The Velocity of Blood

by the dobermans

Motivation

A fish leapt from the surface of the pond, dancing a mid-air jig into a cloud of newly hatched damselflies before crashing back down to the water. The sound drew a cheer from a group of children playing on the grassy hill nearby, who spread out in an arc at the shoreline to watch for another jump. Their parents smiled, never pausing their conversion. One mare, glancing up at the crystal spires that reached high above the thatched roofs of Ponyville, gauged the time by where the sun stood between them. Satisfied that it hadn’t grown too late, she offered her friends another slice of bread she promised she had baked herself, grateful to be with them and her children, and for the peace and quiet of the outdoors.

It was not quiet in the throne room of the Castle of Friendship. If a pony had been listening from the grand receiving hall—a messenger from a foreign land seeking an audience, perhaps, or a lonely Ponyvillian hoping for advice from the famous Princess Twilight—they would have heard what sounded like hundreds of hooves tapping against the bare crystal floors. The smooth, patterned surfaces of the staircases that ascended to the upper stories and towers, the sparse nooks and alcoves branching from every passage, the seamless columns that supported the weight of the vaulted ceilings, and the green panes of the rows of picture windows all echoed with an anxious chatter.

But today, no voice called to give greeting. Today, the hall was empty.

Twilight paced. She had completed another revolution around the magic table that held the map of all Equestria, pausing at each of its encircling thrones to inspect the marks of her friends that were etched into the backrest panels of clear stone, before returning to her own glittering seat. She sighed and climbed into it, letting her head drop back against its hard, polished surface as she listened to the sounds of her hoofsteps fade.

Her gaze fell on the map and its silvery see-through holograms. It had called Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie away on Tuesday, signaling them while they were in the middle of the final taste test of a baking recipe exchange at Sugarcube Corner. There was a friendship problem in Cloudsdale, it seemed, and kindness and laughter were to be the solution. Like clockwork, the map knew, just as it had known to send Applejack and Rarity on a mission to Vanhoover. Twilight could still hear Rarity, insisting that they leave early enough to catch yesterday’s train in time to qualify for the complimentary noontime lunch. It just made good business sense, she’d said.

Rainbow Dash had flown off the week before, sending a wrinkled newspaper clipping to the Castle address with “Friendship I.O.U.” scribbled on it in messy hoof-writing. Twilight had heard she was on Wonderbolts duty performing at a charity flight demonstration to benefit the Equestrian Widows and Orphans League. Not one, not two, but three sonic rainbooms were on the program, or so the Ponyville grapevine had it.

Starlight had departed at sunrise. Traveling for two weeks with her new best friend Trixie on the Crystal Empire leg of her Sorry About That! Spring Season Magic Tour. She’d pinned a note to the dining room table, and an outline of her itinerary.

Sunset hadn’t written in over a month.

That left Twilight alone with her vast libraries. Alone again with her books, and all the time in the world. There was Spike, of course, but he didn’t really count. She’d been with him for so long that it was often hard to see him as a separate creature rather than a faculty of her own thoughts. A faculty that wasn’t particularly keen on fun activities like reading and research. He was always off somewhere anyway, busy with this task or that. The dishes had to get washed, after all. She was lucky if she caught an echo of him singing upstairs as he worked on any given day, or mumbling to himself below in the subterranean chambers of the castle that only he had explored.

She sat, and pondered.

Her attention drifted among the miniature jagged peaks and tufted lowlands, tracing the gorges that cut through them, focusing on the amazing details of all the kingdom domains. Friendship, she had learned, is universal. Like the lifeblood of the Tree of Harmony, it flowed far and abroad in roots unseen, connecting everything from the greatest of cities to the loneliest of hamlets. There was nowhere in Equestria her rule did not extend.

She passed her hooftip through a grove of gray pine trees that shimmered beside a ghostly Griffonstone. “I got everything I wanted,” she said, letting her hoof hover above the crags before plunging it into the chasm that had hidden the lost Idol of Boreas. “Didn’t I?”

