Stuck
Really, Twilight Sparkle should be used to this by now.
It had been a simple enough task, after all.
Princess Celestia needed to visit the Crystal Empire for some matter of state that, while of no great importance, required her physical presence. Princess Twilight, upon hearing this, leapt at the opportunity to visit her brother and Princess Cadance once again. Of course, she also couldn't miss the opportunity to test the boundaries of her enhanced magical ability, and offered to teleport the two of them directly to the Crystal Palace—after sending the appropriate notice of their imminent arrival, of course.
Between Twilight’s role as the Element of Magic, her newfound strength as the Princess of Magic, her cutie mark and special talent in Magic, and personal talent for teleportation magic, it was nigh-impossible that anything would go wrong. In the vanishingly small chance that something did go wrong, the ways it could go wrong (not that it really could, but one must be cautious in such matters) were understandable, predictable, and overcomable. At worst, they'd fall short of their goal and have to make multiple jumps—or fly the rest of the way, if it came to it.
Of course, when something invariably went wrong, it went wrong in an entirely unpredictable fashion.
"Really, Twilight," Princess Celestia said, sitting calmly in the blank white space they currently occupied as she watched her student pace back and forth. "I should think you'd be used to this by now."
"Used to attempting to teleport and suddenly finding myself trapped in a blank white non-space?" Twilight replied, the stress of the situation pushing her to be sarcastic even with Celestia. "Of course. Happens all the time. I'm planning on writing a book about it."
"Oh? I'm sure it will be fascinating to read," Celestia replied with a beatific smile. "I've always said you should try your hoof at writing."
Twilight gave her mentor one of the flat glares usually reserved for Spike and Rainbow Dash. And Pinkie Pie. And sometimes Rarity, depending on the dressmaker's current level of drama. Honestly, most of her friends, if she thought about it.
"I was referring to such strange events happening around you," Celestia continued, her smile more comforting than teasing now. Working Twilight up had its limits, and honestly, it wasn't really much of a challenge. "You've described enough of them in your letters to me."
"Yes, these kind of things happen often enough, but normally it's not just random chance," Twilight objected. "They usually happen because somepony has done something really stupid."
"One could argue that attempting to teleport the distance from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire might qualify," Celestia quipped, then sighed at the stricken look on Twilight's face. "I'm just teasing, Twilight. I don't know why this happened. I honestly expected you to succeed in the attempt."
"I don't understand it either! I checked the numbers before I tried it, and the only unknown was how the power requirement for long-range teleporting would scale with distance." Twilight stomped a hoof. "But I don't even know where we are! I can feel a magic construct surrounding us, but I don't know what it is because the only energy in the area is my own lingering teleport spell."
"I may have some idea as to that, at least."
"You do? We're not dead are, we? Oh no, we are, aren't we? I put too much power into the teleport and disintegrated us and now we're trapped in some kind of magic limbo forever!”
"Twilight, calm down. We're still inside the teleport."
"What," was all Twilight could manage before groaning and dropping to the ground in a slump next to the other princess. "I should have known better than to try something this stupid."
"Now, now, Twilight. Don't blame yourself," Celestia replied soothingly as she draped a wing over her student. "Contrary to what some believe, teleportation is actually very safe magic. Accidents are rare, and fatal ones nearly unheard of. The various horror stories of ponies leaving body parts behind or vanishing altogether are usually inspired by some unicorn's drunken attempt, and then terribly exaggerated."
"Then… what happened this time, Princess? What did you mean by we're still in the teleport?" She paused a moment. "And how did I even do it?"
"There's no need to address me by my title, Twilight, any more than I would address Luna or Cadance by theirs," Celestia began with her oft-spoken reminder. "But I'm not certain how this happened, and I've never seen it personally. However, I do recall Luna describing a similar incident to me once, when we were younger."
"Luna's done this before?"
"So it seems. However, she was merely travelling from the Everfree Castle to the city of Canterlot. As I recall, she said it felt like she was trapped in this space for most of the day."
"Nearly a full day?" Twilight's tone was curious. "Excuse me princess, this might take a moment."
Twilight slipped out from under her mentor's wing and stood, her horn flaring with magic. Suddenly, a notepad and pencil popped into existence inside her telekinetic field and she began scribbling furiously, muttering details as she worked.
“...if a pony can reasonably cover thirty miles in a day, and we dismiss the possibility of delays caused by the dangers of the Everfree Forest…”
Celestia watched quietly, deciding to refrain from asking questions until her student was finished.
