Modern Vortexology
Twilight,
Come to Canterlot as soon as you can, alone. Please consider this an emergency and act in due haste. I will be waiting.
Your friend,
Celestia
Twilight tucked the note into her saddlebags as she cantered up to a massive golden door emblazoned with Celestia's cutie mark and flanked by two royal guards. The left guard snapped a salute while his partner opened the door.
"Your highness," the guard said.
Twilight checked behind her to see who – ah. Right. The "highness" in question belonged to her.
The guards, thankfully, either did not notice or were excellent actors. Probably the latter. She resisted the urge to flutter her wings, gathered what was left of her tattered dignity and nodded. "Thank you, Steel Wing."
A pleasant wave of heat washed over her, warming the chill from her fur as she trotted inside. The door shut behind her.
Princess Celestia's study remained true to the countless warm memories Twilight had long held dear. A large hearth rug surrounded with pillows dominated the room, upon which Twilight had dove into many a book while the Princess had pored over paperwork. Chalk-written equations filled a mobile blackboard – the same board Twilight had learned the Starswirlian Fundamentals upon. The fire crackled in the fireplace, beating back the night's chill and throwing shadows over the hundreds of knickknacks Celestia had accumulated over the years.
An ornate weapon stand covered in glowing runes loomed in the corner, the only object Twilight didn’t recognize. On one side, Celestia's legendary longsword gleamed. The other side was bare, leaving a dusty outline where – Twilight guessed – Luna's infamous battle axe had resided. Twilight swallowed.
Celestia was leaning over her desk, engrossed in a pile of dusty scrolls and parchments that looked as though they hadn't seen the light of day in centuries. She was so absorbed that she failed to notice Twilight’s entrance. That, fortunately, was somewhat within norms. What dropped Twilight’s jaw was the heavy golden armor Celestia had donned. Thick plates embossed with the royal sun sigil protected her vital areas, supplemented with chainmail for flexibility. An ornate war helm hampered her billowing hair.
"Princess," Twilight said, trying to cover up her breathlessness from her scramble to pack and teleport as quickly as possible. Also, imminent doom. "What's going on?"
"Twilight!" A flash of annoyance crossed Celestia’s features for less than a second, but Twilight knew her well enough to catch it and winced. Celestia must've told her a dozen times not to call her Princess anymore. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation when Celestia didn’t comment on it. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. Luna wanted to be here, but time is of the essence. She’s mustering our troops as we speak.”
Twilight nodded, gulping. This was big. Changelings? Windigos? A new menace? “If there’s a threat to Equestria, shouldn’t I have brought the other Elements?”
“The Elements can’t help us here, Twilight. But I’m hoping you can. In one way or… or another.” Her lips pressed into a thin, grim line. “I’m afraid I have a lot of information to give you and not a lot of time."
Twilight tossed her saddlebags to the ground and extracted a scroll and quill – a hoof stopped her.
"No record should be made of this meeting. The matter we're about to discuss, it's... sensitive. Dangerous even, if it were to fall into the wrong hooves."
"Alright, Cel – er –," she tried to force out the blasphemous name, failed, then threw in the towel. Get it together, Twilight. This is big league. Try not to mess this up. She straightened her back, ears pointed forward. "Just tell me what I need to do."
Celestia levitated her legendary blade from its resting place. She turned it over, studying the nicks along its edge, and her face hardened. “I won’t mince words. This is going to be hard… but you have a right to know. Especially as the Princess of Friendship.”
Twilight’s ears pinned back.
“Tell me, Twilight, have you ever heard the legend of... the Vortex?” Celestia grimaced as though the mere utterance of the word pained her.
"The Vaxillian Fire Vortex? On the peak of Mount Silverhoof?"
Celestia’s eyebrows shot up. “I – yes. The same. How much do you know about it?"
"Well..." Twilight bit her lip, struggling to recall everything she'd read about the Vortex. "It's the focal point of the world’s harmonic energy. The Elements of Harmony, the magic of friendship, even Discord's powers, in a backwards sort of way, connect to the Vortex. The love and friendship of everyone, everywhere, all feed the flames so it never stops burning. The more friendship, the brighter it burns.”
Celestia stilled. Her sword, which she had been twirling as she paced, had frozen mid rotation.
Panic flashed hot and carried with it the age-old terror of failing a test Twilight hadn’t been warned of.
