Learning the Ropes

by OrionsBelt

Advantages

Luna remained absolutely still as a butterfly gradually drifted downward, eventually settling on her outstretched hoof and earning a bright smile from the Princess of the Moon. Twilight looked on bemusedly, contemplating how to best test the likelihood that she was already asleep and this was all a dream constructed by Luna. Probabilistically, it seemed a no brainer: of course she was dreaming. And she would wake up and Luna would laugh at her.

Unfortunately, based on how tired she was and the very real-feeling pain of a rose thorn in her side, she was most likely awake. Unless Luna's magic could emulate pain and exhaustion in a dream state, which was a terrifying thought, she had to face reality. Luna sighed, or appeared to sigh, as the butterfly took off and she returned to the "lesson" at hand.

"There are advantages to speaking with telepathy you know."

Twilight's eyebrow rose, "Well, yes. I can imagine. It just seems-"

"Many you might not expect. For example: you can make any creature understand whether you are using a colon, comma, or semicolon; which can be done without them noticing yet leave no doubt in their minds as to which you used."

Twilight thought that over for several moments too long as she realized that, while she could hear Luna speaking to her normally, the information being transferred was somehow more than the sum of its parts. She knew she'd thought of it too long because she was suddenly overcome with a terrible migraine.

"Ooh... sorry Twilight. It's been a long time since I've been able to be this unguarded with anyone but Tia. I drop semicolons every so often just to annoy her. I forget it can be a bit of a mindbuck for normal... or, well, unsuspecting pony's."

The pain was slow to recede but Luna stayed with her as the sun rose high above, commenting on whatever happened to be crossing her mind, because apparently that was- Owowowow... nevermind, not thinking about it.

"What. Other. Rules." She managed through clenched teeth, hoping to get her mind off of telepathic grammar.

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"Need. Distraction."

"Ah. Fortunately, that is something we have become very good at. Does a straw have one or two holes?"

Twilight blinked. Her brow furrowed. And then her entire head swiveled as she gave a massive eye roll, "Are you kidding me? That was your distraction? And it WORKED?"

Luna giggled merrily, "Oh Twilight Sparkle, you are a delight. I felt so cheated when I found out Tia got to give Cadance "The Talk" but I must say I think I prefer-"

"You mean you've been looking forward to telling me I can't eat, drink, or breath ever again?"

"..."

"..."

"Come Twilight! Perhaps we can catch Tia during her mid-morning nap, I'm sure you'll want to verify the veracity of my claims."

"Mhm."

Twilight intended to remain stonily silent the entire way to her mentors chambers but, predictably, her curiosity won out over her stubbornness, "Wait a second, how are you supposed to not breath in your sleep?"

"Practice. It comes naturally when one willfully cultivates a mindset of total apnea."

"I really don't understand how that can be considered a 'mindset' but I'd rather you answer this question instead: why sleep at all? Is that not something else Alicorn's can do without? Shouldn't that be when you are most vulnerable?"

Luna's smile went from surprised, to smug, to downright evil in the span of a step, "A sound idea that many a foe has fallen prey to. We do require sleep, but not in the way that normal ponies do. Ponies must sleep to let their body and mind recuperate from the stresses of living; we sleep-"

"Argh, Luna! Semicolon!"

"Sorry dear, force of habit. Let's see... The more you take, the more you leave behind. What is it?"

She let Twilight puzzle through her words for a moment and lose her pained expression before continuing with her explanation, "We sleep to release ourselves from the physical plane and 'stretch our wings' in the astral plane, so to speak. Our physical bodies technically remain vulnerable but that's not where we really 'are' anyway."

"...but you do need to sleep. Like, you do still get tired."

Luna looked thoroughly put out as they arrived at Celestia's bedchambers, "Yes Twilight, we do still 'get tired'. Way to take all the majesty out of it. Sister!"

A muffled scuffle was all the response she got from the room, "Don't you take that tone with me! You're just bored and want to escape into the astral plane!"

The door did not move and Twilight continued hearing half the conversation as Luna argued with nothing.

"It is not a stupid name for dreaming, that's exactly what you're doing! You're leaving your body to enter into a- Just- Agh, you-"

"Um, Luna?"

"-always do this! Oh, sorry Twilight. Sister! Thine protege is here as well."

Immediately, Celestia's voice became perfectly audible through the door, "Luna, why did you not start with that? Please Twilight, come in."

Luna followed Twilight through the door with a raised eyebrow, "Am I invited as well sister?"

Celestia telekinetically threw a pillow at her from the bed, which she easily caught and tossed back. Twilight snatched it out of the air before things could escalate, "So it's true: you both just always use telepathy." Her eyes widened as a thought occurred to her, "Wait... so I've never heard your voice princess?"

Celestia outstretched an enormous wing and half dragged, half swept Twilight across the room into an enveloping hug, "Oh Twilight, you're so adorable when you're puzzling through existential problems. The best advice I can give you is to not think about it, the answers either come to you one day or you stop caring. Not worth laying in bed at night worrying about it."

