Holding Pattern
Princess Twilight Sparkle took a sip of her tea and immediately winced.
"Spike! This tea is terrible," she complained, and set down the cup with her magic. "You know I don't like bitter teas. What is it this time? Assam? Kuding?"
Spike looked confused. "No, I'm not kidding. It's oolong, Twilight, like you asked. I even added two drops of honey, just the way you like. Do you want to try the white again?"
Twilight pushed her cup aside with a hoof, gently enough so it wouldn't spill out onto the Crystal Map. Six cutie marks hovered over three locations on the Map. None of them were hers. She sighed and buried her face in her legs.
"Maybe you're coming down with a cold?" suggested Spike.
Twilight propped her chin up onto her ankles. The cutie marks of Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer spun and twinkled a few inches from her eyes, decorating the edges of her vision with a scintillating haze.
"I don't know if I'd be able to tell anymore," she mumbled under her breath.
Twilight Sparkle barely waited for Celestia's smiling face to come into view before speaking.
"This was Spike's idea, wasn't it?" she accused as she crested the hill of the Canterlot Castle private gardens.
Princess Celestia lightly nodded her head and smiled that characteristic soft, well-practiced half-smile as her former student approached the flat serving stone. On the surface of the stone lay a tea set. There were no cookies or pastries, which Twilight found odd. There was only tea.
"It's nice to see you too, Princess Twilight Sparkle," said Celestia, her gentle grin not changing one iota. There was a certain sameness to everything the elder princess did, thought Twilight. It was comforting, but it often felt hollow, somehow. It reminded her of the Sunday funnies in the Foal Free Press. Ironically, the so-called "funnies" were never funny, but Twilight couldn't stop reading them. Why were they popular at all, then? Ponies didn't read them because they were amusing, obviously, because they never made anypony laugh. Not once! Pinkie Pie had explained it to Twilight before...
"You see Twilight, most ponies like things that are familiar," she'd told her. "All sorts of bad stuff happens in Equestria, and we never know when the next bad thing will happen! Comic strips are sort of like, well, a super-boring kind of party to help distract you from all the monster attacks and bad mane days and the funerals for brave ponies who tried to fight monsters just a little bit too big for them to handle. The characters in the Sunday comics are always the same, so even if everything else in life is totally uncertain, no matter how bad things get, the funnies will never ch—"
"Princess Twilight?" said Celestia, her voice a bit more insistent. "Please, sit down."
Twilight Sparkle snapped back to the present. "Oh. I... I'm sorry, Princess Celestia," she said, and sat down beside the stone. Celestia had already taken her seat and poured them each a steaming cup of tea.
"It's quite alright," said Celestia, and she took a sip of her tea. "I hear you've had some... difficulty adjusting to your new responsibilities?"
First Twilight pursed her lips in thought, then she lifted her teacup with her magic. A sip would give her time to think. She closed her eyes tight, and winced reflexively before it even met her lips.
"Is the tea not to your liking?" asked Princess Celestia.
Twilight wormed the tea around her tongue and swallowed. "No, it's actually not bad," she said in surprise, then followed it with a deep, cleansing sigh. "I haven't been able to make tea properly in ages."
"I know you like it sweet," noted Celestia. Her magical mantle billowed gently through her mane behind her, despite the lack of a breeze. It always did that, of course.
"Yes, thank you," said Twilight. "It's... still a little bitter. Maybe a little over-sweetened, too? But much better than what I've been drinking. What is it?"
"Oolong," said Celestia, between sips. "With two drops of honey."
Twilight's face scrunched up in frustration. "Brewed traditionally?"
Celestia gently nodded her head again. It was the clearest indication of 'yes' she ever gave short of actually saying the word, even though she seemed to do it every few minutes regardless as to whether or not a question had been posed. Still, it was comforting to watch.
Everything about Princess Celestia screamed comfort, thought Twilight.
Twilight Sparkle sighed again. "It doesn't matter, it's just tea. I think I just drink it out of habit, nowadays," she admitted.
Twilight tried to imagine herself skipping her morning tea, but she'd become so used to the ritual from her time in Canterlot with Celestia that skipping it would mess up her entire schedule... and then she felt a tug at her chin. Celestia's magic momentarily pulled her face upwards so the two could look eye to eye. The magic nudge lasted less than a second, but it felt intrusive and unsettling. It was strikingly unfamiliar; was that what made it feel repulsive? Twilight couldn't remember the last time Princess Celestia had even touched her—
"Twilight, let me be direct with you: Spike was telling me about how difficult things have been for you lately," said Celestia. Her regal voice had swelled the tiniest bit louder, obviously to help Twilight maintain her attention. "He's concerned, and he wanted to know how I could help."
"He's right," admitted Twilight, her eyes darting back and forth between the teakettle and Celestia's perfect, neigh-expressionless face. "I guess I might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown or something."