She barreled on, scouring the dregs of her memory for something, anything. “And every millennium or so, give or take a few decades, it releases built up dark energy. If it's not properly contained, the wave of dark energy can warp life as we know it. Didn't most of the dangerous species in the Everfree forest originate from Vortexian waves? I know manticores, timberwolves, and cockatrices, for sure. Also, it affects compasses? I think? I'm sorry, Princess, I wish I could remember more, I've just been pretty focused on alchemy lately and – well, anyway. That's all I know."
Twilight's gaze dragged to the floor, her wings – traitorous things that they were – fidgeting as she mentally bludgeoned herself with a hoofball bat. How could the Princess of Friendship not be a subject matter expert on the wellsource of the magic of friendship? Had the Princess summoned Twilight in a crisis, assuming her to be the premiere authority? She was sure that if she were to question Celestia about the sun, or Luna about the moon, they could fill entire libraries with their expertise.
This. This was why she simply couldn't put herself on the same level as a real Princess.
Princess Celestia was annoyed that Twilight couldn't call her by her first name? In Twilight's opinion, Celestia should count herself lucky that Twilight hadn't flung herself to the floor in prostration the second that door had swung open. She wouldn’t believe –
"You... know?" Celestia said. Her head tilted as she scrutinized Twilight from head to hoof, as though Twilight had just declared herself Princess of Daffodil Sandwiches. “But… how?”
"Uh... books?"
Celestia squinted at her.
Twilight quailed. "And uh, peer reviewed studies? It was one of the first topics I researched when you tasked me with studying the magic of friendship. I don't understand. Is there some sort of dark secret regarding the Vortex? What exactly is going on?"
Celestia cleared her throat. "Ahem. Not... that is, you seem to have the gist of it." She coughed into her hoof, then chuckled. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that my former faithful student would have scoured the most obscure and ancient tomes searching for forgotten knowledge."
Twilight shifted. She had not, in fact, scoured ancient tomes, as ancient tomes were not, as a rule, known for their strict adherence to the scientific method. Was she supposed to have? "We had to make dioramas of it in magic kindergarten," she said at the lowest possible volume. She had gotten an A.
“I’m impressed,” Celestia said, seeming not to have heard Twilight’s last comment. “This is an unexpected blessing. Perhaps there is yet hope for Equestria.”
Celestia tapped her desk with an armor-shod hoof, resulting in a thud that shook the dust from the scrolls. “I’ve been researching, Twilight, and what I discovered doesn’t bode well. I expect the harmonic tides are roiling as we speak. By my calculations, dark energy will spew across the land in less than a fortnight.” She looked away. “Luna and I have experienced the effects of the Vortex in the past, suffered under the spawn it creates. Yet I’ve been so distracted since Luna’s return, with all that has happened, the Vortex hadn’t even crossed my mind. I became… complacent. We should have had more time. Twilight… I’m so sorry.”
She crossed the room to stare out the lone window. Moonlight glinted off her golden armor. “I need your help, Twilight, as you’ve helped me time and time again. We need to prevent the Vortex from unleashing its dark energy. We have two weeks. Maybe less. And barring that… In the worst case scenario, we shall face what the Vortex dishes out. Together.”
"What?!" Twilight summoned her top five go-to books on the Vaxillian Vortex, flipping them all open simultaneously. As an afterthought, she also summoned her diorama. "The Vortex, about to produce another harmonic rupture? And so soon after the last one? There's nothing I've seen in my studies to indicate it could re-occur this fast!"
"Twilight," Celestia said with the aura of a gentle, albeit heavily armed, schoolteacher, "the last rupture was over a thousand years ago. Everything I know about the Vortex indicates that it is very much due for a harmonic event of catastrophic proportions."
Twilight paused while comparing notes from Vaxillian Numerology and You with a reference page from The Cortex of Your Vortex: A Visual Guide. "Princess... the last one was almost three years ago. Don't you remember?"
“No.” Celestia shook her armored head. "I – no. That's not possible." She tugged forth the equation-ridden blackboard. “My formulae have accurately predicted the last two vortex events. What you’re saying – that shouldn’t be possible. Why isn’t the world consumed by dark magic? It can’t have occurred and escaped my notice, or Luna’s. I would sense it.”
Twilight frowned at the blackboard, running the numbers in her head, then consulted the equations in the books levitating beside her. "Well, the Equestrian Society of Vortexologists dispersed the dark magic with hydrostatic autocleansers, didn't they?" she said, turning the pages of The Magical Math of Friendship. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Celestia making a series of facial expressions that Twilight couldn't interpret and therefore pretended that she didn't see.
