilight’s use of colors in your birthday present, Tia,” said Luna. “I believe our subjects are unable to get that particular shade of purple and gold in the evening sunsets.”

“Luna,” started Celestia, and then paused at a lack of any other appropriate words.

“And creating cloud sculptures that tall? Certes, portions of it might be visible from Cloudsdale, in particular—” Luna paused, seeming conflicted in her selection “—that one with the… interesting saddle.”

“Luna…”

“I had no idea you payed that much attention to your student’s education in such matters, sister.”

“Is that sculpture… nursing?” asked Celestia, her attention distracted from her sister’s snarky comments by a particularly good representation of early foal nutrition, only with somewhat older subjects than most educational material might feature.

“It’s so pleasant that Twilight Sparkle is willing to share her talents with you on your birthday, dear sister. In fact, we might consider sending several of these remarkable works on an Equestrian tour so that all of our subjects might marvel in their raw beauty.”

“Our subjects?” Then after a moment for the thought to soak in. “Our SUBJECTS! Luna, we need to get this cleaned up before our subjects…”

In the distance across Canterlot, the clatter of hooves could be heard. It was thin, being as many of the Canterlot nobles had never seen the sun rise in their life, but the applause grew in volume as the two princesses listened, one in horror and the other in humor.

After taking a moment to recover from her subdued snickering, Luna kissed her sister gently on the cheek and trotted for the door. “Sorry about missing a spot yesterday, Tia. Enjoy your birthday, dear sister, and when you travel to Ponyville to straighten this last little bit out, do give Twilight Sparkle a kiss for me.”

Comments

[Georg]

I'm sensing a Princess-level Failsafe Spell being unleashed on Ponyville real soon after this.

[djthomp]

the distinctive slurp of morning coffee vanishing to fuel the day

That is such a wonderful turn of phrase considering who was drinking the coffee.

And regarding the birthday present: Oh my!

[BradtheBrony]

Equestria’s newest princess was pissed.

Okay... this line right here sold it for me.

[Maud Pie]

Well, except for the part where you gave the evil book of Dark Magic to my friend!”

This line refunded it for me.

Well, except for the part where you gave the evil book of Dark Magic to my [our] friend!”

[FanOfMostEverything]

Twilight really needs to make a checklist to clear before engaging in acts of epic magic. Number one on the list should be "Have I said something to the effect of 'If I can't find an X, I'll make an X'?"

Also, I love the idea of the Calabi-Yau manifold that is Twilight's emotional spectrum.

Hilarious as always. Thank you for it.

[garfan]

is the applause because of the kinkiness of the cloud sculptures or because they're Twilestia shippers?

[Mossy Mare]

“Is that sculpture…nursing?”

[sallutus]

Dont understand at all