Shears

by Antikythera

Bridges, 3

Twilight's room in the West Canterlot Tower is a large one; when the growing royal library was moved to the roomier ground floor, giving the space to the most voracious reader in the city was cheaper than renovating it, given its very specific design. Shelves tower to the top of each of the two floors, living space relegated to a small corner nook. Twilight, outgrowing the School for Gifted Unicorns library and accruing smidgens of prestige , was ready to move out of the slipshod SGU dorms, and so the top room of the east tower became hers, complete with one of all the duplicates in the royal collection. One of these, she hopes, is Predictions and Prophecies, referenced in the copy of The Elements of Harmony she tosses on the floor as she enters. She couldn't resist glancing through Elements for an hour or two before taking it up the tower for thorough study, and she was pleased with her serendipity in realizing while still at the library that she needed another book. Unfortunately, their copy had been rented out.

"Spike? Spike!" Twilight calls out, trying to remember what the baby dragon had said he'd be doing today.

"Hey, Twilight!" Spike calls out in turn. "Where have you been all day?"

"I was doing some reading down by the river. Do you know whether we have a copy of Predictions and Prophecies?" she asks. Seeing him walk out of the kitchen carrying a wrapped red box, she adds, "And what's that?"

"It's a gift for Moon Dancer! She's having a party today!" Spike flicks the last sapphire he's carrying into his mouth. "Didn't the girls tell you? It started half an hour ago!"

"Oh, yeah. I'm not going to go. Predictions and Prophecies?" she asks, her mind pawing idly at nothing while she waits for her answer.

"I think so, I'll check. Twilight, what do you have to do that's so important it can't wait till after the party? Moon Dancer's been planning it forever!" He starts

"How much have you heard about the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight regrets asking about the box. "Or Discord?" She's not expecting much, really. Spike's never been one for history, or anything else, really.

"Not much, just that one vanquished the other a long time ago. Twiliiight, I'm serious! I know you don't have anything important to do. I think this party is important to Moon Dancer." Even as he protests, he's wheeling one of the ladders over from the end of its shelf. He's barely strong enough to trudge it to the center. It can be nice to have a measure of control.

Twilight notices her hooves are aligned pleasantly within the gridlines of the wooden plank floor. Spike will keep at it for a while yet, but he's learned not to press too hard when Twilight wants to stay inside. Not everypony carries things the same. Different gaits. "I'm sorry, Spike, I just don't think I'm up to it." She pauses for a moment, trying on the heft of her next sentence, an old staple: "It's, uh, sort of a rough day for me." But it's not. It's not really a bad day. "I think I need to rest for a while." She's pretty much fine.

"...Okay, Twilight, if you say so," calls Spike back down the ladder, softened, and probably a little guilty. "Sorry for pressing so hard." Sorry, Spike. "But I found a copy of your—!" He fumbles it off the ladder as he tries to heave it down; Twilight catches it in her magic.

She is pressing hard, too, but in the only way she's learned how. "It's okay. I think it'll pass. I just want to brush up on some stories, is all." She arcs the book in front of her face as she turns to walk away. "I'm really sorry I can't go, but it's okay if you do." It's only fair, and Spike should really get social interaction beyond Twilight. Some days, she's the only pony he'll see. He's lived with her his whole life, and he seems normal enough, but Twilight's hardly such a role model. Spike is a pretty workable caretaker, when she really needs it, but he's only a few years old. Nopony should live starved for attention—not her burgeoning dragon assistant, not the fallen princess of the moon.

"...Twilight, you know I wouldn't leave you alone all night." He's walking towards his bed in the corner of the main floor, but a bit slowly, like he's not sure what he'll do when he gets there. "Don't worry. I'll keep you company."

Twilight nestles into the crook of the couch facing the west window. It's the wrong direction to catch a glance of Moon Dancer's party, but the right one for the setting sun. She fights not to open the book. Not quite yet. Twilight has to give a little back; she owes him. "Tell you what. Let me start looking through this for one hour, then ask me again, and I'll think about going to the party." She knows she won't agree even then; Spike probably knows too.

"Sure, Twi," he says, and comes in for a geometrically awkward hug.

She smiles, meaning it. "Thanks."

---

It's actually only a couple minutes before Twilight realizes this book has nothing for her. It takes her a little longer than it should to come to terms with. When a book disappoints, it's like a tiny star falling out of the sky: there are plenty more, sure, but you've still lost something.

Elements of Harmony: See Mare in the Moon.

Mare in the Moon: An epithet for the fallen Princess Luna. Defeated at the hooves of her sister Princess Celestia with the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year the stars will aid her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal.