There was something odd about Celestia’s numbers that she couldn't put her hoof on. She had followed all the proper equations – in fact, the equations in these modern textbooks may have originated from Celestia herself, if she thought about it – but something wasn't adding up. "Oh! I see. You didn't apply the Friendship Locality Index."
"The Friendship – what?" Celestia’s brow furrowed as she leaned over Twilight's shoulder. Her eyes darted between the blackboard and the multiple open textbooks.
"Well," Twilight tapped her hoof on her chin, "I'm betting no one lived on top of Mount Silverhoof thousands of years ago, what with the giant fiery Vortex and lack of suitable farmland, did they?"
"...No," Celestia said.
"But now the headquarters for the ESV is there, right? And then there's the Museum of Vortexology, and all the novelty shops, and all the workers' families. A lot of friendship near a harmonic epicenter, well, heh, the effects go without saying."
Celestia seized the nearest floating book, levitating a pair of bifocals onto the bridge of her snout. She flipped a page, then the next and the next. She consulted the blackboard, then went back to the book. Her eyes drilled into the text, which was accompanied by a detailed diagram and a helpful “Fun Facts for Foals!” feature box.
They looked at each other.
Twilight looked pointedly in another direction.
"We appear to have been saved," Celestia said. "By the brave ponies of the, ah --"
"Equestrian Society of Vortexologists," Twilight said.
“And… no enemies of Equestria have attempted to quench its flames? To end all harmony on the planet, forever?”
“Scientifically proven to be impossible.” Twilight turned the page to the appropriate diagram for her.
"Right. In that case." Celestia cleared her throat. "Twilight, please remind me to make sure they all receive the proper awards for their services to Equestria."
Twilight opened her mouth, thought the better of it, and nodded.
Celestia removed her gleaming war helm, allowing her colorful hair to fall free. “I suppose I should go send a messenger to Luna.” She levitated her sword across the room, setting it with a thunk onto the stand. Her armor clanked as she traipsed to the door.
Twilight stared at her hooves as Celestia exchanged words with the guard, mentally creating a pros and cons list to whether she should teleport away and never bring up this subject again.
Celestia traipsed back.
Twilight searched for words to make this have never happened. She came up empty.
Celestia broke the silence with a chuckle. "I feel rather silly."
"Ha, yeah. Those are horseshoes I'm extremely familiar with.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head, ruffling her mane in precisely the way Rarity had told her not to. “Still glad there's no world-ending crisis, though. For once."
"Oh, I agree with that, rest assured. And now the royal desk can stop looking like an archaeologist left their trash all over it."
Twilight teleported her literature back to the library in Ponyville, except her copy of Modern Vortexology, which she slipped onto the mantle where it would be visible. She would fill out a library card for Celestia later. Rules were rules, after all.
Celestia busied herself with organizing the scrolls on her desk – a little too busily to be believable. Twilight chewed her lip, debating whether to open her big mouth or not. "You know, I'm kind of glad this happened?"
Celestia’s muzzle scrunched as she tucked the last of the scrolls into a chest. "How so?"
Her cheeks reddened. "Well, it was sort of nice, seeing you so..." She scuffed her hoof, searching for the word. "Fallible. Not in a bad way! I mean –"
"I know what you mean. That's... that's good, Twilight. I am more than willing to sacrifice my pride in the interests of friendship." Celestia barked a laugh that lacked true humor. "Especially our friendship."
Twilight drew circles on the carpet. "So..."
"Don't ask," Celestia said with a laugh that sounded more genuine.
"Sorry." Twilight scooped up her saddlebags and slid them over her head.
"Oh alright, ask me."
Twilight took a deep breath. "So... alright. Okay, how do you miss an entire field of science? I mean, they have a few royal grants, don't they? At some point you must've signed something –"
"No, I take it back," she said with a hurried wave. "Permission to ask questions is revoked."
Twilight huffed, struggling to hide a grin as she pretended not to notice the pink dusting Celestia’s cheeks.
She hesitated at the door, allowing herself one last moment to appreciate the room. Memories of a fillyhood long gone washed over her. It was hard to believe that Twilight's life had changed so drastically, and yet Celestia's study had remained unaltered. She imagined Celestia in her study alone, surrounded by her hundreds of knickknacks.
Celestia leaned in to adjust the straps on Twilight's saddlebags, even though Twilight had already tightened them. "You should come by the palace more often. Luna… she’s always going on about the adventures you two have had together.” Celestia focused on the straps, avoiding her gaze. “She misses you."
