Chapter 3: A Shocking Revelation
Twilight Sparkle was just getting into a good book, The Life and Times of a Tragic Pony, which purported to be the autobiography of High Lady Shadow Kicker in the Lunar Rebellion of the early 7th century YOH. She was getting really excited, because this was a 14th-century unabridged version, that left in all the juicy bits. She was practically salivating over one of those juicy bits, the complete minutes of the Council at which the Pegasus Ephors decided on the organization of their revived Mandate -- and was practically in ecstasy when she realized that this edition's appendices had a summarization of the complete pre-Discordian Laws of Lyequinigus, compiled from both Derechan and Pegasopolian sources complete with a historiographic commentary!
Wow, she thought, fanning her flushed cheeks with her wings, after coming down from a particularly intense analysis. I now know how to formulate my laws if I ever want to lead a Pegasus Rebellion. Which I don't, really, but it's knowing that's the important part. I'm a Princess, I should know how to form separatist states if necessary! I wonder if Luna wants to hear about this? Though the civil war of the early 7th century was known as the "Lunar Rebellion" because the Ephors had claimed Luna as their commander, in point of fact Princess Luna had been trapped on the Moon for over a hundred years at that point, being tortured by the Night Shadows. Political history was funny that way, sometimes.
She'll probably like the military organizational details and battle-descriptions more, Twilight decided. She's really into combat. Which of course she should be, she's our High Lady of War, after all. And she's so good at it too ... some of the conversations we've had, the things she's taught me about fighting with everything from bladed sabatons to siege engines to those sunfire missiles Moondreamer designed back in the Age of Wonders ... she's awesome. She's always willing to listen to me talk about my interests, too ... magic and organization and the meaning of life ... Twilight fondly remembered long and intense conversations in Ponyville, at the Palace of Canterlot ...
She improved my organizational skills, too. That talk we had about the opportunity costs of excessive organizing and the problem with recursive checklists ... it's easy to see that she handled the logistics back in the Time of Thrones. And she told me how she was re-organizing the Guards ... modernizing weapons and tactics, eliminating some of the dead wood or kicking them into make-work posts ... some of her ideas reminded me of things Shiny used to talk to me about. Actually, she's a lot like Shiny, only more melancholy, and, well, feminine, and ... she felt a bit disloyal admitting this, smarter.
She smiled.
She can be fun, too. She showed me how to use those strange crescent swords of hers, and some of her exercises ... watching her with her blades, it's like seeing some kind of dance. She's so smooth and graceful and deadly and beautiful and ...
Twilight was blushing again, and she was not certain why, but she didn't think it had to do with the Laws of Lycinequigus.
It was at that moment that Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy fell down from the ceiling of her study.
"Aagh!" cried Twilight in shock.
"Eeep!" cried Fluttershy as she fell right on Twilight's back, bounced off, and then managed to get her wings working just before hitting the ground, coming to a more or less graceful landing on the floor.
"Woo-hoo!" cried Pinkie, not wanting to be left out of this shouting game. She hit the floor head first, bounced several times on her head as if it were a rubber ball, and then lay flat on her back grinning, her eyes rotating independently in her sockets as if she were some sort of life-sized pink pony doll ... and Twilight could almost swear she could see actual stylized stars, much like the five small white ones in Twilight's own cutie mark, orbiting Pinkie's head. "Let's do that again!" Pinkie shrieked happily.
Twilight looked up at the ceiling from force of habit. The skylight was closed and unbroken.
"How'd you get in here?" she asked, though she suspected the answer would make no sense.
"Well I had to get Fluttershy over here really fast and I didn't want to go through the streets cuz he could see us and your library has wards and so I went sideways the squeezy purple kind of way!" Pinkie Pie explained.
Twilight tried again.
"Fluttershy, how did you get in here?" Twilight asked.
Fluttershy had a totally shocked look on her face, eyes wide and pupils pinpoints.
"I have absolutely no idea," she said in a small breathy voice. "But it was very frightening. I don't want to think about it too hard, is that okay?" she asked Twilight.
Twilight sniffed. There was an odd sort of odor about Fluttershy, like a combination of sweaty mare, sweaty stallion, hot cocoa, ammonia and ozone. It was unpleasant, distracting and not exactly like anything she had ever smelled before. Pinkie Pie, by contrast, smelled only of candy, mare and ozone.
"You need a bath," Twilight commented to Fluttershy, almost without thinking. "What have you been rolling in?"
As soon as she was finished speaking, Twilight regretted her words, because Fluttershy began bawling like a little filly, putting her head to the ground and covering her face with her own front hooves. Twilight immediately felt as if she had played hackey-sack with a whole litter of puppies. Fluttershy's tears had that kind of effect on most sapient life.
The door to the study opened and Spike walked in, holding some cardboard boxes with Rarity's imprint on them.
"Hey," he said. "I got back from the Boutique, heard some voices -- hi Pinkie, Fluttershy." He looked at Twilight. "Why's Fluttershy crying?"
"I don't know!" protested Twilight Sparkle, feeling as if she needed to defend herself from an accusation nopony had actually made. The power of Fluttershy's tears still had her in its grasp. "Fluttershy smells strange and I said she should take a bath and she just started crying!"