"Well, we can't have that," said Princess Celestia. She paused to take another sip of tea, leaving the statement hanging there in the air. Twilight briefly imagined the words dancing like balloons in front of her. "The most important service a royal leader can provide to her little ponies is consistency."
"Consistency," repeated Twilight. "Right. I can understand that. Of course."
"Good," said Celestia, and she nodded her head as though to reinforce the attribution. Or, perhaps, her head simply nodded of its own accord. Things seemed to happen for a reason even when conscious intent wasn't present. The Cutie Map was living proof of that. But as a trained scientist, the difference between fate and coincidence perplexed the daylights out of the young princess.
Then Twilight coughed, and she took another sip of tea. The tea wasn't perfect, that was certain; but at least it tasted more like she remembered. Not quite so bitter, although the aftertaste still wasn't pleasant. Maybe the memory she associated with tea had something to do with how she'd experienced it at the time. Memory wasn't a literal encoding of events, after all, but something generated against a background of emotion and circ—
"Come back to me, Twilight," said Celestia. Her voice hadn't changed, at least not as far as Twilight could tell, but it felt much firmer.
"I'm sorry. You see how distracted I am," she said. "What am I supposed to do?"
"That all depends," said Celestia. "What do you think the trouble is?"
Twilight held up her hoof and looked down at the grass as she tried to chisel truth directly from the void, using the extensive lexicon in her parietal lobe as a hammer. But this time, the fancy words weren't the ones she needed.
Princess Celestia waited with the patience of a mountain.
"I don't feel like I do anything meaningful anymore," Twilight summed up, looking back up to Celestia. "I used to go on adventures and learn new things, and..."
Celestia's head bobbed gently in the air, as though it had momentarily been caught by the nonexistent breeze which swept through her perpetually-flowing mane. Or, maybe she was just nodding again. Either way, it was a reassuring gesture. Every little nod temporarily reduced the tension in the air, if only for a second or two.
Twilight continued, "...and I do still solve friendship problems, but there's nothing new about them, and now I basically live in a castle all by myself..."
"You used to enjoy your solitude," reminded Princess Celestia.
"...and Starlight Glimmer's outgrown me as a student already, the Map's even sending her on missions now..."
"A testament to your natural leadership abilities," reframed Princess Celestia.
"...and the Map never sends me anywhere anymore, either!" said Twilight, her voice rising slightly. "I mean, it led me to Starlight Glimmer, and once it sent me to the middle of nowhere to resolve a stupid feud, but those were extremely stressful and unfulfilling experiences."
"The life of a monarch is often stressful," said Celestia. Then she took a sip of tea.
"Princess, why am I a monarch? I understand that I'm a princess, but why do I have a castle?" she asked.
"Twilight, you already know this. It's an extension of the Tree of Harmony," said Celestia.
"But then what is my Kingdom?" she asked. "I mean, ponies act like it's basically Ponyville and the Everfree, but the Tree of Harmony didn't actually just decide to, well, carve out part of Equestria and hoof it over to me, did it?"
"Perhaps it did?" said Celestia. Her head nodded gently.
"Ponyville was governed just fine before I showed up," said Twilight. She leaned in for a sip of tea, but stopped short and set down the cup entirely. "I don't want this destiny I've been hoofed. I'm bored, I see my friends less and less, and I feel like I'm losing touch with everypony. I haven't felt engaged with the world around me ever since the battle with Tirek. It's like I'm waiting for something, and I don't know what it is, or if it will ever come. I feel like an airship in an endless holding pattern..."
"You must have patience, Princess Twilight," said Princess Celestia.
"And I'm lonely," said Twilight. "Even Spike doesn't need me anymore... he doesn't seem to have anything to say when we talk..."
"Patience, Twilight," repeated Celestia, and then she took a sip of tea.
Princess Celestia only took tiny sips of tea, as was the custom for royalty. It meant the soft smile on her face would never disappear for more than the briefest moment.
Then she nodded her head.
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I have to say, there are some days that I must unfortunately relate with poor Twilight here. Things I once took joy in feel empty, and I feel lost in the monotony of life. Day in and day out, the singular goal is to survive to see another sunrise, but to what end?
I feel this story goes well with Baal Bunny's Stupid Tree, perhaps even as a prequel to it. It's a good read which I highly recommend. (It was ranked 4th on the most recent pony Writeoff.)
Personally, I've had a few rough years back there, and I'd like to be able to wish them away or go back and fix things, but I can't. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure I'd want to. I've made it my goal to help others who've been hurt or are hurting, I fell so low, and I don't want anyone else to fall as low as I did. I guarantee I couldn't do that as effectively without the sense of empathy that I gained through my experiences, however painful they were in the moment. That is why I chose to use my experiences to reach out to others.
