The Thousandth Moon [NaPoWriMo 2019]

by sonofaskywalker

Chapter 5 – The Solution

Twilight had set up a new research station in the archives of the Canterlot Castle. She’d also cast a spell to create a portal between the archives and the Canterlot Library. Teleporting was useful, but sometimes it was easier to just have everything in the same room. And since neither room had enough space on its own for all of the materials she was working with, using a portal to bring the rooms together was the next best thing.

It had been a week since she’d visited Celestia and Luna and she’d spent almost every free moment she had between these two rooms. After she’d returned, she’d had a bit of work to catch up on. Before leaving for Silver Shoals, she’d already spent several days researching and ignoring her other duties as ruler. It had taken her a few days to catch up with the work that needed to be done, but now she was able to devote more time to her research.

When Starlight returned to speak to her, Twilight was nowhere to be found. “Twilight?” Starlight called out. She has to be here somewhere, there’s an active portal. The thing would’ve dissipated if she’d left. “Twi? Where are you?”

“Over here.” Twilight’s voice came from behind the desk in the library.

“What are you doing behind the desk? Were you hiding from me?” But when Starlight looked behind the desk, there was nopony there.

“I’m not behind the desk, I’m in the book Starlight.”

Starlight looked down at the old book that was on the desk and sure enough, there was Twilight walking around in the pages. “Oh right, I forgot you could do that. I never found that studying technique particularly effective for me. Do you mind, ya know, coming out of there so we can talk?”

“Of course, step back please.” As Starlight did so, the book glowed, and Twilight appeared next to the desk. I just want to let you know that I’ve got a solid lead on the structure this spell will need in order to work. It’s not much, but it’s a good start. Once I have this, I’ll have a foundation of sorts that I can build the rest of the spell around.”

“Yeaahhh, about that spell,” Starlight said. “I mentioned it to Sunburst when I visited him, and he said that that kind of spell could be really dangerous and should never be attempted. He said it should really only exist in theory. There’s no way to know it can work without testing it and testing that kind of spell just shouldn’t be done if you don’t know how it’ll turn out.”

“Princess Luna told me that if this kind of spell is possible that it would have a complexity beyond anything she’d ever seen.” Twilight replied as if this somehow countered what Starlight had just said.

“Did you hear the part about it being dangerous? Twilight I hope you know that I am not going to let you attempt that spell on me if you aren’t absolutely sure that it’ll work.”

“Don’t you worry about the spell Starlight. I wouldn’t think of attempting to cast an unfinished and untested spell on you. Especially after what I’ve already done. I know it will be a dangerous road, but I have to do this. If not for your sake, then for my own.”

“Alright. I just hope you know what you’re doing.” Starlight said with concern in her voice. “Do… do you want me to help you?”

“No. I have to do this myself.” Twilight said stubbornly.

“If you won’t let me help you, at least bring Sunburst in on it. He could really help with the whole structuring of the spell. He’s good with that kind of stuff.”

“I’ll consider it. But this is something I really feel I should do on my own. I will fix what I’ve done to you Starlight. I promise you that.”

“Don’t make a promise that you aren’t sure you can keep, Twilight.”

– – – – Fifteen Years Later – – – –

Twilight struggled to stand. That time had been much worse than any of the others, but she really felt like she was getting close. Using her magic, she grabbed the notebook from the desk and dipped her quill in ink. She had shelves of these notebooks now, each one marking her progress toward the completion of this spell. She spoke aloud as she used her magic to write notes in the book, “Trial eight thousand five hundred eighteen. Result: Failure. Results seem promising at first, but the spell seems to fizzle out before completion. An ingredient in the potion may be causing early termination of the spell and may need to be counteracted.”

In Twilight’s research to create a spell to reverse Starlight’s transformation, she’d come to realize that this wasn’t something that either a single spell or a potion could do on their own. But if she brewed a potion and then cast a spell onto it, then she should be able to get the desired result. The problem was that meant the creation of two incredibly complex pieces. Luna did say it would be more complex than anything she’d ever seen, Twilight had reminded herself many times over the years.