There in the center of it all was Canterlot, burrowed into the side of its mountain, as clean and bright as the soul of the one who ruled it.

“I’m just like she is,” Twilight murmured to the tiny white city. She wondered whether she would ever be called there like Starlight had, not too long ago. The sunlight crept over the dormant map.

She didn't move when a distant door opened and closed, letting a breeze into the throne room. In the sweet brief moment of the springtime noon, something overhead clinked and rattled. Her reverie interrupted, she peered up to spy what the wind had caught.

It was the pictures her friends had hung from the roots of her old library, in memory of their adventures. The old times. The times when the world was full of monsters to be defeated, of endless mysteries of magic, and of the unnumbered ways she could choose her destiny. The times when her Princess watched her progress, sure and secure and ready to help whenever she wandered too far. The paddles that bore the images twirled and swung on their strings.

She spotted one higher up, tied close to the top of its garland so that it didn’t move as much as the others. It showed a young version of herself, engrossed in a thick, beribboned tome, alone next to the table with the bronze bust she used to keep in the reading area downstairs at the Golden Oaks.

She couldn’t remember the title of the book, or who had taken the picture. But the mood of the devoted little filly she saw there was clear. She was smiling.

Twilight sat and watched, and the sunbeam continued its slow journey across the table. One by one the illusions disappeared, caught in the blaze of the sun’s path, only to return when it moved on. In time, a smile cracked and spread across her face.

“That’s it!” she cried, leaping up from her throne.

“Gah!” came a reply from the hall. There was a long, toppling crash.

Footsteps grew louder, approaching the throne room doors. Spike wheeled around the corner and grabbed the doorframe, panting. A dented box of donuts and a feather duster were squashed together under his free arm.

“Twilight … are you … alright?”

Twilight galloped to where he stood, stopping with her muzzle pressed against his snout. “Classical mechanics, chemistry, biology, this is it! All of the major fields of study, encompassed in one problem!”

“What is it, Twilight?” Spike sputtered, taking a step back from Twilight’s bulging eyes and oversized grin. “Did you figure out how to solve a friendship problem? Make a big new discovery?”

Twilight clapped her hooves together. “I sure did! And if you thought me getting my wings was a major life-changing event, wait till you see this! Come on!”

She dashed out of the room. Spike propped his duster against the wall, set his donuts down, and jogged after her.

It was all he could do to keep her in sight. She was at full gallop, on the hunt for a fantastic new solution to a problem that had plagued ponykind since the dawn of time, Spike knew, and he’d bet his tail she was going to find it. He smiled as he ran. Twilight always saved the day, even when the day didn’t know it needed saving.

Her bouncing purple tail disappeared around the railing at the top of the main staircase. No problem, he thought. She was heading for the Science Repository, or his claws were made of rubber.

When he got there, books were flying off of their shelves from every direction, organizing into piles by subject and age, hovering in midair as bookmarks and note sheets were slipped between their pages. Chalkboards skated to the ready, a barrage of chalk already scrawling equations, diagrams and tables onto their powdery slate squares. There was Twilight, braced at the center of it all, her mane and tail billowing as if she were standing over a hot vent. The bright star of magic at the tip of her horn roared like fire.

“Twilight!” Spike shouted over the noise. He ducked as an encyclopedia volume rocketed past his head. “What are you doing? What did you find?”

Twilight unleashed her spell, calling entire shelves of books forth into a fluttering, shuffling storm.

“I’m going to measure the velocity of blood!”

Author's Note:

19/73

Comments

[Mystic Sunrise]

... grabs a quill and parchment "Dear Princess Celestia. Twilight is having a stupid moment again. Please help. Spike."

[erubianwarlord]

what does that even mean???

[Chara]

8819906
I can already tell this will not end well.

[Axis of Rotation]

Finally reading this!

She’d been with him for so long that it was often hard to see him as a separate creature rather than a faculty of her own thoughts.

I really like this line.

She wondered whether she would ever be called like Starlight had, not too long ago.

It should have been twilight!!!

[Xia_Shui_]

8819906