Twilight paused and looked back at her. "Did she specify exactly how long she was stuck?"
"Sorry, but no. She had no way of telling how much time had passed."
Twilight nodded and resumed her efforts, the look of concentration on her face mixed with what some might have considered a misplaced glee. Those ponies were simply those unfamiliar with Twilight Sparkle. Beyond her joy at the prospect of solving a puzzle, or her cheer at learning something new, there was another, greater source of her happiness. For you see, Twilight had not been asked to do math homework in what felt like ages (it was actually only just over three years), and she sometimes worried that she might be growing out of practice.
There was really nothing like solving complex four-dimensional geometry with nothing but a pencil and scratch paper that really brought back the energy of her youth.
After a mere few minutes’ time, she spun around with a loud "Ah-hah!"
"I gather you've made some progress in understanding our predicament, Twilight?" Celestia idly wished for a cup of tea to sip nonchalantly as she responded. The effect was subtle, but did more to convey an air of wisdom and solemnity than any number of centuries as the lone ruler of the most peaceful and prosperous nation on the planet. Not that she needed to convince her faithful student of such things—Twilight very nearly worshipped the ground she walked on. But she felt somehow incomplete without it.
"Yes! Well, kind of." Twilight paid no attention as the pencil and paper vanished when she turned to face Celestia, slipping into what her friends often dubbed 'lecture mode'. "I think the time spent inside the teleport effect is proportionate to the time it would take to traverse the distance without magic. Canterlot is some distance from the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, but a pony keeping a good pace on hoof without stopping could definitely reach one from the other in just under one day. Now, I don't have nearly enough data to say this ratio will hold true in all cases, but current evidence is enough in favor for me to speculate. So, given the distance to the Crystal Empire, we should arrive in about one week."
Twilight paused to digest what had just come from her own mouth. After a few seconds to allow her mind to catch up with itself, her pupils shrank and she once again dropped to the floor.
Celestia withheld a comment about Twilight picking up Rarity's habits.
"No, no, no! We're going to be stuck for a week! Everyone is going to think we've vanished, I'll miss Scootaloo's birthday—"
"Twilight."
"—Shining Armor will wind up leading a search party to find me and get caught in a blizzard—"
"Twilight."
"—there won't be anypony to raise the sun and everyone will freeze to death—"
Celestia sighed and waited for her to finish.
"—and then they'll think the week of night is a coup by Luna who's reverted to Nightmare Moon and the country will break out into a civil war and we'll come back to find everything in ruins and I've doomed Equestria again!"
Celestia rose and went to her anxiety-prone student's side, once again placing a wing over her. "Twilight, Luna arrived at Canterlot on time. She only felt time passing so slowly. Her appearance was still nearly instantaneous."
"Really?" Twilight glanced up at her mentor.
Celestia nodded. "It was actually quite funny at the time. She appeared in a panic, apologizing to everyone for vanishing and trying to explain herself, but none of us knew what she was talking about. It took some time to calm her down and get the story from her."
"But… we're talking to each other and moving around. How does this work? Are we trapped in some kind of time bubble? Won't we still need to eat and drink? Are we going to starve to death?" Twilight was quickly working herself up into yet another fit as visions of ponies attempting to teleport even longer distances but arriving as nothing but skin and bones or even a mere a cloud of dust began playing in her head.
It helped nothing when she began trying to imagine the effect on immortals such as Celestia and, theoretically, herself. Would they die of thirst or starvation? Could they die of those things? Would they arrive in some sort of horribly unrecognizable form like giant disembodied heads or something?
And what made her even think of that last one?
"Twilight," Celestia began again, mentally ticking off another mark on today's Twilight Sparkle Anxiety Attack Count and noting they were well on their way to a new record. "Where did you get the pencil and paper?"
"What?" The unexpected question gave Twilight pause and drew her attention away from her growing panic. "What pencil and paper?"
"The ones you used to calculate the travel time between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire."
"Oh. I… I don't know," she admitted. "I was just thinking about needing them and there they were. I guess I'm so used to Spike just handing me things as I need them that I didn't give it any more thought."
"I thought as much," Celestia answered enigmatically, before closing her eyes and focusing her thoughts. Without any flash or noise to announce their appearance, a simple table suddenly appeared next to the two alicorns, identifiable at a glance as of expensive materials and construction. Around them were a handful of other items that seemed to suggest a garden or balcony used to host a private guest. Another moment passed, and the table was set for a tea, a steaming pot in the middle. The only thing spoiling the effect was the empty white space surrounding it all, stretching into infinity. Celestia smiled at the arrangements. "Much better, wouldn't you say?"
