Taking Time

by arcum42

All About Magic

"At the gala, with the princess, is where I'm going to be.
We will talk all about magic, and what I've learned and seen.
It is going to be so special, as she takes time just for me."

Chapter 1: All About Magic

Twilight Sparkle awoke from her slumber, and looked blearily around, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. With a yawn, she stumbled out of bed, knocking an empty wine glass over along the way. Something nagged at the back of her mind about today, but she disregarded it. Time for some breakfast, she thought.

"Spike. Spike!" she called out. "Spike?" Where was her number one assistant, anyways?

Then her mind started to become functional enough to remember recent events, despite a bit of a headache. Rarity had needed Spikes help with a large order of giant hats for the next few days, and he was staying with Rarity until they were complete. For breakfast, she was all alone.

Oh well, most other ponies can cope with breakfast without an assistant anyways. This shouldn't be a problem. After all, how difficult could it be?

Twilight headed to the kitchen area in a bit of a funk, not used to Spikes absence. She grabbed a bowl, and poured some corn flakes into it. Opening the refrigerator, Twilight levitated the bottle of milk over to the counter, then pulled off the top. She wrinkled her nose at the pungent odor that then filled the air. Examining the date stamped on the bottle, it turned out to have expired several days previously.

"All right, Twilight, you can handle this. What was that spell? Ah, right." Her horn glowed a deep lavender color, briefly surrounding the milk bottle. The milk bubbled up briefly for a moment, and emitted a glooping sound before settling back down.

Success! She examined the bottle with a triumphant smile which quickly turned to a puzzled frown. Rather than containing fresh milk, as she had expected, the bottle now appeared to contain some form of cheese.

"I wonder what went wrong?" She slapped a label on the bottle saying "Experiment #4" and tucked the bottled cheese back in the refrigerator for further study at a later time.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be much else left in her refrigerator. Needing something to eat, she pulled out a half-eaten daisy, artichoke, and goldenseal pizza from last night. She added some chopped onion from a baggy on top. Shrugging a bit, she dumped the cornflakes on top of the mess, then heated it up magically.

To go with her pizza, she took a packet of one of Zecora's tea blends, scooped it into a tea ball, and added the ball to a cup of water. One quick gesture from her horn, and it was boiling. Making water boil that quickly always ended up tasting inferior to a properly made cup of tea, but it would wake her up, between the caffeine, ginseng and various other stimulants.

The pizza didn't taste particularly good, especially now that she was awake, but it would at least keep her going. She would clearly need to do some grocery shopping later.

Proceeding over to her desk, she pulled out her to-do list for the day. She then checked "Eat breakfast" off, and, thinking about it, scribbled "Buy groceries" at the bottom of the list. Heading downstairs, she looked to see what the next item was.

"Spend quality time with Princess Celestia." Right, because of her visit. The rest of her memories crashed down on her, not helping with her headache any. Her mentor had planned to visit her for a few days. No emergencies or state visits this time, just the two of them spending time together.

Twilight had always looked up to her ever since they first met. Despite being her student, they rarely had any time alone. Even in Canterlot, the hours they spent together were few and far between. It wasn't that Celestia didn't want to spend time with her. It couldn't be. The Princess was extremely busy running the kingdom.

Moving to Ponyville had made matters worse. The time with her mentor had gone from scarce to totally nonexistent. She had hoped they could talk at the Gala, but that had been a total disaster. Since then, Twilight had sent her teacher a number of requests for some time together. She always seemed to be too busy. Even when she went back to Canterlot for the wedding, the business with that fake trying to steal her brother had gotten in her way.

Princess Celestia had always been her role model, ever since she was a filly. She would be too embarrassed to admit it, but Twilight had always tried to emulate her as much as possible. It was hard to follow in her shoes when she never spent any time with her, though.

Some time had passed since all of her requests for time together had been denied. She had given up on it for a while. Then, just last week, she received a letter from Celestia. She had managed to clear her schedule for a few days, and was coming to Ponyville to spend time with her.

Twilight had been ecstatic. She had reworked her entire month's calendar in a frenzy to free up those days. She had only stopped bouncing up and down with glee when Pinkie Pie had started bouncing along side her, claiming that it looked like fun.