Guilt panged. Now that Twilight thought about it, it had been a while since she’d last spent quality time with Luna. She promised herself that she would fix it. "I will."
Celestia hugged Twilight with her wing, giving her a nuzzle. "Thank you for saving the day yet again, Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight shrugged, feeling her cheeks flush. "Glad I could help, Celestia."
At those words Celestia straightened and, for reasons unfathomable, smiled wide. Twilight blinked. It was a happy sort of smile, and it wasn't until that moment that Twilight realized she had seen Celestia smile politely, or patiently, or ruefully, or even mischievously, but never quite like this. Just happy. And young, somehow.
Twilight mentally ran through how a polite glad I could help could have possibly caused such a transformation, then settled on the notion that Celestia was simply an enigma.
Celestia followed her out the door, sending her into the hall with one final, inexplicable nuzzle. As Twilight concentrated on the spell that would teleport her to Ponyville, she almost missed the nigh inaudible murmur.
"Goodnight, Twilight."
"Night, Celestia," she said, and teleported.
Atop the icy peak of Mount Silverhoof, the Vortex burned brighter.
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Given the name, I was expecting this to suck.
8061157
I see what you did there.
No, I mostly stuck to libraries. I've found that ancient tombs are mostly just filled with very dead ponies. And the occasional horrifying undead monstrosity. Very few books, scrolls, or tomes.
8061412
Ha, thanks. Fixed.
8061435 same things twice next paragraph.
This was great! Just letting you know!
This was nice~ :3
Seeing that cover picture reminded me of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings. As is I am glad that the fire of friendship burns brighter. Now Cadance just needs to light the fires of shipping.
8063039
Jeez, tomb/tome is becoming my nemesis. Thanks, fixed.
After all the ancient sealed-evils-in-a-can that Celestia knew about but nobody else did until they broke loose, I'm tickled pink to read a story where the tables turn like this. Fantastic. :)
But seriously, though. How? Luna messing up to this degree would have been believable, but not Celestia.
She's a patron of magical science. Not only does she have a prestigious magic school named after her, but it's heavily implied she personally runs it. She was the one who taught Twilight all the magics. If it was something very minor and obscure, I could buy it, but this is something schoolchildren know about. Not to mention, that vortex sounds very important. She would have taken an active interest in any advances in dealing with it, even devising some herself. She couldn't possibly not know about something that huge.
...I dunno, man. You're clearly not a bad writer but this is very farfetched, and also the friendshipping seems kinda secondary so I'm not sure I see the point of it. It's like you just wanted to humiliate Celestia a bit.
8064052
Thanks for taking the time out to give me thoughtful feedback. I appreciate your honesty!
8064107
I usually don't bother. I mean, it's only fanfiction. But you seem talented, so I figure it's worth the effort.
Mostly, try to think about the theme of your story and how to best express it. Stories always have some kind of fundamental message, and it's good to know what it is so you can make the most of it. Otherwise you risk ending up with the wrong moral, and that's usually bad, or at least confusing.
8061297
If you enjoy TwiLestia friendshipping, you might enjoy Bad Horse's Experience as well.
Anyway, thoughts on this story... hm hm.
Honestly, I feel like this story was a bit unfocused. It has two main elements - the first was that Celestia had managed to overlook something extremely important, thereby setting up what appeared to be a comedy fic as it was Celestia's turn to overreact and Twilight's turn to be the logical one. This then gets replaced by the second one, the fact that Celestia is lonely and wants Twilight to spend more time with her. Ultimately, neither really pushed it over the top for me - the first was mildly funny, but didn't feel like it quite pushed itself into the more rarefied air of hilarity. The second was sweet, but didn't feel like it was tied closely enough to the first. Had the story implied that Celestia knew full well there wasn't a crisis, but had simply manufactured one in order to draw Twilight to the capital so that Celestia could spend some time with her, I feel like the story might have tied itself together more strongly - or had the first half been funnier, but also shown more of Celestia's loneliness, that might also have worked better.
As is, this had the shape of a story I wanted to like, but it didn't quite push itself over the top for me. I did think the ending, with Celestia making excuses for Twilight to come to the capital more and Twilight being a bit oblivious to Celestia's empty nest syndrome was cute, though.
That being said, congratulations on being featured! I noticed you only started writing a few weeks ago, so it is cool that you got your second story ever (at least on this site) up in the FB.
Feel free to give me a poke if you have any questions or ever want someone to look at a story for you.
8064184
Thanks for the congrats. You explained in simple terms something that felt off to me but I just couldn't put my finger on. Gave me new perpsective on what I'm working on now. Thank you! Might take you up on your offer.