“Proposed solution: attempt to incorporate accelero into the spell structure to decrease the time needed for the spell to complete after the potion is consumed.” Every time she felt that she had the spell structured perfectly, something needed to be changed that would affect it. It didn’t matter if the change was in the spell or the potion, it always resulted in something else needing to be corrected or compensated for. Let’s work accelero into the spell and run a few more trials.

After a few hours of working accelero into the spell, Twilight turned the page of her notebook and wrote ‘Trial 8,519’ at the top. “Okay, here we go.”

-------

“Thank you again for inviting me to speak today, Headmare Winter.” Starlight said as she opened the door to leave Winter Wonder’s office.

“Of course, Princess Starlight. You were headmare of this school long before I ever came along. You’re always welcome to speak here.” The unicorn gave her a brief hug. “Do say hello to Princess Twilight for me when you see her.”

“I will. Thank you again.” Starlight made her way through the halls of the school she used to run. She always loved coming back here. Hearing the sounds of all the young creatures going about their day learning friendship lessons made her nostalgic for the days she was headmare here. She came back to speak at every opportunity she was given. And the students loved her. It was always a treat when a princess came to visit.

Once she’d made it out the front doors, she teleported herself to the Canterlot Castle throne room. And nearly scared the uniform right off of Captain Harvest of the Royal Guard. “Gah! Oh Princess Starlight!” She cleared her throat. “Please, forgive me. You frightened me.”

Starlight chuckled, “I’m sorry Autumn. That’s the second time this week isn’t it?”

“Third actually, Princess.” Autumn said sheepishly, embarrassed to admit that she’d been caught off guard so many times. “When you teleport into the castle, do you think you could, ya know, teleport in somewhere a bit further away from where the guards are posted? I’m not the only one you’ve frightened around here, you know.”

“I’ll consider it,” Starlight said with a playful grin. “Have you seen Princess Twilight anywhere?”

“I’m sorry, but I believe she turned in early for the night, ma’am.” Autumn replied.

“Ah that’s alright. I’ll speak with her tomorrow. Thank you, Autumn. Have a good evening.” Starlight made her way down to the archives in the Canterlot Castle; she had a hunch Twilight was working down here. As she entered the room, she saw signs that Twilight was indeed hard at work. Ten years ago Twilight had created a pocket dimension of sorts within the archives and chose to make it her new workspace. In the archives it took up the space of a two-meter cube. Twilight had told her it was a way to have a space that she could manipulate for her needs without the need to relocate from the castle or build a new workspace into the castle itself. With this, she could store everything for her research all in one place and still have room for trials.

But Starlight had begun to suspect that there might be something else Twilight wasn’t telling her. For one, Twilight never said how she planned on testing the spell. That question had been in Starlight’s mind since day one, but Twilight assured her that she’d found a way to test the spell without using anypony else. She must’ve found a way to simulate the tests and gather data from it somehow, Starlight had thought once, but she wasn’t convinced.

She’d never been inside the cube. Twilight had asked her not to go inside but hadn’t taken any measures to prevent it from happening. The cube was locked up so that nopony would wander inside, but there was really nothing to keep out anypony determined to get in. Despite her curiosity, Starlight had never gone against Twilight’s wishes in this matter. Starlight thought about knocking on the door to the cube to speak with Twilight. It’s been fifteen years. If she hasn’t solved it by now, I don’t know if she’s going to.

Five years ago, Twilight had held the official coronation for Starlight. As far as most of Equestria knew, Starlight becoming the new princess was all part of the plan and had only just recently happened. A select few knew the full story about the origins of Starlight’s wings. Twilight had never fought to have the truth kept from the public, but those who knew chose not to speak about it out of respect for Twilight. Starlight had hidden her wings most of the time with simple camouflage spells but as time went on, she did so less and less often.