Unfortunately, a followup to the letter had come last night. A minor diplomatic incident had occurred in the Griffin kingdoms. Due to it involving her great granddaughter, Celestia was going to have to travel there personally to deal with it, and would not be able to come out as scheduled.

She hadn't... dealt well with this news last night, a fact she now regretted. To add insult to injury, this business with her great grand-daughter came into play, proving just how little she knew her mentor. She'd never had any idea that Celestia even had ever had children. How much else had she missed?

She sighed. So, she was left with an unchecked item on her to-do list. This would be gnawing at her all day, and was impossible to complete. She had no other plans, and she didn't really want to make any, as that would mean accepting that Celestia wasn't coming. She knew this was true intellectually, in any case, but some part of her wanted to believe it'd all go away if she refused to accept it.

Nonsense, of course. Still, perhaps she could spend the day learning everything related to the Princess, so she was at least sticking to the spirit of her plans for the day. The obvious thing to do was to start a list of things she already knew about Celestia, and then expand on them.

With a mental action she'd practiced so many times that she barely had to think about it, a quill, ink jar, and a blank piece of parchment floated over to her, and she started writing.

"All right, let's approach this methodically. What things distinguish Celestia from most other ponies?" She considered the question carefully.

Well, the first thing was obvious, she thought. Celestia raised the Sun, and when needed, lowered the Moon. That was what had inspired her to learn magic in the first place. As such, she'd already researched this extensively. It takes over 9000 EMU's[1] to move the Sun, which was far higher than her own normal upper limit.

Naturally, she found out her limit, she'd been working on raising it. She did a series of magical exercises every day to increase her magical ability. Her strength had improved since she started them, and was actually much higher than average.

Of course, she still had a long way to go before tackling the Sun, or even the Moon. Ponies with that much magical power actually had it manifest in their appearance, such as in Princess Celestia and Luna's mane. She'd know if she started to get close.

She tapped her quill on the sheet in irritation. She was already doing everything she could on that front. What else distinguished the Princess from everypony?

Celestia had both wings and a horn. While uncommon, this was actually just a quirk of genetics. Every so often, a pony with both pegasus and unicorn ancestry is born as a winged unicorn. Or would that be a horned pegasus?

As it happened, Twilight had no known pegasi ancestry, and she couldn't very well modify her own genetics after the fact. Well, she might be able to, but that would take some pretty high powered magic, and she suspected Celestia wouldn't approve.

It would probably be seen as an effort to promote herself to a Princess, anyways, as all, er, winged horned ponies were automatically considered members of the royal family. Her foal sitter Cadance had been a prime example. At any rate, Twilight already knew a spell to give anypony wings, though it totally exhausted her.

Nothing of interest there. She determinedly continued on.

Celestia appeared to be immortal. She had banished Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago, and had been an adult even then. Twilight wasn't sure if she actually did not age, or was just quite long lived, but it didn't make much practical difference.

As it happened, Twilight had seen studies that pointed towards long life in unicorns being a function of their magical power. She suspected Princess Celestia's long life was actually due to having the strength to raise and lower the sun. If she ever got her power levels up as high as she wanted, a long life may come naturally as a function of it.

Hmm. She'd covered this ground already. What else?

Princess Celestia wielded the elements of harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon. And Twilight had done so as well, with her friends. A twinge of pride ran through her, thinking about it. They had even done what Celestia hadn't been able to, and brought Princess Luna back to her right mind. Had Celestia wielded the elements herself, or had there been other element bearers at the time? So many questions occurred to her, with no one here to answer them.

She continued writing. Twilight felt like she was grasping at straws at this point.

Celestia had a pet phoenix she cared for, Philomena. As if on cue, a few musical notes drifted from over in the direction of Peewee's nest. She may not have her own phoenix, but enough of the responsibility and care of Spikes phoenix fell upon her that she may as well. She made a note to make sure to spend more time with him while Spike was gone.

She chewed on a bit of her mane in frustration. This was getting nowhere! But she continued making her list. It was all she had, right now.

