The Science of Magic

by theworstwriter

The Moon Sets

“Princess Twilight... err, Eos. Celestia? Ah gotta admit, this is a mite confusin’,” Applejack said, still bowing.

“I told you, just Twilight is fine. Now get up. If anypony needs to speak with me in an official capacity, we’ll use Princess Eos. I refuse to take her name from her.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Princess, but I can’t just forget mah manners. You’re royalty, and Ah gotta address ya as such.”

“No you don’t, and I’ll banish you to the moon if you insist otherwise,” Twilight said, giggling. “You’re one of my closest friends, and my taking the throne isn’t going to change anything between us. The same goes for all of you. A lot of ponies are going to refer to me as Princess Eos, but I’m still Twilight Sparkle.”

Her five best friends all shuffled uncomfortably.

“Whether you’re royalty or not, we’re going to miss you,” Rarity said.

“Girls, I’ll make sure to visit as often as I can. You mean the world to me, and an Equestria in which I don’t have all of you is an Equestria I don’t want anything to do with. If any of you want, I’m sure I can arrange for you to live in Canterlot.”

Her friends all struggled to avoid eye contact.

“Ya know I can’t leave the farm.”

“My animals need me.”

“Ponyville would be super duper boring without me.”

She frowned.

“What about you, Rarity? You’ve always wanted to be a part of the upper class. You know, mingling with Canterlot socialites?”

Rarity took one step backward. “I can’t leave the rest of my friends behind. And what about Sweetie Belle? She would be devastated if she were separated from the other Crusaders.”

“Dash? You already travel a lot for your shows. It can’t make that much of a difference if you’re hardly home, right?”

“Sorry, Twilight. You know I can’t leave Ponyville hanging. But I’ll get to see you at a lot of events. We perform, or at least show up, at pretty much everything either Princess gets involved in!”

Twilight’s eyes quivered slightly, showing just a hint of moisture. She needed to be strong. Princess Eos held back the tears and stood, strong and proud.

“I understand. Spike, as my assistant, I task you with making sure my schedule has room for me to meet with my friends as often as possible.”

The little dragon, who was not quite as little as he once was, nodded and walked over to Rarity. He whispered something in her ear, and she leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his cheek. They both smiled.

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Although she couldn’t participate directly as often as she would have liked, Princess Eos was thrilled to be able to provide funding and a team of very bright researchers to continue her work. Laboratory 2 housed an enormous machine, much like the one that was moved from underneath the Ponyville library to Laboratory 1, but much, much bigger and more intricate. Both devices ran twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, gathering as much data as possible. Their purpose was to identify, isolate, and analyze change. They would detect changes in air pressure, temperature, gravitational pull, arcane effects, and so much more. While some of the information proved interesting in its own right, much of the data collected was used only to synthesize yet more data.

Eos frequently dropped in to check on the progress being made and offer her thoughts on whatever puzzle plagued the team at the time. She allowed them to monitor her directly while she raised the sun, and encouraged them to closely examine the natural healing process of an injured pony. Her wisdom and insight proved very useful in furthering the studies she had inspired - and ordered - but progress remained slow and still more information was needed.

The groundbreaking ideas at the heart of the project had failed to break much new ground. An amazingly deep understanding of the mechanics of the universe at large didn’t appear particularly useful when only one of the esoteric forces at work could be utilized directly. Knowing exactly how energies were stored and transferred from matter to matter or location to location did little good when none of these things could be applied. A small section of critical knowledge was still missing.

Unicorns could convert arcane energy into other forms, but never the other way around. There was nothing to suggest where ‘magic’ originally came from, or why the models still worked perfectly even with it removed outright. What WAS magic, and why did ponies display mastery over it and no other fundamental forces? Perhaps most importantly, was there a threat of running out of magic?

From time to time, the sun’s output would dip and it was necessary to use magic to raise it back up. Nothing, not even the stars, was eternal. How was it that the supply of arcane energy never seemed to decrease? The energy launched into the sun could not be recovered, and so was lost. If there was no incoming arcane energy, how did the outgoing packets not put a dent in the global supply? Eos would need to make certain that background energy levels were watched very carefully after the next drop in solar output.

