The Tragic Story of Twilight Sparkle, or Twilight

by A Fistful of Apples

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Questions

"She wants to see me?" said Twilight to herself. She paced back and forth in her library. Spike was gone, running some errand or another.

"It's what the note says," said Mephistopheles. "I can tell you what she wants, if you'd like."

"No, no," said Twilight. "I'll just go find out for myself. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." She stopped pacing. "When she said 'as soon as possible' did she mean that literally?"

"She meant as soon as possible."

Twilight then closed her eyes and concentrated.

Normally teleportation was difficult under even the best of circumstances. Not many unicorns could do it. It was in fact, a very complex process that could only be done because ponies had a certain biological capability to do it, like fish had the capability to swim like they did despite the complex physics involved. Having such an understanding of the physics of teleportation as she did, Twilight was able to teleport distances which, before, would have been deemed impossible.

Teleportation was an amazing thing when you got down to it. First an Affinity was constructed between two points, one's current location, and the location one wished to be in. One's constituent Atoms were then completely deconstructed, the Pnuema removed from the body and free floating, the Xi flows of the body instantly duplicated over to the second point due to the established Affinity. When one's Atoms are deconstructed, the Affinity point for the starting location breaks down as nopony is there to keep it up, and where there was once two unique Xi flows, there is once again only one, in a different location. Atoms combine from the surroundings to form a new body, and the previously free-floating Pneuma jumps to a familiar home. The violent motion of the Pneuma causes momentary disorientation, but in the end, one is in a different location nearly instantaneously. If it wasn't so natural for pony's bodies, their brains and minds so built for it, the process would be fraught with complication. Still, in the back of her mind, Twilight could think of odd possibilities and horrible repercussions, like building an Affinity between three points and tearing one's Pnuema in two, or stopping the deconstruction of one's Atoms and removal of one's Pnuema and creating a Pnuema-less copy of one's self.

Affinities were not endless, the Xi flows that constructed them could wind down, and so there was a limit to how far a pony could teleport. At least normally. Twilight understood the mechanics enough to extend Affinities indefinitely. With enough calculation, she could teleport herself to the Sphere of Fixed Stars if she wanted, though such would be suicide, not from a fall but from the amount of energy it would take, and the lack of surrounding Terrestrial Matter. It would be too exhausting, one's Xi flows would degrade beyond sustaining life, and the body that formed at the other end would be malformed and incapable of hosting one's Pneuma.

And so, instantaneously, Twilight transported herself from her library in Ponyville to the Princess's chamber in Canterlot.

"Twilight!" came a voice. Twilight opened her eyes. She was dizzy and her vision was slightly blurry, but it cleared up quick enough. She blinked a few times and saw herself right in front of Princess Celestia, who was resting on a large soft-looking cushion. Twilight thought about it and realised she'd never seen the princess in such a candid position.

"Um...you wanted to see me Princess?" said Twilight.

The Princess stood up. "I only just sent that letter. How is it you're here already?"

"It's complicated."

The princess's face went stern. "As are a lot of things around you recently. Which is why I called you. I've been reading your letters Twilight. Fascinating, at least, what I can decipher of them. But I couldn't help but notice there have been no friendship reports. Just graphs and tables and monstrous calculations, complex explanations for the simplest of phenomena! It's clear to me you haven't been spending time with your friends."

Twilight felt her face grow hot under the princess's disappointment.

"I'm sorry. But I have been spending time with my friends. We've been working on my new house. I sent you a letter about it, since all major constructions have to be filed in Canterlot."

"Yes, I remember... I think. But this all seems to be just more work. Where's the fun, Twilight? What have you learned about friendship in all this time?"

I've learned that friendship doesn't teach me anything, thought Twilight. She wouldn't dare say such a thing though. Friendship just didn't seem important anymore, given everything she had to do.

"I'm sorry Princess. I'll relax more. I won't forget my friends."

"I trust you Twilight," said Celestia. "I just don't want you to lose sight of what's really important. Remember your days in Canterlot, before you learned of the magic of friendship?"

Twilight now knew she was speaking completely metaphorically. There was no real magic in friendship.

"Is that all, Princess?" asked Twilight. She was eager to get back to work.