Twilight looked around, stunned. "Princess, what—"
"Just Celestia, please."
"Of course, Pri—Celestia." Twilight took a seat at the side of the table adjacent to Celestia's. "But how did you do this? It would take a phenomenal amount of magic to summon so much, but I didn't see you use any at all!"
"I didn't have to," she answered. "Thinking back on Luna's story, and watching you summon those writing instruments, I had a thought regarding the nature of this place. I believe it is only our minds which perceive this 'slow time'. Everything else is happening normally."
"So… it's all in our heads?" Twilight asked. "As in we're literally just seeing our thoughts?"
"Something like that, yes." Celestia began pouring them some tea.
"Then we won't starve or anything, just maybe go crazy from boredom," she sighed. "What's the point of the tea, then?"
"I just felt like setting the scene," Celestia answered, floating a cup to Twilight. "Also, it's an experiment."
"What kind of experiment?" Twilight asked, taking the tea in her own magic and sipping at it. "And what kind of tea is this? I don't think I've ever had it before."
"Luna's preferred style. I didn't think you'd had it. And more importantly, I have my answer."
"The answer to what, Pri—Celestia?"
"You're making progress." Celestia smiled at that. "And the question of whether we would merely see what one another thought up, or if we would be able to truly share memories and ideas. You just tasted a new flavor of tea simply because I remembered it."
"That's wonderful, Princess!" Twilight exclaimed. "Never mind being bored, I could spend a week at minimum just working out how all of these effects are taking place and developing new spells to replicate them!"
"I thought you'd like that. However, do recall that anything we create here will draw upon our own memories and expectations. You won't be able to test any of your new spells until we escape."
"Oh, that's right…" Twilight's excitement faded slightly. "Well, I suppose I could still study the effect itself and work on replicating it later…"
"That sounds like an excellent idea. However, we still have a great deal of time. Any suggestions for how we pass it?"
Some time later, newly-imagined objects filled out the space around the two princesses. Celestia introduced some of her favorite statuary from the Canterlot Gardens, while Twilight had opted for bookshelves and some bits of artwork she remembered from the Canterlot Archives.
The bookshelves had proven a temporary distraction at best. Twilight soon discovered—as Celestia had predicted upon Twilight's inclusion of the collection—that the books were, for the most part, only half-complete. Words would gradually fade out until only blank white pages remained, fading back in much later on. Twilight admitted these were the passages that she had found rather dull and couldn't remember very clearly.
The limitations of memory and imagination preventing her from reading to pass the time, Twilight suggested a game instead. Something she and her friends played often enough, but not anything she expected the Princess to have much experience with. Honestly, she expected an easy victory. Once again, she should have known better.
Twilight frowned at the display before her, and shot a quick glare at the serene smile that never seemed to leave Princess Celestia's face. She had calculated the odds perfectly—she knew she always did. It was the one thing that kept her among the winners at home. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were unreadable, and worked that to their advantage in their own ways. Rainbow Dash was the risk-taker, always ready to pounce on an advantage and squeeze every bit she could out of it. Applejack seemed to just have a knack for knowing when things wouldn't go her way, backing out just when you thought you had her right where you wanted her. And Fluttershy… Well, once you convinced her it was okay to win, she maintained an unshakeable serenity, the smile never leaving her face while the bits piled up.
Just like Celestia.
"ARGH!" Twilight threw her cards down. "A third royal flush in a row! That doesn't seem statistically possible!"
"Don't let a game upset you too much, Twilight," Celestia gently chided her. "Remember, these bits are imaginary—literally."
"I know, Pri—Celestia," Twilight said with a sigh, correcting herself once again. "But I never lose this badly except to Spike."
"Spike?" The sun princess raised a curious eyebrow. "I wouldn't imagine him to be such a skilled player at his age."
"He's smug, greedy, and clever," Twilight grumbled back. "And he doesn't have tells a pony can read unless he's feeling guilty about something. You just have impossible luck. Or you're cheating."
"Cheating? Do you really think I would do something like that?"
Twilight twitched back for a moment, overwhelmed with guilt for thinking the princess would stoop so low. However, a brief consideration saw her recover and give Celestia an appraising look. "Now that I think about it…"
"Don't be silly, Twilight. I'm not cheating, per se," Celestia said. "I'm just an optimist."