It wasn’t until the Princess authorized funding for new projects inspired by her own that real progress was made. Deciding that two particularly bright minds had ideas worth exploring, Eos gave her blessing to an inquiry into more creative uses of electricity and a study of what chemical reactions caused and regulated life.

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The two Princesses trotted through the garden under the fading light of descending the full moon. With the present relatively settled and plans for the future coming together nicely, Eos had started inquiring about the past. Luna was happy to oblige, and so a few nights a week the two would take a short walk. Her coughing was getting worse.

“But that doesn’t make any sense! If your presence didn’t alter the sun or the moon, then they wouldn’t have moved until you started moving them. If you weren’t around at the very beginning, how could anypony have survived? Without the sun, the whole food chain breaks down.”

“The sun was there, it just didn’t move,” Luna replied.

“So you’re telling me that there was no day or night, just a location where life was possible and one where it wasn’t? A bright patch of life underneath the sun and a cold, dark, dead land beneath the moon?”

“Actually there WASN’T a moon. As nice as it is to have one, it’s not strictly necessary. The original idea was just to mark how much time was left until sunrise. Doesn’t it sound terrible?” Eos nodded. “That’s why we had to do something. We set to work figuring out how to bring sunshine around the whole world and how long it should take to do it, and just a few hundred short years later, the beginnings of society started to fall into place.”

Luna fell into a fit of coughing, flopping uselessly to the ground like Celestia before her. She had a few more days at best. Twilight helped her up.

“Thank you,” Luna said. She paused. “Did my sister go peacefully?”

“I don’t know. She tried very hard to keep any suffering hidden, but I do know that when the time came she went quickly,” Eos responded.

“That’s... good.”

Luna closed turned her head toward the moon. “You’ve done very well with the night sky. Tia always said you were a quick study.” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. The Princess of the moon exhaled slowly, opening her eyes and turning to gaze at Eos.

“I think... I think that everything will be okay. My sister was wise beyond even her years, and she could not have chosen a better pony. Your intellect, dedication, and raw talent will guide Equestria well. Ponies will live and prosper for many years.”

Twilight refused to look away from her hooves, her face lacking confidence. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am. Celestia never once made a choice that wasn’t the best for everypony. Even dealing with the Nightmare, I’m certain she did the right thing. I was in the wrong.”

Luna’s eyes grew wide. “As I have been before!” She coughed, a small fleck of crimson disappearing in the grass to the side. “Oh, how could I have forgotten... I know why I didn’t tell Tia for so long, but now it doesn’t matter anymore. And with your research!” Another round of coughing burst from Luna’s weakening chest, a small amount of red liquid speckling the path.

“Luna, calm down. This much excitement isn’t good for you. Maybe you should sit down?”

“I don’t think so. I’m fairly certain-” a rough, hacking sound erupted from her throat as a thin stream of blood fell out of her. “I think this is just about the end. But you need to know, and I don’t have time to explain. Find a way to talk to Discord!” A sputtering, wet heave broke free from the Princess as a thick glob of fluid the size of a baseball landed beneath her.

“We need to get you... somewhere! I don’t know, I’m panicking. You’re really really not okay right now,” Eos managed to force out. Her eyes moistened. “I don’t think I’m ready to lose anypony else yet,” Twilight sobbed.

“It’s okay. I’m... okay with this. Please, Tia did so much for you. So much for Equestria. I want to be of some use, and if you and those scientists are half as brilliant as my sister says you are, you’ll find some use in this. I never told Tia what Discord told me, and now I won’t have the chance. Find a way to him, and ask him about alicorns. He’s responsible for the both of us. Ask him... how he did it,” she wheezed, every other word punctuated with a hacking cough and more red. The alicorn was a much paler blue than usual as she fell to the ground.

Eos held back the remaining tears and faced east. The sun rose, and the moon set.

Comments

[just4imagemails]

Hehehe...first for this chapter. Lot of blood. I guess the symptoms of... what, magic poisoning? Is that what is killing the princesses? Lack of magic? It seems like the symptoms are similar to...I guess TB. Good ol' tuberculosis. Let's all cough up blood in order to universally project illness and infirmity!