The Siren

by McPoodle

Chapter 22

Around the same time that Spike began writing his book in earnest, a fiery portal opened up in the doorway of Twilight’s bedroom, out of which stepped Princesses Celestia and Luna.

Luna took a good look at the portal. “Nice spell,” she said to her sister. “Did you develop it yourself?”

“I did, thank you,” said Celestia. “I use anchor stones for endpoints. Both for accuracy, and as a gesture of trust.” She pointed down to the medium-sized stone that was being used to prop the door of Twilight’s room open. Inscribed upon the top of the rock was Celestia’s cutie mark, still glowing faintly as it interacted with the portal.

The sisters looked around them and immediately spotted Twilight at her desk. She appeared to be busy proofreading her completed 70,000-word essay.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the older alicorn sister said in a normal conversational tone.

“PRINCESS CELESTIA?!” Twilight screamed, turning around to face the source of the voice. “And Princess Luna?” The unicorn immediately dropped prone to the ground. “I’m sorry I accidentally wrote your name without the proper honorific in front! It won’t happen again!”

Princess Celestia gave Twilight a worried look. “I assure you, that is not why we are here,” she said. “Spike warned me about you going overboard on your assignment, and I decided that we needed to investigate. Isn’t that right, Luna?”

Luna said nothing. She had completely ignored Celestia’s words while taking in the clearly insane look on Twilight’s face and the fact that she looked like she was being solely held up by a set of invisible marionette strings.

The two sisters approached the desk. The books were now all piled on her right side, and the nearly 300 pieces of paper covered with her hoofwriting was split into two piles; one pile was face up and the other was face down. Above the face up pile, a red pencil was still suspended in the air by Twilight’s magic. With a sigh, Celestia said, “I told you that you should have put a date limit on the assignment,” to Luna.

“Did she actually do the whole thing, in less than two days?” Luna asked incredulously. “I had no idea that she was that much of a—”

Celestia glared at her.

“—Enthusiastic student,” Luna concluded.

“You were going to say ‘suck-up’,” said Celestia.

“No!” Luna protested. “That was only what I was thinking. I wasn’t going to say it.”

Celestia gently lifted Twilight to her hooves. “I wish to apologize for my sister,” she said gently. “That assignment was unfair to spring on you all at once.” She looked pointedly over at Luna.

“Yes, I should have sent over the books one at a time, and only gave you the essay prompt after you had had time to digest all of them,” Luna said with a roll of the eyes. She then began paging through the essay. “And…is this an hour-by-hour­ schedule of your actions…for the entire year?” She groaned. “Life doesn’t work that way, Twilight. This goes completely against the spirit of the assignment. I’m afraid I’ll have to give you a failing grade on this one.”

Twilight fainted.

“Luna!”

“What?! I was being honest! That was one of my Elements!”

With a rueful shake of her head, Celestia levitated Twilight’s limp body onto the bed, tucking it under the covers. She produced a blank greeting card and placed it on the nightstand. “Fill this out and leave it here where she will see it the first thing upon waking up,” she said. With a last regretful look back at the sleeping Twilight, she walked through the portal and back into the room where she had originally created it—Luna’s bedroom.

Luna picked up the card and looked at the printed front cover. “Really?” she asked incredulously. After Celestia refused to reply, Luna watched through the portal until she had seen Celestia leave her bedroom before turning back to the unconscious form of Twilight Sparkle. “Siren Twilight!” she called out. “Are you awake in there?”

Twilight’s eyes popped open, and Siren Twilight’s characteristic scowl appeared upon her features. “Yeah, I’m here.” She tried to look at Luna. “Hey prop me up. I can’t move anything other than my face.”

Luna levitated Twilight so she was leaning back against the headboard of the bed, and then positioned herself at the bed’s foot.

"That’s better.”

“Why weren’t you able to stop your pony self?” Luna asked. “She really hurt Spike you know.”

Siren Twilight sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“So you didn’t let her do it as some sick idea of a joke?” Luna accused.