This was cute and sweet as could be without being cloyingly saccharine that some people try to make it.
Simple fics are the spice of life ♥
That was really great, and I absolutely did not see the twist coming.
Very good work; especially good pacing.
When I was that picture, I immediately thought of these guys:
darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Dark-Souls-3/DLC2_RingedKnight.jpg
I think I've been playing too much Dark Souls lately...
8064052
Keep in mind this is the same Celestia who turned Discord into a lawn ornament, and then proceeded to not keep an eye on him even though he was in a very public place. And who told Twilight that she had to help save the Crystal Empire without her friends.
And maybe the big one, but didn't think to check Tartarus to make sure nobody was missing when she learned that Cerebus had wandered astray.
What I'm saying is that missing an entire field of science is a big thing, but it's not impossible, particularly considering how careless Celestia has repeatedly demonstrated herself to be.
8064558 it's physically impossible to play too much dark souls. Human fingers and modern game controllers are incapable of sustaining activity for long enough, because science.
8064244
8064184
I think you're not quite right on both of those themes being unrelated. I think, for Celestia, Twilight is (still) kind of an anchor to the world. Ageless or not, she's still a pony, she makes mistakes and forgets/overlooks things, It has to happen, she had, have and will have plenty of time to make all of the mistakes possible for a pony, over and over again :3 And after a while alone, finally, there comes Twilight, someone who... understands. Who can correct her, help her or maybe fix/prevent/deflect some of those mistakes. Now, she did it again, asking nothing in return. And she finally called her by her chosen name. Yay! ^^
So no. I believe this is exactly as it should be. Platonic (at least for now) Twilestia. I got what I came here for.
Oh and for Luna it's probably much the same, only more pronounced. Celestia has to come up with a band-aid way to cope with her mistakes while being alone, Luna's issues are much more... raw. Or, rather, honest.
8064850
What exactly makes you think she wasn't keeping an eye on him, considering she kept him around on display for a thousand years, presumably for that very reason?
It's not like she had any way of knowing that he could ever break free, under what conditions, or that the effects of the Elements would weaken over time. Given all that, keeping him around for that long actually seems a bit paranoid if anything.
Yeah? Because that was the whole point of the test and it worked out exactly as intended.
We don't know how large Tartarus is, how many prisoners it keeps, how long it takes to check all the cages, whether or not the records have remained intact over the centuries, and who exactly is responsible for overseeing it all.
Celestia can't be expected to do everything herself. That's not the same thing as being blatantly ignorant of what is going on in her kingdom.
No, see, what you're talking about doesn't even begin to compare. All of your examples are at worst oversights, bureaucratic errors, or signs of overconfidence. They are mistakes. And yes, even Celestia makes mistakes.
But being one of your world's premier magicians and then plain having never heard of a field of magic devoted to studying a phenomenon you have reason to be very concerned about, to the point where school kids know more about it than you do, is not just a mistake or an oversight.
Let me give you a real world example: In 1999, the NASA Mars Climate Orbiter accidentally fell into the martian atmosphere and disintegrated. The cause proved to be a navigation data discrepancy due to a piece of ground software, supplied by Lockheed Martin, which was programmed to run on USC units of measurement, whereas NASA's own equipment ran on the metric system.
That was a screw-up. A huge, very embarrassing, totally avoidable screw-up, sure. But, you know, stuff like that happens. It simply didn't occur to the Lockheed Martin engineers to check if the NASA engineers were using the same units of measurement as they did, or vice versa.
What we're talking about here, on the other hand, is more akin to an aerospace engineer literally not knowing what the metric system is.
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Now Reviews #107.
My review can be found here.
This was such a lovely and sweet story. It's so hard for me to find good platonic twilestia these days. Fantastic work.
That was a good, wholesome story. I especially like the last sentence. It gave me the warm fuzzies.
Sweet and heartwarming
They should probably figure out how to siphon off all that concentrated hate it a more gradual and controlled manner. The lack of build up might even make the elements work better ignore near the end of the thousands years the contamination fucks things up.
8065435 dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw9611-983903_535533623175806_1058706742_n.png
This better not be spoilers for DLC of a certain game.
EDIT: aight cool I dont' think it ain't.
8066657
Nope, no relation. No worries.
8066520
Maybe they already siphon it off every so often. Three years ago:
"This is amazing, Doctor! You've managed to extend Beloved Smith's NL-calculations of rates [1] to higher dimensions," gushed Twilight as she looked over the calculations scrawled around the room's blackboards, then at the theoretical derivations summarized in the mess of papers on the ESV's chief scientist's desk.