That brings me full circle to Twilight. It was mentioned in the text that Starlight has outgrown Twilight's tutelage much as Twilight outgrew Celestia's. But whereas Celestia was grooming Twilight to become a Princess, Twilight was mentoring Starlight in the ways of friendship. I see absolutely nothing stopping Twilight from signing on a new pupil. Twilight is the Princess of Friendship, yes, but she need not personally solve every friendship problem that arises. To say that she should is to focus too heavily on the "Friendship" part of her title. The "Princess" part of her title refers to being a role model for others to follow and allocating duties to others, teaching them about friendship in the process.
Sure, Starlight undeniably carries the Tree of Harmony's stamp of approval now, but it was Twilight's own decision to make Starlight her pupil in the first place. The way I see it, Twilight should probably reach out to Trixie or Moondancer, maybe even Lightning Dust, Flim and Flam, or Fluttershy's bullies, and help them to learn the Magic of Friendship, just as Starlight has.
7617485
I have intended that the story imply something very dark without actually saying it, but I'll leave interpretations to my readers.
I've got three theories so far. One, Twilight's actually dead.
The second is that her ascension came with a certain form of... stasis, if you will. That, as an Alicorn, she'll stop aging physically but her mind also freezes in a sense. That's what she subconsciously noticed about Celestia and part of her is struggling against it.
The third one is Twilight is alive, but everypony else is dead and she's using their corpses as puppets, fully in denial of the truth.
I also feel neither of these options is the right one.
I'm guessing that Twilight has depression. Things that used to bring joy no longer do, you're just going through the motions rather than doing things with actual emotion behind them. She's still (mostly) function, she just doesn't find joy in anything in life anymore. She can't even tell if she has a cold or not, because everything is monotonous.
And to make things even worse, her trusted mentor figure, the only one able to help her at all (she tastes her tea a little more around Celestia)- is telling her that she should just keep going on as she has. And simultaneously demonstrating how just going through the motions is all that's needed to comfort those around you.
And Twilight knows that she's not doing anything. She wants to do something. But she doesn't have anything to do, she doesn't have any effect on what's going on around her aside from just sitting there, nodding happily. Just like Celestia.
This is probably all wrong, but it was an interesting story nevertheless. (Though, 'airplane in an endless holding pattern' is quite interesting since there aren't really the airports/traffic control to have actual airplanes in holding patterns in Equestia... not sure if that means anything or if it's just using a simile that we humans would understand)
This seems like an important bit but I'm still grasping for the meaning. Curse you, Trick Question.
My brain wants to try to figure out the riddle behind this story. But part of my brain doesn’t want me to have that answer because it’s going to be too depressing. I can feel the wrongness, and not being able to tie it down is very creepy. At this point, I have to sleep on it.
Frivolous guess:
As Derpsby suggested, Twilight lost everyone she cared about, but instead of zombifying them, she has created replacement automata from common objects. Spike was made from a defective Keurig machine. Celestia is a bobblehead.
lyokopony has posted a review of Holding Pattern on Youtube, complete with his own fan theory take on its events.
The root of the word patience is the Latin patiens, meaning suffering. Patience is the capability to suffer, a patient is someone who suffers.
Provide consistency, perform your function to the world, be patient (suffer!) as your personality becomes irrelevant and repetition murders your mind and soul.
A change will not come. There is no way out of this holding pattern.
You will never know joy again.
Immortality is the most horrid fate conceivable.
I just can't seem to figure it out, and I am both impressed and afraid.
I've seen the emphasis on sameness and routine, but... I'm racking my brain, trying to grasp the meaning. However, this sentence intrigued me:
Hollow. Everything is routinely the same. Same old, same old. But hollow.
Because everypony around Twilight is actually dead? This is a theory, but I'm not sure. Has something happened after the battle with Tirek, that everyone died? But since Twi had all the alicorn power, she could've survived. However, the emotional trauma must leave her in denial and desperation. Her emotional state has been shattered. She can't go on adventures because her mind can't conjure an adventure to go on. All it knows is routine. In order to save her sanity her mind has masked the truth by continuing routine, which is supposedly comforting. That's one theory...
I see how it could possibly be she has depression, but that doesn't seem quite dark enough.
Another point: She's focused on the ponies close to her. The ponies she lost? Also, she's voiced she no longer feels much purpose. Perhaps she is subconsciously realizing nothing matters, because there is nothing? Tirek's goal was to destroy everything. Did he succeed?
Also, such fuss about tea. But when you're in such trauma, the little comforts matter. Twilight's poor mind is finding something, anything to grasp.
Sorry for the long comment. Also sorry if my theory is waaaayyyyy off. This fanfic is blowing my mind.
7619056
I missed that line. It’s horrifying and I’m sure it’s a key to the solution, but I still think I’m missing something.