"There's something else I wanted to see you about," said Celestia. She sat down, her forelegs still extended. In a formal conversation, it was a submissive pose, and Twilight grew hot again seeing the princess speak to her in such a manner.

"I've been puzzling over your letters all this time, trying to make sense of everything you've sent me and my sister. Ignoring the question of where you came up with these ideas, I want to understand them better." The princess stopped speaking, waiting for acknowledgement from Twilight.

"Okay," said Twilight.

"First, on the matter of basic principles. Is everything composed of Atoms, or Xi?"

"Both. Atoms without Xi flows do not move and combine to form anything. It is pure matter without form, impossible. It is nothing at all. By the same token, Xi without atoms is pure form without matter, unlike the former, it is something, but really it's not anything."

"I'm not sure I completely understand, but okay. Second, you describe the relationship between my sister and myself, and the sun and moon, as unnatural. Can you explain this to me?"

"I didn't mean it in an offensive way," said Twilight. The princess smiled and nodded, showing that she understood that.

"What I mean is that all other heavenly bodies move along their Xi flows without the aid of terrestrial ponies like you or me. The flows for the Sun and Moon have been tampered with, they are extremely weak with very very low frequency, but maintain their charge. Without you or your sister to charge them, the Sun and Moon sit very still. It is an unnatural state of affairs, their matter doesn't want to sit still, it wants to move in circles and it's a kind of violence that keeps them still."

"I - well, I understand that. I know what tampering was done, though I don't know how you know." She didn't sound accusatory. She sounded... worried. "I don't know how to fix it though, so my sister and I do what we can to keep things in motion."

"You don't know? One of the first things I sent was a way to fix those Xi flows. Golden pins and thin stripes of cinnabar paint need to be applied to the crystalline spheres of the Sun and Moon, and a device to automatically strengthen the Xi flows can be affixed atop the crystals. After a while we can remove the device and the pins, and either leave the holes in the crystal or fix that too. Either way, the Sun and Moon will return to their natural motion."

"I never saw a letter describing such a thing," said the Princess. "But it sounds like an utterly massive undertaking. That's a lot of paint. It's a lot of gold. It would take a long time to mark all along those spheres. That's ignoring the difficulty of even getting up there, and even if ponies could, how would they stay? You describe Terrestrial Matter as wont to follow straight Xi flows towards the centre of the universe. Is there even air to breath up there?"

"If we started now, with one hundred and fifty ponies working on it around the clock, we could have it done in about two hundred years."

"A very long time for my little ponies," said the princess. "I'm not sure it's worth it."

"It would be. As to your other questions; Cinnabar and Gold are easy to transmute, requiring only varying amounts of Mercury and Sulphur. There are many ways to get up there and ways to stay up there. There is Air going all the way up to the Sphere of Fixed Stars so ponies can breath, although the higher one goes, the more pure the Air, and eventually it'll be dangerous to breath. Even at relatively low altitudes, such as between the Moon and Venus, most ponies can't safely breath the air. Pegasus ponies would do better, but even among them the Air can be too pure, so acceptable candidates for the work will have to be screened from the greater population. There's also the problem of the heat, as things will get hotter the higher one goes."

"I'll take your word for it," said Celestia. She stood up. "I was going to ask more questions, but I think we've talked long enough. There is one last thing though." Her eyes actually narrowed, and Twilight got the impression whatever would come out of her mouth next was not going to be open for discussion.

"Your theory of spontaneous generation is interesting... until you started sending recipes to generate animals. I, for example, do not think that the cows in Equestria would be happy to know that they can be grown in a laboratory."

"Animals generated that way would have no pneuma, they would be mere automatons with no will. Even if we generated ponies - "

Celestia snorted. "And that's what I didn't want to hear. Every pony is precious, every life is sacred. I don't want ponies to be created who have no soul. It is a desecration of everything good and decent!"

"But Princess, think of the - "

"I'm sorry Twilight, but I can't allow anything of the sort. Do not put any further thought into this matter."

Twilight hung her head low. "Yes Princess. I'm sorry."

A moment passed between Teacher and Student, though it was no longer clear which was which. Slowly, Celestia stepped forward and gave Twilight a soft nuzzle.

