Sunset Shimmer stared morosely at the magic journal, her only link back to Equestria. Not only did it serve as the means to bypass the thirty-moons limitation on the portal, it served as her main link to her friend and mentor, Princess Twilight Sparkle.
And there were only four blank pages left.
The portal still worked, but what about when those last pages were used up? Would that be it? Would they be limited to only being able to see each other, talk to each other, every thirty moons?
Whenever Sunset thought about that, a feeling of helpless sadness and despair overcame her.
She desperately wanted to write to Twilight, but to waste one of those precious few pages...
"Hey Sunset."
Sunset blinked and looked up from the journal.
The Princess herself, Twilight Sparkle, stood in front of her, smiling and holding a stack of books bound with thick twine. A trolley stood next to her, heaped with similar leather-bound books.
"Twilight? What—?"
Twilight set the stack of books she held down on the table next to Sunset with a heavy thump and cut the twine with a pair of scissors. "I noticed we were running low on pages in the journal a while back, so I decided to talk to Princess Celestia about making a new one. Then I got to thinking about how much people like to text over here, and how I don't really have a way of talking to my Canterlot High friends other than you, and how it'd be easier if we just had a whole lot of journals, so..." She took the top book off the stack and set it in front of Sunset. The cover had Sunset's Cutie Mark paired with Twilight's, and in the corner, stamped in gold leaf: Vol. II.
Sunset looked at the top of the stack, and saw a similar cover, stamped Vol. III.
There were four more books underneath it.
"This is your stack," Twilight said. "Your set and mine go up to Volume Four, then there's three that you can use to write to Princess Celestia. Then I've got one each for the other girls—well, two for Pinkie because you know Pinkie, and two for the other Twilight because if she's anything like me she'll fill up half the book in a week." Twilight giggled. "There's also an emergency book that isn't really for anybody to use, I'm leaving it in Principal Celestia's office. Its twin is the one I'll be using to power the portal from now on, that way we don't risk losing the connection. Of course, if there's an emergency and you can't get to any of the other books, use that one. After all, that's why it's an emergency book..."
Sunset's head began to swim. "What...how..." She shook her head. "Twilight, how did you—how did you manage to duplicate the journal so many times?"
"Well, it's not that hard a spell, really," Twilight said. "Once Celestia taught it to me and Starlight Glimmer, Starlight was able to make three pairs of connected journals without even breaking a sweat. She's even testing enhancing the spell to create self-renewing books that never run out of pages!" Twilight clapped happily. "Isn't that exciting?"
Sunset stared at her. "Uhh...yeah," she said. "Exciting..."
Twilight frowned. "You don't...sound excited."
Sunset smiled and shook her head. "Bewildered is more like it," she said. "Here I was worried we were about to run out of pages and I might not be able to talk to you again for a really long time, and wondering whether I should write to you or save those last pages for something really important, and here you just show up with...with all this..." She gestured vaguely.
Twilight smiled. "Oh, Sunset," she said. "Did you forget that an alicorn enchanted that book in the first place? And that you've got three alicorns and a ridiculously overpowered unicorn on the other side of that portal? We'll never run out of pages."
Sunset looked up at Twilight and smiled brightly. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah..." She stood up and hugged Twilight. "Friends never run out of pages."
...Yeah, that sounds about right.
Bless you
I noticed this trend going around recently, and I was wondering why nobody thought Sunset couldn't just ask for a new journal. It's not like Twilight and Celestia would deny her.
Why not digital journals?!
*Cough*
*Equestria: Don't Text and Drive*
*Cough*
INFINITE PAGES!
INFINITE POWER!
I regret nothing.
I didn't think this was becoming a trend, but I guess it's no surprise it did, especially with a new Equestria Girls move on the horizon.
Well, this is a better fad than that "Anon-a-miss" fad that was going on a few weeks ago
7565185 most of the stories have the portal broken or something, thus making the book their only form of communication.
Hold up this is the third story on this topic in the past 2 days. Have I missed something?
Rather nice to see this, in all honesty. While I think it was more or less explained why this wasn't the solution in the other fics, this was something in the back of my mind reading them and the fact that it wasn't implement felt like a jarring plot hole.
Nice little snippet. Fits that Twilight would nip things in the bud before it became a problem.