To Starlight’s surprise, whenever she went out without her wings hidden, most creatures assumed that she’d created a temporary set of wings for herself with a spell. Temporary wings and cloud walking were spells that advanced unicorns could use, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to think Starlight had created these wings for herself. After all, the creatures who saw her would tell themselves, if there was a new princess, I’m pretty sure we would have heard about it.

Starlight turned to leave, unsure of what she thought she’d accomplish by coming down here. She wanted to tell Twilight to stop wasting her time trying to fix what she’d done, but she knew Twilight would never listen. I’d say, “it’s been fifteen years” and she’d just say, “then it would be a shame to let all that work go to waste by giving up now”. Although Starlight had never actually suggested to Twilight that she shouldn’t continue, she’d played the scenario out in her head dozens of times and never saw an outcome where Twilight would agree to stop.

Starlight got to the door to leave when she heard something hit the floor behind her. She turned and saw a bit of crumpled parchment on the floor just outside of the door to the cube. Where’d that come from? she wondered as she picked the parchment up off the floor with her magic. When she uncrumpled the paper, her eyes went wide. There was only one word written on it: “Help”. There was only one pony this could have come from. Twilight!

Using her magic, Starlight teleported herself into the cube. She knew teleporting into a pocket dimension could be dangerous without knowing the dimensions or layout, so she did her best to get herself to just on the other side of the door. When she appeared on the other side, she looked around the room. There were shelves at least twenty feet high filled with notebooks. Old spell books were piled high in a corner next to a desk and there was a full potion brewing station alongside a miniature field that she could only assume was filled with the magical ingredients that would be used for the potions.

Near the potion brewing station, she saw Twilight on the floor. “Twilight! What happened?!” She exclaimed as she rushed to her side. When she arrived, she was shocked by what she found. Twilight was much smaller than she used to be. And her wings are gone! Not only that, but she seemed to be having trouble breathing.

Twilight’s voice was raspy, and she struggled to get out each word as if she were being crushed. “Starlight. Notebook. Thirty-seven. Time spell. Temporio Novilocus. Variation three. Hurry.”

Starlight ran over to the bookshelves and quickly found the notebook marked with the number thirty-seven and began to flip through the pages until she found Twilight’s Temporio Novilocus spells. Here they are! She studied the third variation of the spell for a moment before attempting to cast it. What is she doing using time spells in here? Starlight thought as she examined the structure of the spell. This should reverse whatever’s happened to her, but what are these other parts doing in here? Starlight reminded herself that this wasn’t the time to ask questions about the spell, she only needed to understand how to cast it and could ask questions about it later. Once she felt confident she could do it, Starlight closed her eyes and her horn glowed as she cast the spell. A bright sphere of magic formed at the tip of Starlight’s horn and pulsed outward until the waves of the pulse had run through the entire room.

When she opened her eyes, Starlight looked around the room. “Where am I?” She asked. She looked down to see Twilight slowly getting up. “What happened, are you alright? I don’t– I don’t remember coming in here. Is this where you’ve been working?”

Twilight turned and looked at Starlight, “Yes, I’m fine now,” she said as she stretched her wings. “And yes, this where I’ve been going to do my research.”

“I– I remember you saying you’d rather I didn’t come in here. That you wanted to work on this alone. Why am I here?”

“You came here because I reached out to you for help,” Twilight said. “You don’t remember coming in here because the last thirty minutes of your memory have been erased.”

Starlight blinked as she absorbed what Twilight just told her. “My– my memory? Why would you erase my memory?”

“Actually you did that yourself. Please, take a seat and I will explain everything. It’s time I told you what I’ve been doing in here for all these years.” Twilight said as she sat down. Starlight sat down and did her best to make herself comfortable. “Oh where to start,” Twilight began.

“Can you start with what I saw when I came in here and why I wiped my own memory of it?” Starlight asked. What in Equestria did I see that would make me to erase my own memory?