"Do not fret my little pony. I have faith that no matter what, you'll do well in this world."

Twilight brightened.

That night, long after Twilight had left, Celestia laid down on her favourite cushion, Luna reading some of Twilight's latest letters.

"I can make no sense of what this mare is saying," said Luna, throwing the letter she was reading down in disgust. "I'm not a mathematician. You're not a mathematician." She levitated the letter again and read in an annoyed tone, "Phi multiplied by the power of 10 divided by two-pi-r to the eighteenth power where Phi equals six point eight hertz over fifty three... I don't even know what that symbol is there.... On and on it goes too, full of matrices and numbers. What does it mean!?" Again the letter was thrown on the ground. Celestia smiled and took a look at it herself.

"Hmm," she said absentmindedly. "The paper is labelled 'Calculations on the Ferment of Water.'"

"And what does that mean?" asked Luna. She was lying upside down now, her hooves above her. Celestia thought once again how much she missed her sister, and how happy she was that Twilight and her friends had brought Luna back.

"I think it's the specifics on the Xi flows that direct atoms to form Terrestrial Water."

"Oh Celly, don't act like you understand!" She was smiling though, teasing.

"I don't," said Celestia, putting the parchment down. "Not really."

Luna turned herself over again. "Where did she get such strange ideas? From what you've told me, these are all completely new."

Celestia frowned. "That's what worries me. She's saying thousands of things, elaborations upon elaborations on how the world works. I don't know where she got all this information. And I don't doubt she's right about it all. She knows things she's not supposed to. She is scaring me."

Luna looked at her sister sadly. "Why don't you do something about it?"

Celestia sighed. "What can I do? It's not a crime to know too much. And I can't imagine she's done anything terrible, at least at the moment. And she's my most precious student. I say I love all my ponies, and I do. But she's my favourite." She suddenly smiled and looked into her sisters eyes. "Well, my second favourite."

Luna laughed, but it didn't last long. The air was thick with tension as the conversation had moved to unhappy things.

"Did you ever hear about her idea to 'fix' the Sun and Moon?" asked Celestia.

Luna grew a bit pale, and Celestia knew then that she had.

"I saw the letter. It was sent to me. I thought the plan, so much as I could figure out what it actually was, so ridiculous that I didn't think to bother you with it... besides...."

"Do you fear the ponies will come to hate us if we rule without providing anything substantial?" asked Celestia. Luna had always been worried about what the ponies thought of their works, especially her own.

Luna nodded, looking guilty.

"Don't worry about it," said Celestia. "Our ponies are wonderful beings, they would never hate us, or anypony for that matter, over something so trivial."

Suddenly, another stack of parchment appeared above Luna, showering her head with loose sheets. Celestia couldn't help but smile at the sight, and Luna, seeing her sister smiling, grumbled under the letters.

"I can't take much more of this," said Luna.

Celestia chuckled, but nodded. "I thought about it actually. I think I'm going to compile a list of all of Equestria's greatest scholars, scientists, professors, and learned ponies, and send the list to Twilight telling her to send all future observations and mathematics to them instead of us. Let them drown in facts. Besides, they'd actually be suited to understanding all this."

Luna looked around. The room was full of letters. She was beginning to hate them.

"That's a good idea Celly. I hope you finish that list as soon as possible."

The next day, Twilight was busy working with her friends, finishing her new house. It was taking shape, and Twilight was proud of it. As Twilight surveyed, she felt a tug on her tail. She lifted a back leg and glared down in the direction behind her.

It was Spike. "Twilight," he began. "Didn't the princess tell you to spend some real time with your friends?"

Twilight brushed him away with her tail, and went back to her surveying. "I'll do that after we finish the house. I'll even let Pinkie throw a huge housewarming party. But right now, I want to get this done. It's really important."

"But why is it important?" asked Spike. "Isn't friendship the most important thing?"

Twilight sighed. "You just don't understand Spike. But you will. This house is the first step on the road to making the world a better place. You'll just have to trust me."

Spike slumped. He hadn't gotten through to her, again. Twilight wasn't dying. But he still felt that he was losing her.