The Progress of Stars

by ambion

Looking at the Stars

To be an alicorn was to carry a whole mythos about yourself, like a cloak of rumours and stories. Twilight Sparkle had long since learned it wasn’t something that could be shed so easily as other garments.

For instance, ponies believed that being an ascendant princess she never slept. Which simply wasn’t true. She needed it less, that was certain — she could comfortably flit through days and weeks and months on infrequent and brief catnaps that would hospitalize other ponies, but that was missing the point entirely. Never slept? Goodness sake, she liked sleeping!

She just liked keeping a busy schedule more. The Equestrian Empire was a great wheel turning through the world. Turning dreams to ambitions and ideas into realities. As one of its highest placed custodians, Twilight was never short of frontiers to busy herself upon.

It was twenty minutes past three in the morning, and Twilight Sparkle was sitting in her private study, watching her computer screen. An ellipses wiggled patiently in the centre of screen, while colour patterns and music chosen no doubt to soothe the waiting time played.

She swiped a minimized app into view: a simple chronometric display. There was a slight temporal differential between Equestria and Tranquility. At present, the lunar colony was a scant two hours ahead of her on the clock. By the end of the month, the ponies on the moon would be two hours behind, relatively speaking. Time flew, literally. On a clear night of the new moon, the colony base’s light could just be seen: a new star nestled in the ancient sky.

The relevant thaumaturgic algorithms concluded their work and with a soft musical note Twilight was patched through. A blue stallion of young features appeared, blinking and fussing to make himself presentable. Most of his hair was braided, but not all: such was what he fussed over. He smiled self-consciously and let the remaining hair down.

“Princess Twilight, punctual as ever. Forgive me that I’m not so.” The stallion blushed and hesitated.

Twilight Sparkle did, contrary to another silly myth, smile. It was a very slight upturning at the edge of her mouth, a wry grin and perhaps a lighting up of the eyes. Likely why ponies missed it: they simply were never close enough. “Adjutant Candle Light,” she said, showing that self-same smile, “apology simply isn’t necessary. You look fine.”

“A compliment from a princess, and the sun not even up yet? Today is going to be a good day.” The colony’s governor had a wider, younger smile. More accessible.

It pleased Twilight to see it. “I expect that to be the case, yes.” She swept her hoof across the screen, moving and dropping a file folder into their conversation. “I’m forwarding to you the final revisions to my itinerary, supply manifesto and agenda.”

“It’s helpful in the extreme to have this, thank you. All of Tranquility looks forward to hosting your visit. I promise we will do all we can to make it as fulfilling a stay as can be.”

Twilight had years ago given up on talking down such sentiments. She was just one pony, but try telling others that. In the distance, her keen senses could just make out the soft, unobtrusive humming of a magi-rail as it sped past, its thrumming sound a rising, falling doppler before fading back entirely. The noisome companionship of traditional trains were antiquated now, and went unheard in the night.

“Any notes I should be aware of, Princess?”

Twilight’s smile went, though her mood was unaffected. Candle Light was distracting her. She wanted to reach through the screen, grab the adjutant’s hair and finish braiding it. Never one for stylings, she was nevertheless always one for symmetry and completion. “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve contacted Captain Arbuck, he’s agreed to advance the Golden Tether’s schedule by two days.

“That would put you on your flight this morning.”

“That is the plan, yes.”

Candle Light went to search the arriving documents, Twilight stopped him with an upturned hoof. “This won’t affect my arrival time, there’s no need to worry. I well understand how much upheaval such a thing can cause in a schedule. We’ll simply be starting earlier and travelling slower.”

The adjutant cocked his head, stray strands fell in front of his face and these he unconsciously flicked away. “An interesting choice,” he said. “I’m curious as to your purpose, if it’s not rude to ask?”

“Not at all.” Twilight really wanted to brush the pony. “And it is purely for my own enjoyment. You’ll have full access to tracking our route. It’ll be quite thrilling for me, to see Equestria from high orbit.”

“It is indeed a sight.” Candle Light laughed — for a moment, his unfinished braiding looked quite appealing — “...I trust Tranquility and the moon won’t be diminished in your eyes for it.”

“I think not. The Golden is plotted to take me for several passes over the moon also before we land, and I look forward to that just as much. As it stands now, you should have everything you need. I look forward to meeting you in person, Candle Light.”

“Likewise, Twilight. It has been my pleasure.”

Twilight concluded the call. Her computer wound down to a dimly lit sleep mode, awaiting any further use by her. At present, she had none for it. Barring actually boarding the Golden Tether — and breakfast — there was nothing left for it but to wait. Her preparations were made, revised and finalized. In a matter of hours, the princess’ three month sojourn to the lunar colony would get underway.

But that was hours, and Twilight had always had a quick mind. Feeling unusually buoyant she left her desk and her sleeping computer. She ran her hoof over her heirloom — her old telescope, given her by her father, antique and perfectly maintained all these decades and, taking it to her balcony, turned it towards the light of the heavens.

Author's Note:

Created as one of the one thousand word story prompts I exchange with the lovely Crystal Wishes. Her stories are wonderful and engaging; you will see I have commandeered the comments sections more than once and I would recommend her words to even people who don't think they'd be looking for romantic slice of life epics and come out, like I did, enamoured of them.

As for The Progress of Stars, it is my very first dalliance with the Sci-fi tag (if we discount certain Random and Comedy pieces). I appreciate that the story is as minimally short as feasibly, Fimficcably possible (such is the challenge of the prompt) but let me know what you thought of the sci-fi elements herein - if they were done well or if there's more I could be doing. It's a genre I'd certainly like to revisit in greater detail, and sooner than later at that.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

A novel slice of life, but there just wasn't enough to it for me to offer much in the way of constructive critique. As for the sci-fi elements, they felt more painted on than anything. There wasn't much difference between this scenario and one where Twilight has Spike send a letter to some new western boomtown that she'll be arriving a few days early to better appreciate it. Mind you, that does help emphasize that this is still Twilight Sparkle after all these years, but it still makes the story feel less consequential. Clarke's Third Law is working against you; the sufficently advanced technology isn't offering much that magic can't provide.

... So much for not much critique, huh?

[ambion]

8276587

You raise a good point I hadn't considered. On the one hand, we have an Equestria that is steam trains, quills and candles. On the other hand: time and dimensional travel, meteorlogical control and terraforming.

Magic sort of ousts the potential for Sci-fi to make light of those wonders, like Clarke requires.

Definitly something to think about, going forwards! As for the story itself, at least the "doesn't feel that different" subtext happens to feed back into the "not supposed to be that different past superficialities" narrative.

Thanks for reading, thanks sending me your thought.

[Crimson Dawn]

One can get around that problem by establishing limits on what magic can do though the writer would have to do it because with the show we can see that establishing to help with a scifi story is not on the priority list. By establishing certain limitations you can then have technology concentrate on those areas that magic does not and still get much of the desired effect.