"Ugh! This book is worthless!" Twilight slams it shut and closes her eyes, counting breaths. "The wording is ambiguous and fragmented. The so-called 'prophecies' are mostly too general to have any predictive power. And there's not a single citation in the entire book! For all I know this could have been written by some pony sitting in her lounge chair, making everything up on the spot!" Twilight stands up and starts pacing. "And has she ever heard of a comma?!"

Spike, having not had much luck in deciding what to do with himself, has apparently drifted off somewhat in his wicker bed. Too many uncut sapphires will do that to a baby dragon. By a couple sentences into Twilight's rant, though, he's alert enough to come out swinging: "Maybe you two just don't have much in comma," he says, and starts snickering.

Twilight ignores him, on purpose for once. "This was pretty much a waste of time. I'm going to go back to Elements of Harmony, I guess. Do you know where I put it?"

"Maybe somepony took it! Wait, I'm thinking of the Elements of Larceny." He restrains his cackling until he finishes delivering the pun, just barely. He's out of bed and trying to wander into the kitchen, but he's laughing his eyes shut and collides with the dividing wall.

Twilight is methodically combing the floor for the book like somepony else might look for her glasses, but she stops to giggle; she can't help herself. "Where'd you learn that word?"

"I was chatting with Cold Case a couple days ago, at Donut Joe's. You know, that day you realized you had an old edition of Fundaments of Wind Magic and freaked out? I didn't know what to do once you disappeared, so I just went for a snack."

"Eheh, oh. Yeah." Not one of her better days. She starts bending over to check under the shelves.

Spike is checking the opposite side of the door, and says, "Found it, Twilight!" He hefts the tome into his arms, taking a shaky step backwards in the process.

Twilight levitates it out of his hands, gusts off the fresh veneer of dust, and places it on the couch. Spike sniffles. She trots over herself and nestles in once again, but something strange is stopping her from opening the book, which is lying in front of her like a Magic Cube one twist away from solved. The longest day of the thousandth year... It's odd that this year's Summer Sun Celebration is the thousandth since Luna was banished, and it's even odder that she found that passage just two days before. But reading a book at a particularly unlikely time does not really lend any credibility to the work itself. Twilight knows this. But despite herself, her mind is whirring, conspiring, almost building something or tearing something down. She's entertaining threads of cosmic synchronicity and fate, threads she knows will embarrass her if pulled. Real life isn't a story; not every rising action has a climax. She puts a hoof on the cover of Elements.

But... wouldn't it be smart to make sure, at least? Take the tiniest precaution? There are probably a dozen old ponies' tales in that book just plausible enough to bear a little examination (if she were a bit less discerning) and she suspects that pretty much none of them would be worth it. But that's a bit of a slippery slope argument, or at least she convinces herself it is: she doesn't want to exhaust the book, scrounging for a scrap of truth. She only wants to investigate this legend, the one with a chance of being tied up with her own story. When it's exposed as fantasy, she won't skip to the next.

She's being swept away. She only ever waffles about doing something pointless when she knows she's going to do it anyway. Some ponies are experts at justifying their own behavior; they've had practice. She decides: if she hedges her point thoroughly enough, there's negligible cost to sending a letter to the Princess, and there's really nothing else she could do anyway.

"Spike, take a letter."

"Are you sure? It's sort of late for her, and she's probably been preparing for the celebration all day..." But again, the objection is just a gesture; the dragon fetches a quill and some parchment from the end table in the living nook. When Twilight nods, he says, "Okay, shoot."

Dear Princess Celestia,

In my studies, I've found a reference to a prophecy regarding your sister, Princess Luna. It states that she will return for the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration after she was banished, and that this time she will succeed in her goal to bring eternal night. I hold little faith in the veracity of the source, but I thought it might be best to bring it to your attention, the appointed day being so close. Enclosed is a photocopy of the text.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

While she's dictating, Twilight prepares the spell she compiled for replicating print. As a fairly precise sequencing of intermediate-complexity spells, it's one of her more involved inventions, and she takes a small joy in finding an opportunity to use it. She pulls over a sheet of parchment herself, and places it on the page with the Mare in the Moon entry.

After Spike is done writing, she walks into her repurposed closet and shuts the door. She lays the book on the table and blows out the torch, then sets her mind to cast. First, she marks the ink with a glow, a composite spell that factors neatly into a metric, an illumination conjuration, and an infusion. Then, an illusion infusion is cast on the loose sheet, rendering it considerably less opaque. Next, a selectively substantial plane projection is pushed down onto the page, attuned to scale its physicality in inverse proportion to incident light. That's a barrier spell imbued with a metric. A sizable blob of ink is retrieved from the nearby well (involving another metric and an animation) and pressed down onto the barrier, with firm but regular force. Since she can't abjure non-magical material, the plane floats to the well, rolls itself up partway, funnels in the excess ink, and dissipates. Finally, a light breeze is directed orthogonally at the paper. The loose page solidifies back into view, and that's that.