"Wow," said Spike. "You must have been pretty harsh about her needing a bath." He put the boxes down safely in a corner, walked over to Fluttershy, took a whiff. Dragons had extremely good senses of smell, better even than Ponies. "Oh." he said flatly. Then he blushed crimson, obviously coming to some sort of realization. "Oh. Yeah, I think I know how you upset her." He made for the door.
"Wait!" said Twilight. "Where are you going?"
"To get Rarity," Spike said, glancing back at Twilight. "She's good with the emotional stuff. She'll know how to make Fluttershy feel better." He trotted rapidly away.
"But ..." Twilight asked. "Why's Fluttershy upset?"
Spike's retreating back supplied no answers, only a brief image of bright green spikes against purple scales, before he stepped out of view and began going down the stairs.
Twilight was torn between chasing after her Number One Assistant, who seemed remarkably eager to depart the premises, and leaving an obviously-distraught Fluttershy in Pinkie Pie's uncertain care.
Pinkie decided to answer the question.
"She's upset because what you asked her is what she's been rolling in which was mean and I don't know why you're being a meanie because normally you're super nice and what she was rolling in was Bulkie because they were sort of sitting in a tree and k-i-s-s-i-n-g," she sniffed at Fluttershy and giggled. "Only I think a lot more than just that," she added, grinning impishly, "but then Dissy stopped by and he was all mad and stuff because he thinks she's his filly-friend and then Bulk ran and I caught him and put him somewhere safe so Dissy couldn't hurt him cuz on the lines where he does that Equestria falls and everypony dies and nopony can get a good strawberry-icing-topped cupcake anywhere ..." she paused to take a breath, "... and anyway I don't want Bulkie to die cuz that would be sad." She pondered what she'd just said. "Dissy's being mean today," was her final judgement.
It took Twilight a moment to run that long statement through the Pinkie-to-Equestrian translator she'd been forming in part of her mind over the last four years. When she finsished doing so, she felt extreme surprise.
"Wait," she said, "Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps are lovers?"
Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. "Yep!" she said. "And it's so sweet and ...".
"And Discord caught them together?" Twilight asked quickly, not wanting to hear a long Hearts and Hooves Day style dissertation on what a cute couple Fluttershy and Bulk made.
She nodded again. "And boy was he mad ..."
"I see," said Twilight. This implied that Discord also felt a romantic attraction toward Fluttershy. She thought about this in the context of some nightmares she'd had about, and an extremely embarrassing conversation she'd once had with Discord, and remembered the salient point she'd learned. "At least Discord's not likely to force Fluttershy."
Fluttershy raised her head at this. "Of course he won't hurt me," she said, with quiet confidence. "He loves me."
Twilight wasn't entirely sure of that, but didn't think that now was the time to get into a protracted conversation with Fluttershy regarding the nature of male ego and jealousy -- a topic upon which Twilight's own knowledge was mostly theoretical, given that she'd never been seriously courted by any stallion. Rarity really would be better handling that part of it.
"But he wants to hurt Bulk!" Fluttershy cried, her face fearful.
More afraid for the stallion than for herself, thought Twilight. Yep. That's love. Oh, dear. Twilight's political problems, in what she sometimes caught herself imagining as her little theoretical demesne held from Princess Celestia, had just gotten a bit more complicated.
"But he can't hurt Bulk, silly!" Pinkie Pie said, walking over and smiling down at Fluttershy. "He's safe now!"
"Where is he?" asked Fluttershy frantically. "Can I see him? I need to explain --"
"He's --" Pinkie began.
"Wait," said Twilight. Her horn glowed briefly. A tracery of fire moved through the library's walls as she renewed her wards, tuned them specifically against the only Draconequus she knew for sure existed upon the Earth at the present moment. Then she turned to Pinkie. "Continue."
"He's on the farm with my family cuz I told Claire to pick him up and she was super nice so she picked him up through a Gate and Granny's probably meeting him right now and putting him right in the center of her best wards and maybe he'll laugh and sing and play and make flower-chains with Inkie and Blinkie!" Then she looked at Fluttershy. "Um, you know. Just as a friend."
Pinkie emphasized the last part, to make sure that Fluttershy understood that there would be no hanky-panky going on, and would hence be unworried about anypony stealing her colt-friend. Pinkie Pie was a sophisticated mare of the world, who understood all about such considerations.
"Was he all right when you last saw him?" Fluttershy asked, starting to calm down a little.
"Well, actually he was screaming ..." began Pinkie.
"Eep!" gasped Fluttershy.
"... but that was just cuz I forgot to tell him about the Gate or Claire or the Rock Farm so maybe he was a bit scared when she picked him up."
"You think?" asked Twilight. Claire was an invisible, eight-headed giant fluffy pony with tentacular tongues, and Claire's normal way of picking somepony up was to wrap a few of those tongues around him and literally pick up that Pony. She was also incredibly gentle and sweet-natured, but if one didn't know this in advance, one was apt to be somewhat surprised at the first touch of those long, wet, powerful tubes of muscle. Especially when being dragged through a dimensional portal. While being hunted by something else who could drag one through dimensional portals.