“Of course. Don’t worry, you didn’t erase your memory because you saw something horrible or anything like that. It was a side effect of the spell that I’d asked you to cast.” Twilight paused to collect her thoughts. “When you came in here, I was… incapacitated. I barely had enough strength to send you a message asking for your help.”

“Then how are you fine? I’ve only been here a few minutes but you’re telling me that when I got here you were weak and incapacitated?”

“Starlight, please. I will explain everything.” Starlight made a ‘go on then’ gesture and Twilight continued. What you saw when you arrived was me as a unicorn again. The transformation reversal spell and potion worked… with some nasty side effects. I have been using a time spell to rewind time for everything in this room except for the things I’ve designated as exempt. Whenever I set the spell, I also cast a spell to make my notes and brain to make them immune from the time spell. This way, regardless of the outcome of the transformation spell, I always return to the way I was thirty minutes before I cast the spell. You weren’t written into the spell which is why your memory reverted as well when you cast it.

“Something with the latest iteration of the transformation spell must’ve affected the spell I’d placed on my brain, causing it to expand to include my body as well. When the time spell went off, my body didn’t revert back to its previous state as it has every other time before. This is the only time this has happened, and I guess I really am lucky that you were around when it did. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if the spell had failed after some of the trials that ended poorly.”

Starlight was in shock by what she was hearing. She tried to stay calm, but this was insane. Twilight has been experimenting on herself this whole time?! When she spoke, she did her best to keep her voice even. “This one didn’t end poorly? Twilight, how many times have you done this to yourself?”

“Eight thousand five hundred nineteen.” Twilight replied, matter-of-factly as if she were giving Starlight tomorrow’s weather forecast.

“Eight thousand?!” Starlight’s head had begun to spin just thinking about it. “And how many of them resulted in you ending up like this, or even worse?”

“Oh not too many.” Twilight replied unconvincingly. “Early on, a lot of the trials had no effect at all because the spell structure was still being worked out. But after that was largely sorted out, I’d say only about sixty percent of the remaining trials ended in disfiguration or fatality.”

“F-fatality? Twilight, do you even hear yourself? I can’t believe you’ve been doing this all these years. And for what?”

“I’ve been doing this for you, Starlight.”

“No! Don’t put this on me. You’ve been down here literally killing yourself over and over and expect me to accept that it’s all been for me? No, Twilight, you’ve been doing this for yourself. And I won’t let you continue.”

“I’ll correct the time reversal spell, Starlight. I just need to rearrange the spell to place the exemption after I take the potion, so–.”

“You remember them all, don’t you?” Starlight interrupted her. “Do you remember the first time you… the first time the spell was fatal?” Starlight asked her.

Twilight thought back to that first time, now over a decade ago. It had been horrifying. Even knowing that the time spell was in place to revert her back, her instincts had taken over and she panicked when she thought it was over. “Yes. Yes, I remember it.” She said solemnly. She’d grown numb to the fear after a while, but never the pain. “But it’s a small price to pay to make things right.”

“A small price?! Twilight, we’re talking about your life!” Starlight’s eyes were now streaming tears. “Have you really become so blinded by your desire to fix this that you’d go so far to fix this? That you’ve failed to see what was right in front of you? All these years you’ve spent down here… I had no idea what you were putting yourself through. You spend so much time here, I… I just want to you to come back, Twilight.”

“Come back? What do you mean?”

“Come on, Twilight. When was the last time you did anything for fun? We haven’t done anything together in ages. I miss you! You spend all of your free time down here. It feels like you’ve abandoned me in order to make up for something I’ve forgiven you for ages ago. And now that I know what you’ve been doing all this time…” Her voice trailed off. “Please. Can’t you just give it up?”

“I… I don’t know if I can, Starlight. I altered your destiny and I still feel that I can, and should, set you back on your original path. And- and I’m so close to finishing the spell, I know it!”