“Hey, I like Spike!” Siren Twilight replied. “No, the fact of the matter is, Pony Twilight’s willpower is way too much for me when she gets like this. I will make sure she makes it up to Spike when she wakes up.”

“Speaking of which, should I summon up some anger for you to feed on, so you can heal yourself up and get the pony awake? I’ve got plenty of reason to be mad at her.”

“No,” Siren Twilight said with a sigh. “She needs time to get her thoughts in order, so I think a natural rest is best.”

“Alright,” Luna said, using her magic to put Twilight back in bed. She picked up the card and walked over to the desk, so she could start on her apology.

A thought came to her a few moments later. “Hey, are you still there, Siren?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re sounding a lot more…eloquent than usual.”

“You were thinking ‘less stupid’, weren’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“Heh. Yeah, when the pony side of me is out of the picture, I can use more of our shared brain.”

This intrigued Luna. She walked over to the side of the bed and crouched down so she was in Twilight’s sightline. “What else can you do like this?”

“If we’re going to have a conversation, you’ll have to prop me back up again.”

“Oh, right. How’s that?”

“It’ll do. Now as to your question…” Siren Twilight thought. “I’ve got access to all of the spells that Pony Twilight knows, all…wow. She knows a lot of spells. And the intel boost. But that’s about it. I’ve already got all of her memories, just like she’s got all of mine. And I don’t get any of her genius or her cutie mark talent, so you can forget about me learning a spell by seeing it cast or combining two or three completely different spells to get a new one.”

Luna nodded her head. “Interesting. Spike said in his letter that she was only halfway through the books a couple hours ago. How did she finish so quickly?”

“Oh, she finished all of the books yesterday. She was collating her notes when he and Applejack came by this morning. And the writing spell she used—she dumped a good part of her brain directly onto the entire stack of paper, writing every page at the same time!

Siren Twilight pursed her lips. “Pony Me has nightmares about ponies finding out about Siren Me, being scared of me because I’m a monster. But I gotta say, she’s scarier than I am. By far.”

Luna smiled grimly. “Well, I’m trusting you to hold her back if she ever decides to cast Star Swirl’s spell before she’s emotionally mature enough to handle it.”

“No, you don’t get it,” said Siren Twilight with a frown. “In terms of capability, of raw potential, Pony Me is already at alicorn level. At least as far as the magic goes. I’m worried about what might happen if some of your worse memories unlock themselves at the wrong time. Some of these spells in here are really nasty, so I assume she got them from Old You.”

Luna slumped, feeling absolutely helpless. “What can I do?”

“Visit her dreams more.”

Luna stood up. “Oh right, I can do that with her. I keep forgetting.”

“Plus you can see both of us.”

“Ah, I knew there would be a selfish reason in there eventually,” Luna said with a smirk. She turned to go back to her apology card, but stopped herself.

“That reminds me,” she said to Siren Twilight. “In your dreams you are both unicorns. Why aren’t you a siren?”

“Look, we might have a siren in our ancestry, but most of our ancestors are…what was Applejack’s word…cabelli. I’m using unicorn magic to manipulate emotions and when I ‘eat’ those emotions, I’m actually converting them into unicorn magic, not life force. I can’t turn myself into a siren. And to be honest, I don’t want to.

“Sirens were miserable, with your friend Sonata as the lone exception. You could say that anger and misery were their native states, that they enjoyed those emotions, but I don’t buy it. As a part of the unicorn Twilight Sparkle, I get to be happy doing normal things. This ‘friendship’ thing that Pony Me is obsessing over? That’s the best thing ever. It’s just…it’s a shame that anytime I talk to our friends, they think that I’m ‘snarky Twilight’ and not my own pony. I…think they’d accept me, but Pony Me is too scared.”

“I’ll try to work on that in our next dream. Besides, Celestia has been dropping all sorts of hints that Pinkie Pie has her own secret to share, so it’s not like you’ll be alone.”

“Yeah, Pinkie is definitely not a normal pony.”

Luna laughed. “Do you think she could take down Pony You if she ever went off the deep end?” she asked jokingly.

“Absolutely,” Siren Twilight answered with a straight face. “Pony Me is counting on it.”