"Yep!" nodded Pinkie enthusiastically. "I really do think that's why his last words to me were 'Aieee!'" She then looked at the horrified Fluttershy. "Or something to that effect," she clarified.
"I'm sure he's fine," said Twilight to Fluttershy. "Claire's really nice, you know that."
"But Bulk doesn't," pointed out Fluttershy. "And he can get -- startled."
Pegasi did not like to admit to being scared of anything, and though Fluttershy and Bulk were both rather strange Pegasi, they were still Pegasi.
"I'm sure Granny Pie will talk to him and he'll get over being startled," said Twilight reassuringly. She lowered her head, massaged her forehead with her right hoof, tried to think clearly. She was still having some trouble wrapping her mind around the concept of Fluttershy actually having a lover, in a sense more serious than the strange romantic-tinged friendship Fluttershy had had with Rainbow Dash since long before Twilight had met them. Which had, come to think of it, lasted all the way through other disruptive events, such as Rainbow meeting Sky.a couple of years ago.
Twilight kind of hoped that this new development wouldn't spoil that friendship. She didn't like to think of her friends drifting apart.
"I think we should all have a conference here at the library," Twilight decided. "Pinkie Pie, can you round up Applejack? I'll get Rainbow Dash."
"Ooh, great idea, Twilight!" agreed Pinkie Pie, bouncing up and down. "We can all have a 'Dissy's jealous of Bulkie' party here at the library! I'll get Applejack, and some cakes, and balloons, and ... whee!"
Pinkie bounded away for the door before Twilight could react to her last words, say something along the lines of No, wait, I didn't really mean a party.
In any case, it's not as if Pinkie would have listened unless Twilight got really insistent. And she wasn't sure she had the energy to deal with this development.
"Fluttershy --"
"Yes, Twilight?" asked Fluttershy very seriously.
"You're welcome to use my shower. You actually do need to clean up. Trust me on this."
"All right." Fluttershy went into the bathroom.
Twilight was relieved that, her secret now out and Bulk's safety assured, Fluttershy was starting to calm down. She didn't know if she could take any more of Fluttershy's tears. They should be weaponized.
Then, thinking of Discord, she realized that they more or less had been. And that it had been Celestia's idea. Which made her wonder ... but there was no time for that. She had to bring everypony together before something awful could happen.
Climbing to her bedroom, she stepped out onto the balcony and launched herself into the air, looking for Rainbow Dash.
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Kicker's compiling the 'good parts' version.
When did Twilight meet Claire?
4481274
Presumably at some point in between the canon stories. I'd guess after Return of the Elements of Harmony at the latest (Paradise would probably disengage from this Universe or at least keep a very low profile, if Discord had won -- in my continuity they actually did confront one another in a quarrel over whether Discord could play with Trixie, and Paradise won the first round mostly because Discord wasn't really willing to put much effort into it when there were much more fun things to do.
4481223
Twilight Sparkle and Cloud Kicker just have a different definition of the "good parts." Note that mine, personally, would probably in fact be closer to Cloud Kicker's!
4481834 Did you write about it?
4481839
Sadly, not yet.
4481860 It would make an interesting story.
Coming soon to a bookstore near you: So You Want to Incite a Rebellion, by Princess Twilight Sparkle. Preorder yours today!
As for this chapter, well, not much to say. The players are moving into place for the next scene, the plot is being shared, and Twilight narrowly avoids stripping the gears of her mental clockwork. Still, glad to hear that we're averting those "everypony dies" timelines. After all, StableTech hasn't even been founded yet.
In any case, looking forward to more.
4481860
That "yet" gives me great hope.
4483046
The thing about Twilight Sparkle is that she is so in love with logic for its own sweet sake -- and so fascinated and concerned by the potential responsibilities of being a Princess of Equestria, that she very well might publish an essay or book with that exact title, without stopping to think of how it might be taken or what others might do with the knowledge. She's lucky that Princess Celestia understands Twilight well enough that she would just gently point out to Twilight that the choice of title was, perhaps, infelicitous.
Didn't see any errors this time. Yay!
That's Twilight Sparkle alright.
More afraid for the stallion than for herself, thought Twilight. Yep. That's love.
It's also FLUTTERSHY! She doesn't have a self serving bone in her body!
YOu mention how Luna and Pinkie Pie are BOTH connected emotionally to Twilight's previous incarnations, but different ones, I know they remember to care for the Twilight Sparkle that exists HERE AND NOW.
I take it that Pinkamena Diane Pie went sideways relative to everything. I always suspected that Pinkamena Diane Pie might truly the 3D-Component of the Lure of a an AnglerFish with at least 4 Spatial Dimensions moving just outside our 3D-Space.
1.) I shudder to think how she pulled that off.
2.) Pinkie's not the one who needs reassuring right now.
That's what I've been saying. Her cuteness can stop wars.
Apparently, they can start them too.
Oh my goodness.
You've just described me with books of my chosen specialist subject. :/
lol
Does Twilight have a crush on Luna