“You don’t get it, do you? I don’t care about the spell anymore, Twilight. I don’t want you to finish it! Especially if this is how you’re getting it done!” She took a deep breath before continuing. “You want to talk about destiny? Have you considered that maybe all of this is destiny? Destiny doesn’t always mean greatness, and destiny almost never arrives in a way we expect. As much as you don’t want to admit it, maybe you doing this to me was destiny. If I was meant to become a princess, then this may be the only way it could have happened. And if I wasn’t meant for this, well I guess I’m stuck being a mediocre princess who doesn’t accomplish much of anything. Nothing you’ve said or done would make me turn my back on you Twilight. When you first found me all those years ago, I was lost, and you saved me. It looks like it’s time for me to return the favor.”

Twilight stared back at her former pupil. The pony who she had saved all those years ago. The friend who had stood by her side for decades. The pony who just saved me from myself. Twilight began to sob as she wrapped her hooves around Starlight. “I’m so sorry, Starlight. I– I just wanted to make things right. But everything you’ve said is true; I’ve let this foolishness blind me. I carried on for far too long, but I promised you I would fix it.”

Starlight softly stroked Twilight’s mane with her hoof. “You’re fixing it now. By accepting your mistake and my forgiveness. I know one day you’ll be able to forgive yourself.”

Epilogue

Twilight had risen early to raise the sun as usual but had gone back to bed immediately afterward. She may have signaled the start of the day for many creatures in Equestria and beyond, but she wasn’t ready to start her own. She allowed herself to sleep in much later than normal and only got up again when her stomach began to growl around midmorning.

She went down to the kitchens in the castle for breakfast as she usually did but this time found that they were empty with the exception of a note on the counter from Starlight. “Come to the east courtyard for breakfast.” I wonder what she has planned, Twilight wondered. She made her way toward the east courtyard, greeting and wishing a good morning to any guards she passed along the way.

When she stepped out the doors and into the courtyard, Twilight immediately began to tear up. She knew right away what she was looking at. This is one of Pinkie’s parties. It wasn’t just any Pinkie party, Twilight recognized this one because she’d read the file. This is the party for the Thousandth Moon. Twilight’s eyes fell upon the only other pony in the courtyard. Starlight Glimmer stood across from her, also with tears in her eyes.

“I know it’s not nearly as good as it could have been if she’d thrown it herself, but I worked really hard to follow her notes as closely as possible.” She shook her head gently, “I really don’t know how she managed to make it seem so easy.” Starlight began to make her way slowly over to Twilight on the other side of the courtyard. “I was thinking we could throw one of her parties every once in a while, in her memory. Starting with the first that never got to be thrown.” She gestured around the courtyard to all the decorations and food that had been prepared. She studied Twilight’s expression, trying to get a read on it. The actual day this party was intended to be thrown had been a day of great sadness. Starlight hoped enough time had passed that that day could be separated from what she’d done here today.

Twilight slowly looked around the courtyard with tears slowly streaming down her face. “It’s perfect, Starlight. She would be proud of what you’ve done here.” The two alicorns shared a long, tearful embrace. “Thank you.” Twilight looked over at the food again and gave a small chuckle, “This is way more than we can eat on our own. What are you going to do with all of this?” She asked.

“Well it wouldn’t be a Pinkie Pie party if there weren’t a lot of guests. I invited the guards to come out in a little while, but I thought the two of us could enjoy it together first.” Starlight used her magic to fill two glasses with cider and offered one to Twilight. Starlight raised her glass, and said, “To Pinkie Pie.”

Twilight raised her own glass. “To Pinkie Pie.”

Author's Note:

If the pre-epilogue ending seemed rushed, surprise! It was! I barely finished in time! I hope it wasn't too rough!

Comments

[Mystic Sunrise]

For a first story, you nailed it. Not perfectly, but way more than a lot do the first time. The crux of the story though wasnt a shock.

Starlight's tag kinda gave it away for me. But I love it anyway.

[BoltSlayer]

this story is definitely getting an upvote and a favorite from me

[Xp45]

Very nice