Luna frictionlessly slid into Twilight's limited field of view not filled with alabaster feathers, "Not when you could be soaring through the astral plane!"

Twilight felt Celestia's groan reverberate around her, "Ugh, sister, please stop with this 'astral plane' bandwagon you've built yourself."

Luna quirked her head, "Bandwagon?"

Twilight's head popped out of Celestia's plumage, "These days it's called a 'hype train' Princess."

Celestia rubbed her temple woefully, "Ugh, would they stop changing my language without my permission? How am I expected to stay current?"

"Imagine how I feel." Luna commented dryly, peering after the purple eyes slowly receding back into her sisters feathers, "Twilight? Twilight. You cannot escape The Talk, not even in my sisters voluminous bulk."

She didn't even try to dodge Celestia's wing as it swatted her from the edge of the bed, gracefully falling onto the discarded pillow, "But as I was saying: sleep is not your weakest state of being. If your body is 'slain'-" Twilight flinched from within her downy burrow as she felt the weight of Luna's air quotes in a way that should never be, "-your mind will simply reconstitute itself elsewhere into an appropriate form." She snorted, "Tia, do you remember that time you were stuck in the body of that poor swan for a whole month?"

Celestia offered a thin-lipped smile that didn't reach her eyes, "Yes. Just as I remember if every other time you bring it up."

"There was this one fox that just would not leave her alone, she would come flailing into rooms locked in mortal combat with this scrappy little vermin with a dozen royal guards trying to break up the struggle." Luna's giggles were slow to subside but eventually she sighed airily, "Haaa-anyway, Twilight I'm sorry but yes, I have been looking forward to this. If only to have another-"

"Wait. You're laughing."

Luna froze for an instant before giving her an innocent look, "Yes. There's no rule against that."

"Laughing deeply. Which is basically just breathing with- Oh for the love of- you've been leading me on all day."

Celestia guffawed, "Yes! YES!" She raised her wings in a mighty "V" of victory as Luna's expression soured, "The mighty, unmatched, STUPENDOUS mind of Twilight Sparkle wins again!"

Twilight gawked at her mentor's outburst, reddening slightly at the praise in spite of herself, "Princess, I... were you two betting on if I would figure it out?" She glared at Luna, who was sulking on her pillow, "You mean you kept me up all this time just to play a prank on me?"

Luna's mouth quirked to the side but it was Celestia who answered, "To be fair Twilight, it was never a question of whether you would figure it out, just a question of when. I expected you to fall for it no longer than a few hours at most, Luna was betting she could lead you on for at least the rest of the day. And neither of us expected to have much success if you were fully awake and aware when we broke the news, hence keeping you awake."

"Ok... so none of that was true? This whole morning has just been one long mindbuck?"

Celestia smiled apologetically, "Well, the breathing thing is a fun little prank I played on Cadance when I was bringing her up to speed but most of the rest of what Luna told you is more or less true. No eating or drinking, except on special occasions. It's one of those things that can be drastically helpful as a half-measure but provide diminishing returns after a certain point of abstinence."

Luna flopped wearily back on her pillow, "Indeed. If we cut out all earthly pleasures it would be much harder to get up each day. We shall find you a royal taster for formal events, otherwise eat as sparingly and as... sporadically as you can. Most mind-altering potions that would work properly on any of us are quite expensive to brew. If you're clever, you can bankrupt the would-be poisoners by wasting their ingredients."

Celestia brought her wing around Twilight again to whisper to her conspiratorially, "Luna is a master at this, she used to go months without touching a drop and then go on country-spanning benders."

The pillow exploded into feathers as it struck Celestia's face, the elegantly crafted cushion thoroughly impaled on her horn. She tipped the bottom up, much as Applejack might with her stetson, continuing unphased by Twilight's stifled giggling, "Other than that you are, as far as we know, completely immortal one way or the other. You really only have to worry about foreign magic getting into your system. It's really not that bad, whatever Luna has said to you so far."

Twilight took a deep breath and sobered, narrowing her eyes, flicking her gaze between the sisters, "...do you still like cake?"

Celestia sighed, eyes rolling to the ceiling as Luna cackled from her place on the floor, fully recovered from her momentary doldrums, "HAHAHA, oh I can't believe I actually made you doubt it!"

Author's Note:

I realized that any kind of hearty laughing kind of defeated the purpose of the "no breathing" rule at the same time as Twilight. I'm still debating whether the prank angle was the best choice but I felt it was a funny way to address the above problem so I rolled with it.

I'll probably keep writing a couple more chapters at least, immortal pranksters are just too fun.

Comments

[Ri2]

Don't be preposterous, Twilight. Celestia loving cake is one of the fundamental rules of reality, along with her liking tea. Except when she doesn't.

[OrionsBelt]

9589440
Oops. Noted and fixed, thanks!

[PudgyBudgie]

I like the prank angle, it's too depressing otherwise

[IceHawk]

The prank aspect of this reminds me of "my brother the tooth."

Sell twilight that bridge!