"How does that explain anything?"
"Remember how you couldn't test spells because you would only get the result you expected?"
"Well, yes, but… Oh." Twilight groaned and slumped onto the table. She'd have knocked over her stack of bits, small as it was, if not for their disappearance, along with the cards and Celestia's much larger pile. "I was hoping once we imagined something into being, it would have a consistent presence. I guess this means our imagination and expectations can alter something we've already created."
"That would appear to be the case."
"Which means we can't play any games which rely on luck as a factor."
"So it would seem," Celestia said, an elegantly-carved chess set appearing between them. "May I make a suggestion?"
"I've never beaten you at chess."
"Plenty of time to try. And perhaps I can teach you to use something other than Colt-Zukertrot."
"Colt-Zukertrot was a winning system for fourteen years," Twilight argued.
"Not when your opponent is more experienced and knows what you're trying to do," Celestia said. "I know you prefer to rely on proven tactics, Twilight, but you're not going to improve by just constantly imitating others."
"Is everything a lesson with you?"
"Perhaps, but would you honestly have it any other way?"
Twilight knew some time had passed. A great deal of time, actually. Normally, she would be needing coffee to keep her head in the game by this point, but she found that she simply wasn't tired. Apparently, so long as her body had only experienced five seconds, her mind was perfectly fine to go for hours.
"Celestia, how many games have we played?" she asked, irritation managing to break habits that weeks of reminders hadn't.
"I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest," Celestia replied, not looking up from the book she'd picked up. It had come from the ones Twilight introduced to their little world, and like all the others, was roughly half-complete. She was going to come out of this experience with quite the reading list if she wanted to know how any of these stories ended.
"Uh-huh. And how many games have you won?"
"All but five or six, I suppose. You're making progress."
"Those five or six are when you started reading instead of watching our games."
"A grandmaster can play dozens of games simultaneously. It's merely a matter of recognizing patterns and knowing which move to make next." Celestia sat the book aside. It had been starting to fade, anyway. "You were starting to adapt to my tactics. You really are making progress."
Twilight sat up and brightened a bit at the praise. "Thank you, Pri—Celestia. I still think I'd rather play something else for a while, though."
"What did you have in mind?"
"A pegasus game Rainbow Dash likes." Two game boards with upright backs appeared between them, marked with tokens and numerous small pegs to indicate moves.
"Ah," Celestia said. "This one."
"Wait, you know Battleclouds?" Twilight ask incredulously. "Sorry, but it just doesn't seem your style."
"No, it normally isn't, but ever since her first Nightmare Night, Luna has become fascinated with games of all kinds," Celestia explained, then sighed. "However, she is as competitive as ever, and has some difficulties accepting a loss."
"She flips the board off the table, doesn't she?"
"How did you know?"
"Rainbow Dash."
"Ah." Celestia studied the board as Twilight conjured all the pieces into place. "Well, I trust you won't be quite so energetic in the face of a loss—and it couldn't hurt to play something a bit less cerebral for a while. Though I still don't understand how raining on a cloud defeats it."
"Celestia, I promise I…" Twilight trailed off. "Wait, you make it sound like me losing is inevitable."
"Between the two of us, which one has more experience with battlefield tactics?"
"It's a freaking guessing game!"
"Very well, Twilight," Celestia replied as an amused smirk took the place of the serene smile she'd worn for their previous games. "You can go first."
In Twilight's defense, she didn't flip the table over.
"I don't get it," she said as she slumped back, red pegs covering all of her game pieces, yet again. "It's just a guessing game."
"I believe I told you during our last few games that you ought to try new things?"
"I did, though," the younger alicorn whined back. "I moved my pieces to new strategically-optimal locations every game! You still always homed in on one after the first few rounds and then just cleaned me out."
"Well, yes. But when you're always placing them in the statistically safest places…"
"…you can always predict where they'll be," Twilight finished with a sigh. "Which makes this the final proof that games just aren’t going to work out here, and I have no idea what we can do to make it through the rest of this week with our sanity intact.”
“I’m not convinced all of these diversions are truly necessary, myself.” Celestia stood from their game table, which vanished with the game boards. All around them, the various fixtures they had put into place were fading out, vanishing instantly, or shifting into new forms.
A thick carpet covered the blank white space beneath them, while a large cushion appeared near a grand fireplace. The tea set returned, sitting atop a low table by the cushion, while bookshelves began appearing around them, outlining the space.