Celestia governed all of Equestria, making the critical decisions for the county, and acting as a final arbitrator and judge. That, Twilight didn't really want to ever do, to be honest. She was sure she'd royally screw something up, and it'd all be her fault. Technically, she likely knew enough from the many legal books she'd gone through, but there would have to be a major crisis before she'd even consider it. In any case, without Celestia there wouldn't be any day, so there would be far worse problems.

How had day and night occurred before Celestia and Luna came along, anyways? Most of Celestia's personal history was a blank book to her. Nothing she had read covered Celestia and Luna's parents or childhood, and given how many books she had looked at, she had to think nopony knew but the princesses themselves. Anything from before the princesses degenerated into myths and legends, with dubious historical value at best.

She would really need Celestia there to tell her about anything related to her early years, and Celestia often tended to deflect questions about her own personal history. Maybe Luna would be willing to fill in the details. She scribbled down a note to write to Luna about it, then paused, thinking about what she could write to her.

Dear Princess Luna,

Your sister's being no fun, and won't spend any time with me. Will you come over and play? We can spend some time gossiping about her scandalous past...

Your sister’s annoyed student, Twilight Sparkle

She laughed a bit, mood lightening a bit. Of course, she would never send such a thing, but it was fun to think about. Now, what else did Princess Celestia do that she could learn from or learn more about?

Drinking tea. Twilight knew as much or more about tea as Celestia did. In fact, she had been delighted when Twilight had sent her some of Zecora's blends. The appreciation she showed for tea in public could easily have just been part of the face she showed the public. But there was no mistaking the look of bliss a well-made cup of tea have her in private.

Come to think of it, there was one other time when she would see a similar look on the Princess's face. Twilight pulled out a scrap book she had filled with articles about her mentor. She flipped through it until she found the article she was looking for.

"Celestia: Just Like Us." It was a clipping from the Foal Free Press. Most of the article was nonsense, but they did make a good point about Celestia's sweet tooth, and specifically her love of cake. Twilight could name any number of times she had seen the Princess eating all varieties of cakes with enthusiasm, and occasionally, a sheer pleasure only matched by some of her favorite teas.

Maybe she was missing something. Twilight had never given cakes and pastries much thought in the past. She had eaten a slice or two of cake in passing at parties, certainly, to be polite. She might as well have been eating a stick of celery for the attention she had paid it, though.

With Celestia's high level of interest, Twilight was sure there was more to pastries and cakes then she had believed. After all, she once hadn't paid tea much attention, either, and now she loved it. So she decided to tackle the matter in the manner she knew the best: research and experimentation.

The research side, she could handle without issues. Experimentation would involve cooking, and there she was clearly out of her element. Her breakfast was a case in point. As such, she needed a partner for this. Somepony with an extensive knowledge of cake and cooking skills to match.

It was clearly time to head over to Sugarcube Corner, and see about getting Pinkie's help. And she should undoubtedly pick up some some groceries while she was out as well.

[1] The EMU, or Equestrian Magical Unit, is the unit normally used for measuring magic throughout Equestria, as set forth by the Royal Thaumaturgical Council of Mareheim in 143 Anno Caelestis. Further information on accurately obtaining measurements of magical energy can be found in the reference materials located at the Golden Oaks Library...

Comments

[khatre]

IMHO Luna would have said YES!
In the tradition of sisters everywhere there is nothing more fun than spreading gossip about an older/younger sibling.

[arcum42]

981043
You don't know how tempted I was to have that letter accidentally end up in Luna's hands, too. Especially since I agree with you on Luna's reaction. It didn't fit my plans for the fanfic, though, unfortunately.

[Wise Cracker]

"With Celestia's high level of interest, Twilight was she there was more to pastries and cakes then she had believed," I think the she needs to be a sure, or some such. Only thing I could find. Interesting start so far: cake as related to immortality. Also: Twilight's breakfast...amusing.

[arcum42]

1061956

Wow, I'm amazed with as many passes I made looking for issues and revising that that one made it through. Fixed.

And I had a lot of fun with Twilight's breakfast. I sort of think of her as an eternal bachelor who never has to cook for herself. So when she does, things don't go well.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Very amusing in parts, but I feel bad for Twi.