Did Twilight die in the battle with Tirek, and this is her experience in Tartarus/afterlife? If so, why does she know about the Friendship Castle, Cutie Map, etc?
Did she lose her friends in that battle but best Tirek anyway? And the cutie marks on the map actually are marking burial sites, which is why she hasn’t seen them recently? And Twilight has gone insane as a result and will be insane forever? If so, and this is a regression into fantasy for her, why is the fantasy so dark?
Perhaps Twilight was mortally wounded in the battle with Tirek. She is on life support and being given bitter medicines as they try to save her. Celestia realizes that she cannot be saved, but the princess of friendship can’t be allowed to die, so a fake figurehead twilight is created and given enough of her memories to put up an appearance. Spike and her friends do not care to interact closely with this artifact and so keep their distance. Celestia also finds it distasteful to interact with it, but does it to provide consistency for the realm.
Last and most meta: MLP has come to a production close before season 7 and is in reruns, with no new episodes. FOREVER.
Mundane Theories From Your Local Fruit-Based Rush Song:
1- Twilight is having a mid-life crisis
2- Twilight has a cold.
2.5- Twilight is sick in general.
3- Twilight was knocked into a coma during/after her fight with Tirek, and due to her obsession with orderlyness and keeping things within the status qou, her mind is trying to keep her occupied, throwing it's best approximation of her friends at her. These friends have no real personality or unpredictability due to all their actions and reactions being a product of Twilight's mind, and thus, her mind tries to keep them busy and away.
7626051 I like the third one.
My framing is that Starlight Glimmer and all of the Bearers except Twilight are dead, and she's refusing to accept that. The map hasn't realised that they're dead either and is highlighting friendship problems that are never going to be solved. Either that, or they all died on the missions highlighted on the map.
Thinking about it, I still have nothing, the closest I can come up with is that twilight's a robot? would it be terrible if i just ask for the answer?
This line makes me think It's a situation like the one in Everything is fine
I think this is too confusing for me. These theories are interesting, but they all admit that they don’t know, either.
That said, I enjoyed 7618960 the most simply for creativity.
Is Twilight a functioning alcoholic?
I don't have a clue what's going on. But if your past stories is anything to go by, I suspect some sort of time traveling and/or cloning shenanigan is involved.
Celestia suggests patience, but what for? To wait until Twilight's friends are dead and she'll converge to fixed point and accept it? And what does whole tea thing mean?
I don't get it
7617569
Can you tell me what you intended the story to imply?
I don't know, it looks like good old fashioned anhedonia as a symptom of crippling depression to me. But I'm not sure about Celesita's response in that light.
Given the author and the story, I am pretty sure there isn't an actual answer about what happened.
But that is okay because there doesn't have to be one, a jumble of misfit nonmeaning that encourages a reread that accomplishes nothing more than the last reread is very fitting with the theme of failed repeitition.
I'm going to break with tradition and say that no one's dead. Instead, Twilight's ennui comes from ceding all initiative to her coffee table. The Map may be deliberately snubbing her in an effort to make her give herself her own missions... and Twilight, who has spent almost her whole life serving one authority or another and never asked for her own, doesn't see that. She's spinning her wheels precisely because she doesn't know what else to do.
Also, Celestia's been burning the midnight oil lately and keeps nodding off in spite of herself. Probably best to send Luna in to give Bookhorse a kick in the rear.
I don’t get it
8882950
I don't think this is it.
I remember this story the first time, but I didn't get it then.
This time? I'm fairly sure... The key is in Pinkie's reflection on Sunday comics. The comics are sources of comfort, wherein you meet a comforting consistency - as Pinkie says, no matter how bad things get in the comics, they never change.
Just like Celestia. And now, Twilight. Because Twilight notes she USED TO do things. And now doesn't. Why? Because that's the nature of Alicorn magic. Ascension appears to basically result in some form of same-ness that becomes innate to the pony, as they become a perpetual source of comfort for the rest of Ponydom. Becoming an alicorn is not a blessing, really, but a curse - because it locks you into this sort of hell of Sunday Comics-dom. Celestia can get kidnapped again and again, yes, but alicorn magic ensures she is rescued. But in return, well, she spends all her time smiling, and waving, and drinking tea, and nodding her head. And now? Twilight is beginning to realize, at least unconsciously, that she is doomed to the same.
And thus, the title.
You said pretty much the same thing about newspaper comics last year when we were at the Old Bag of Nails. Kinda messed with my head, 'cause I used to enjoy reading them, but I can't recall or find any examples of ones that were actually funny. Even Non-Sequitor's just sorta meh
8882950
I like the way you think, and it's a nice enough explanation. For one, it's different to the other conclusions, in a very important way - it holds some hope.
Clearly, tea turns alicorns into zombies. :V
This one's rating is fine.
Guess I'll tell you that in the comments of each story, that'll be easier to keep track of. :B