“Princess, what is all of this?” Twilight asked, wonder in her voice, and walked a small circle to take all the changes in.
“Do you not remember?” Celestia giggled at her expression. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It must have all looked much larger at the time. My reading room, just outside my chambers at the castle. I don’t believe we’ve used it together since you were a filly. Feel free to contribute anything you can recall of it.”
Twilight smiled as the vague nostalgia she’d felt upon first seeing the changes finally clicked into place. She looked around the slowly-forming room again, this time with an eye towards what was missing.
There were always flowers on the mantle. Chrysanthemums, if she recalled correctly, bred and chosen to match the colors of Celestia’s mane. As she thought of them, a vase appeared on either side of the fireplace.
She recalled an atlas sitting atop an empty podium near the shelves holding the oldest books, and it appeared in its place.
Hanging curtains on the wall that she’d never understood the purpose of, but faithfully recreated regardless.
Soon, the reading room was complete, just as Twilight remembered it.
“Your memories weren’t quite so faint after all, it seems,” Celestia said as she stood next to her. As she took in Twilight’s additions, she paused at the curtains. “But why did you—Ah. You’d never seen them uncovered.”
Twilight tilted her head to one side and looked up at Celestia. “Never seen what uncovered?”
As if in answer, Celestia approached the curtains and lit her horn. As her magic pulled them aside, the blank walls behind them were replaced with paintings. All of them were antique, if not ancient, and depicted Luna and Celestia together, occasionally accompanied by an older unicorn mare.
“There we are.” She turned and answered Twilight’s questions before the younger princess found a chance to ask them. “Yes, these are from before. I left them up so I could be reminded of what I once had. And I left them covered so I could forget the pain of losing it.”
Twilight paused and looked between the paintings and Celestia, hesitating at the regretful tone her mentor had suddenly taken. However, her curiosity quickly outgrew her worry.
“And that unicorn?” she asked after a short time. “Was she a student of yours?”
The darkening of Celestia’s mood was interrupted with a giggle. “Not quite. I daresay it would be truer to say we were hers. That was Clover.”
“Clover?” Twilight ran to the painting. “As in the Clever? I didn’t know… How was… I mean, I always kind of assumed Star Swirl was your first student. So how could his student have taught you?”
“We met him once or twice,” Celestia said with a smile and a shake of her head. “But by then he was already a bitter old recluse. Clover was the one who introduced Luna and me to his research through her copies of his notes. It formed the basis of most modern magical theory.”
Celestia made her way across the room and lay down on the large pillow.
“But I can tell you all about that soon enough.” Celestia raised a wing and patted a hoof on the open space beside her. “Come join me.”
“Join you?” Twilight approached cautiously.
Celestia nodded. “When you first came to me as a filly, we spent many evenings lying on this cushion and talking about whatever came to mind. I find myself missing that, at times. I understand I’ve been a mentor, teacher, ruler, and even something of a mother figure to you. But we so rarely speak as friends, even now that we are meant to be equals. So, I ask you to put aside all the things we’ve been to one another in the past in favor of being friends, and having the sort of carefree talks we used to.”
Twilight nodded, lying down by Celestia and flushing slightly as the older alicorn lay her wing over Twilight’s withers.
“And for each story I share about the past, you share one of your own. About your friends, or your life—and don’t leave out the parts that I’m sure have been excluded from your letters. I think you’ll find the time passes very quickly indeed in the company of a dear friend.”
“—on stage in a skirt and fishnet leggings. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but now that I have wings of my own—”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Cadance stepped up to the freshly-arrived princesses, giving a respectful nod to Celestia and flashing Twilight a smile.
“Interrupt— Oh! We’re here!” Twilight looked around, only now realizing that the teleport had finally reached its destination. “Cadance!”
The honor guard that had been awaiting the arrival of the other two princesses managed to restrain themselves from snickering at the Sunshine Dance. Celestia, for her part, didn’t bother, giggling at the girls’ customary display with only a wingtip across her mouth as a nod to good graces.
Greetings complete, the three made their way towards the interior of the Crystal Spire, the guardponies trailing just behind the three princesses.
Celestia leaned down to Twilight and spoke low enough for her alone to hear. “I quite enjoyed that. We must find the time for such private engagements more often in the future."
“That sounds wonderful.” Twilight flushed slightly again, and ruffled her wings a bit. “Though I’ll try to make it intentional in the future.”