"Thank you, Princess," replied Del Cross. "But the real heavy lifting was done by the experimental group led by Wind Shear. They used these calculations to come up with a hydrostatic autocleanser that we expect will be able to disperse much of the dark energy, reducing the effects from a Class 6 manifestation to a localized Class 2, or even a Class 1 if we're lucky."
Twilight looked at the equations again. "It looks like there's three dummy variables that you and Wind Shear didn't manage to get rid of. You're sending the resulting Class 2 to what seems like a set of nearly-random spherical coordinates somewhere on Equus? Where's it going to end up?"
Del Cross coughed softly. "Umm, we're not quite sure, Your Highness. The chaos involved has so far prevented us from fully resolving the dummy variables in all- or even most- circumstances. But I wouldn't be too worried about it. It's at most a Class 2. Let's head outside and watch Wind Shear's group start up the autocleanser."
An hour later, the autocleanser finished its work and the ESV headed to the Silverhoof Chaos Tavern to celebrate. At that exact moment in Ponyville, Filthy Rich looked around his conference table and said ""So let's start talking about Hearth's Warming." [2]
[1] https://www.fimfiction.net/story/195740/renowned-mathematician-beloved-smith-departs by Rustpony
[2] https://www.fimfiction.net/story/368739/barnyard-barge-ins by Estee
A perfect story in every regard, down to the last line. I'm glad I could read it and that it didn't slip by me.
This is strong.
I want a sequel where Celedtia tries to figure out what else she might have failed to notice.
This should really have a comedy tag!
Celestia's smile remained on her face well after Twilight teleported out.
"You can come out now, Luna."
"We cannot believe she fell for it. But will she still call you by your name when next you meet?"
Celestia shrugged and nuzzled her sister affectionately, then pulled the most recent report from the Equestrian Society of Vortexologists out from inside her armor and vaporized it.
"Oh, a dark souls fanfi-
Oh, a generic Twilestia fanf-
Oh, a decent Twilsetia fanfiction."
i kinda get the feeling that this should have a sad tag.
just how lonely is celestia in this?
Titanium hit he nail with the story. HOnestly, it feels like the latter half could be taken out, and it would be a good bit more...focused. Which would also make the ridiculousness of it seem more in place.
Also? It does suffer ONE problem. Namely, the "using humor to cover a plot hole." Works in a completely ridiculous story, but when it has something like the latter half, it fails. "How did you miss an entire field of science." "No questions!"
8078756 Thanks for the criticism. Comedy balance is a tough nut to crack for me personally. Glad to get feedback so I can improve.
8079332
His offer of editing is a good one. Again...take out the last half? Great story.
8079332
I disagree slightly with "take out the entire last half" because I think the ending to the story where this serves as a bonding experience for celestia and twilight helps the story, I just think the awkward silence and questions should be drastically shortened. Instead of bringing attention to the glaring plothole of "how does celestia miss an entire field of science" and then fail to provide any good reason for it, simply cut straight to Twilight deciding Celestia is an enigma and them coming closer because of it.
Either way this is too hilarious to not be favorited.
I'm going to disagree with some of the sentiments here about 'delete the last half'. I found that Celestia's glaring, unbelievable oversight here was only palatable because of the denouement we got out of it with the last half of the story. Without that, all the story does is make her look completely stupid for the sake of a joke... that joke being 'herr derr Tia so stoopid'. Taking her off whatever pedestal Twilight has her on is fine, but if it's just to make her look dumb I don't see the humor. Now, if it transitions into a heartwarming moment of understanding between our two players here, as it did... that's worthwhile. The joke seems far less mean-spirited and even becomes a bit funnier in retrospect.
Heck, even when I thought it was just being mean for comedy it was still well executed enough that I kept reading while chuckling at it. The second half brought a smile to my face and made the first half into something... err.. humanizing (insert pony equivalent word) rather than humiliating. Thanks for writing this; have another upvote.
8070512
This sounds like the Celestia that we know and love. The schemer and plotter.
That was fun. Twilight schooling Celestia, and the end of the world avoided.
My grandfather is confused by an ipod.
Celestia is about one hundred times older than him.
Poor mare's going to miss some things.
People seem to be making a stink over something that is perfectly reasonable. With everything she signs, and has signed over the centuries, of course Celestia would not remember ever single thing she signed for.
She obviously thought it important enough to do so or she wouldn't have.