“Huh,” said Luna. “Now I’ve really got to get Celestia to open up about her.”

“Have you tried visiting Pinkie’s dreams?” asked Siren Twilight.

Luna shuddered. “Once,” she said. “Her mind contains horrors beyond the imagining of the entirely of Ponykind. And she handles those horrors in her dreams with complete aplomb.”

“Well. That’s a nice note to go to sleep on.”

“You’ll be fine,” Luna assured Siren Twilight as she once more tucked her into bed. “Now let me get my ‘homework assignment’ over with, and I’ll leave you to your rest.”

---

Twilight, Pony Twilight, awoke nearly two days later. It was shortly before sunrise. She sat up in her namesake lighting condition, thinking over many things from both her own memories and from the voice of her siren other self: how she had failed Spike, as well as her abysmal grade on her assignment. Propped on her bed stand were two objects: a card with a sad pony face and the words “I’m sorry” written on the front, and a small hoof-bound book. She picked both of them up with her magic and made her way out of the room, passing by the basket containing the sleeping Spike.

Quietly, she made her way downstairs and sat down in the western reading nook, igniting a portable lantern to supplement the light of the setting sun coming in from the nook’s large window.

She read the card first. It was nearly worthless as an apology, putting the blame upon her for misinterpreting the assignment. Twilight put it aside with a shake of her head.

The book, The Book of Dragons Volume 2, was a complete surprise. Spike completely opened himself up to her, revealing his thoughts and fears on multiple topics. But it was the final paragraph that had the greatest effect on her.

“I’ve had the chance to be your son for most of my life. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. But it’s time for both of us to move on to something new. I’m not your son anymore. I’m your brother. Maybe not your Big Brother Best Friend Forever, but I think I can settle for second place.”

Twilight gasped as something happened deep inside her. She could feel love for Spike, not an imagined love constructed out of her wishes for a good relationship with the drake, but an actual familial love for her brother, Spike.

“My brother…” she whispered.

She then stomped her way up the stairs, making as much noise as possible as she approached Spike’s basket.

Spike leapt to his feet. “What is it?!” he asked. “Are we being invaded?”

Twilight grabbed up Spike and hugged him tight.

“Oh,” said Spike. “You read my book.”

And then he smiled and hugged her back.

“My assignment!” she exclaimed in sudden realization, dropping him back in his basket.

Spike sighed as she ran over to the desk. “I suppose it was too much to hope for you becoming completely normal.”

“I’m still paying attention to you,” Twilight said, pushing the failed assignment to one side and assembling another pile of blank paper just as tall. “Luna was right that I was using an unrealistic degree of detail in my plans. She wanted a discussion of the principles that I would use to rule. And the number one rule should be to demonstrate that I both care for the populace and will be an effective protector. The Big Sister role, written large.”

“Oh, so I inspired you,” Spike said, climbing up to be on the table.

As he watched, the pile floated into the air a couple hooves-widths above the table. The pages separated slightly, with the glow of Twilight’s raspberry-colored magic penetrating into every available space.

“You and all of my friends,” Twilight said, her eyes glowing.

And then without warning the magic disappeared and the stack of blank pages fell back to the tabletop, startling Spike.

“Oh,” she said a little sadly. “That’s it. That’s the fix to Star Swirl’s ascension spell. I can see the spellform in my head, and it’s absolutely going to work. I can cast it anytime I want now.”

“Oh,” Spike echoed. Trying to make his voice sound uninterested he asked, “So, when do you plan to cast it?”

Twilight looked over at Spike and grabbed him up in her arms. “Not until you’re ready, Spike. I don’t intend to spread my attention any further than it already has for a good long time.”

The siblings hugged for nearly a minute, until Spike lifted his head, and pointed a claw at Luna’s assignment. “Or unless something like that happens.”

“Yeah,” said Twilight sadly. “Not even an alicorn can dictate the future,” she told him. “But I’m going to try and do my best with the time I have now. As a pudgy little unicorn. I’ll have plenty of time to grow into a graceful alicorn.”

“Later?” asked Spike.

“Later,” said Twilight.