7565240
I personally liked Justice3442's version, "Out of Space", with how Sunset handled it. Turned the whole thing into an excellent comedy without being out of character for anyone.
Well this definitely isn't in response to anything
Well... this ought to become canon now.
As reactionary pieces go, this one? Short, sweet, and wonderful.
Honestly, I assumed that the original journal already had an "infinite pages" effect going. But yeah, this is one of those cases where the drama falls apart like wet cardboard if you stop to think about it.
Makes sense to me. Twilight being Twilight, she would have noticed and solved the "running out of pages" problem before it started. While I do appreciate the new and revised version of the original story, it has its flaws (though the one that caught my attention was how the Humane 6 dealt with Sunset's grief by simply brushing it aside and discounting her loss).
7565220 The journal pages are a fad now? Umm... I know that Anon-a-Miss was around for a ridiculously long time, but this is surprisingly... mundane.
Friendship for the win!
Is this the next "would it matter if I was"
7565374 it's only been a day. Give it a week, there will probably be a dozen of them
7565205
What makes you think this is a bandwagon?
7565431 A third of the feature box right now is this. You, Justice, me...this is exactly how the changeling thing got started.
What about Flurry Heart she's an Alicorn too?
7565441 I think Flurry Heart's a bit too young to learn how to enchant magical journals. Right now she's still struggling with learning how to pass gas without help.
I have to wonder...was there something going on in Sunset's mind when Twilight mentioned Starlight abilities?
...Is this becoming a thing now?
7565477 Apparently. (Psst, your turn!)
7565507 (Psst, nope. I don't follow trends, I start them.)
7565179
Right?
I swear to God, I thought I'd opened an old story, because I read almost exactly the same thing months ago. Uncanny.
7565447 I know too many people that thoroughly enjoy passing gas without help - in either direction. Lord help us ALL if they ever learn how to help each other with it...
Heh! By coincidence, I read Holy's story just before checking my Tracking list and seeing this.
Sunset might have to forgive Starlight for stealing her purple pony waifu now.
(And I mean, realistically: This is Twilight Sparkle we're talking about, the pony who writes a check-list for checking the requirements for writing a check-list. She's probably got her stationery resupply orders scheduled out to the next decade; she won't unexpectedly run out of anything, ever.)
7565722
I actually wrote the original story three months ago. The one that's up now is just the rewritten version.
Daaw.
Yeah, it does seem like this is an arbitary fan-created problem that isn't likely to be a real serious issue in the show, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure that, after having lost Sunset for so long, Celestia would be more than willing to ensure that she stays in contact!
Never change, Twilight. Always be the adorkable nerd who gets excited at new things in science and magic; we love you that way!
66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m571uudsz71rv5j9yo1_500.gif
Yep there's no way they're running out of page.
da feels in this chapter man...
Logic: The story chapter.
Or better said, this is how everything would look like when common sense was applied. You get a 700-ish word story instead of 4-5 thousand words
7565837
so that's why i remember reading it.
7565414
So apparently fics about this topic are trending... wonder what trends I've missed since I've been spending less than half an hour a week on this site.
Also, 7565205 , haven't spoken to you in forever, dude! Would you be willing to keep me updated on Fimfiction's trends? I'm not going to participate, I just wanna know.
I should have known you'd write something like this. Sadly, while it is a completely realistic solution (another author I follow has already used the idea in his own stories), if the issue of the journals running out of pages ever actually comes up in the movies, they'll probably come up with some bullshit reason for being unable to just make more journals, as well as try and convince us that their magic will stop working once all the pages are filled and they cannot be used to keep the portal open.
lololololololololololololol
Haha, I always assumed that the book was magically enchanted to never run out of pages. But this is such a logical and Twilight Sparkle solution to the problem, it was really adorable to see her cheer up her fiery friend. Though it might also be that I love these two together .
I also love what someone else said about the length! the wonderful thing about this story is that it also feels like an exercise in condensing, so you have a short 700-word story that tells the story, instead of those 2000 word behemoth. Honestly, I wonder if writers in general should make a story like this in order to practice how to not overwrite .
Great job! ^^
Well....This chapter was Meta as Fuck! Kudos.
Three alicorns? Who was neglected? Probably poor Cadence...
7566894 Well Cadance has her own problems, plus she doesn't appear to have as much magical power and talent as Twilight, Celestia, and Luna.
7565273 What kind of stuff?