The meager shine from the ink isn't enough to see by, but no hoof-eye coordination is demanded of Twilight, just concentration. It's embarrassingly draining, because of all the sequencing and automating metamagic (not to mention the two material identification metrics she wouldn't need if she were casting manually), but she doesn't care. It comes out perfect every time. She opens the door, hands the facsimile to Spike, and places the book back on the shelf.

Spike puts down the old copy of Ice Archery 101 he was thumbing through, and rolls the two papers together with some twine. He inhales sharply and blows out a spurt of green flame, incinerating the message. The smoke, sparkling a faint green, rises to the ceiling and floats out the open window.

---

Spike burps out a reply in another three hours, surprisingly late for the Princess to be awake. Twilight sets down What Goes Up and levitates the letter from his bed to her couch, untying it en route.

My dearest student Twilight Sparkle,

You know that value your vigilance and dedication to your studies and your kingdom. However, though I thank you for bringing it to my attention, I am not worried about this prophecy. Dusty old books make many fantastic claims. Please do not concern yourself further over the matter.

Incidentally, I have a new task for you. As you certainly know, this year the Summer Sun Celebration is being held in Ponyville. I am requesting the presence of my most logistically gifted student for supervision of the festival preparations. If this is acceptable, you will leave via chariot escort first thing in the morning. Report to the station; I'll have taken care of the rest.

While you are there, I humbly request you spend some time meeting the locals. Ponyville is very different from Canterlot, but it is full of brilliant, shining ponies nonetheless. It would delight me to no end if you were to befriend some of them.

Eternally yours,
Princess Celestia

P.S. I'm so proud of your photocopying spell. Keep up the captivating research!

It was almost inconceivable that Celestia would find any danger in the prophecy, but that really just makes it worse, more inexcusable. For a moment, Twilight feels something grinding in her head, one gear a poor fit for another. What did you expect, Twilight? You can do better than this, she thinks. Learn from it. The Princess's time is infinitely more valuable than yours.

Spike sees her lying there, head down, eyes closed, and comes over. "Hey, Twi, are you okay?" he says. There's no right answer.

"I really should have known better. I really should have. At least I found out we'll be visiting Ponyville sooner rather than later. We're spending the day there tomorrow." Twilight rises from the couch to start packing. While she's up, she steals a glance out the southern window, but nopony's in the garden.

Comments

[blank check]

Yessss reductionist magic. The only part I didn't understand was this:

Since she can't abjure non-magical material

Since Celestia called it a "photocopying spell" (even though it's more like a photomimeograph), I suspect there's perhaps a better alternative already available.

know that value your -> know that I value your

[formica]

6654145

The only part I didn't understand was this:

Since she can't abjure non-magical material

I think what it meant was that Twilight can't just dispel (abjure) regular matter (presumably, because conservation of energy), so she had to dispose of the excess ink by 'mundane' means.

[Geminii]

Rather intriguing to read a Twilight who is a little less neurotypical than presented in canon. (Although even there, it often seems as if she's consciously simulating social thoughts and mindsets rather than having them naturally.)

[NightShadowJ]

Loving the story so far. Only discrepancy I noticed was that photocopies don't exist in Equestria with its fantastical/medieval setting - The word 'photocopy' shouldn't exist, it's related only to printers from our human world.

Blegh, I'm so bad at explaining stuff. You get what I mean, heh.

[Eruantalon]

6667426 "Photocopy" translates as "light-copy." Maybe here in Equestria, it refers to the light beams that accompany magic spells?

(Though I agree they'd probably use another word.)

[Lord Midnight]

6667426 photocopy means light copy, it originates in the method of using backlighting to transcribe maps.

[book_burner]

She's entertaining threads of cosmic synchronicity and fate, threads she knows will embarrass her if pulled. Real life isn't a story; not every rising action has a climax.

I really feel like she should show more emotion when worrying about whether it's her destiny to save the world or whether the book is just pap.

[book_burner]

6655252 The one in the first few episodes was clearly a nerdy, bookish girl who didn't know how to be social.

And then the executives decided to make her a Princess of Friendship.

[book_burner]

While you are there, I humbly request you spend some time meeting the locals. Ponyville is very different from Canterlot, but it is full of brilliant, shining ponies nonetheless. It would delight me to no end if you were to befriend some of them.

Nice job on the change to this dialogue here. It's now far less obviously a hook.