Graphs Don't Lie
Twilight yelped in pain as her new wings slammed into the sides of her study's doorway. Wincing, she stopped and tried to fold them, only to growl as her new appendages completely failed to respond. For a moment she was tempted to force the closed with a burst telekinetic magic, but the memory of exactly how much it had hurt when she’d tried that earlier stopped her. Sighing, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Ever since she’d ascended, a part of her had been despite to get home and to her study. Honestly, by the end of everything, she’d probably been paying less attention to what was going on around her than was polite, but she couldn’t help it, she’d been too busy imagining how incorporating her recent ascension into her charts and graphs would affect them.
“Friendship, friendship friendship friendship.”
She focused on the single repeated word, and all it meant to her, aware that following her previous line of thought would certainly not help her get her wings folded. After a solid minute of focus on the mantra, she casually tried to fold her wings, and smiled as they promptly flapped down against her barrel.
Slipping through the doorway, her eyes lingered on the shelves where the scrolls with her graphs and charts lay, neatly organized and awaiting revision. As she stared at them she knew she really should update them first, she referred to them daily and the trends they showed helped predict most day to day occurrences accurately enough that she rarely had to deviate from her checklists. Still, even as told herself that, and that she made Spike eat his dinner before he got his desert, she knew she wasn’t going to. Walking past the shelf, she stopped in front of what, to almost anypony else, would look like an empty corner. As she stared down at the chest that sat there, her smile widened, and although she didn’t notice, her mane also started to frazzle. She spent a moment just staring at the chest and feeling the magic wrapped around it. While she trusted the residents of Ponyville implicitly, Nopony could Ever be allowed to see the set of graphs and charts that lay within, which was why the chest was one of the most enchanted objects in the library. The first layer of the magic was a gene linked illusion, there were only three other ponies alive who would be able to see the chest and both her parents and her B.B.B.F.F. were far enough away that detection seemed unlikely. The second layer was a combination, voice, passphrase recognition spell linked to the chest’s lock.
“Sunshine, Sunshine. Ladybug awake, clap your hooves and do a little shake.”
As the lid of the chest swung open, Twilight quickly lit her horn and projected a tiny bit of raw magic at the chest. As nothing happened she breathed a sigh of relief, the third enchantment always made her nervous. While the first two spells were designed to hide and protect the chest’s contents, the third wasn’t. The final set of spells on the chest were a failsafe, a simple fire spell that would incinerate the chests contents if the chest, combined with a magic signature recognition spell that, if not provided with raw magic laced her magic signature before the contents of the chest were moved, or fifty-seven seconds passed, would trigger the incineration spell.
Lighting her horn again, she gently levitated the large scroll out and onto her desk. As the scroll unrolled, she uncapped an inkwell levitated a quill into it, then paused as her gaze fell on the center of the scroll. Most of it was covered in graphs and charts, with the occasional equation or note tucked in for good measure, but there, in the very center, was a drawing of a pink Alicorn with a wing wrapped around a lavender unicorn. Twilight simply stared at the picture for a minute, mind wandering back in time.
She remembered the day Cadance had built her her first book fort. Her parents and Shining had been out for the evening, and she and Cadance had been playing hide and seek. Figuring that the faster she moved, the faster she’d come across Cadance’s hiding spot, she had been racing around the house and underestimated the room needed to make a turn. She’d slammed side first into the leg of the living room coffee table, and as she’d rebounded away, she’d felt pain like nothing she’d ever felt before, and screamed. Moments later Cadance had come catapulting out of the bathroom and had rushed up to her, as Cadance’s horn lit the pain had vanished, replaced by a soft warmth. Cadance had wrapped a wing around her and just held her for a moment before telling her that she’d cracked a rib, but that it was all better now. She’d simply stood there, enjoying the feel of Cadance’s soft fur and the wonderful absence of pain for a few minutes before she noticed the broken porcelain on the floor. Her heart had nearly stopped when she realized that her collision with the coffee table had knocked over and broken the vase that lived on it. She’d known the vase had been hoof made by her great-grandfather, Soft Clay, and that it had been the last piece he’d ever made. She’d started sobbing, and when Cadance had asked what was wrong, she’d tried to explain to her between sobs how important the vase had been and how her parents were going to hate her now. With another burst of magic, the vase had reassembled itself, but Twilight had known, known absolutely and without question, that her parents would be able to tell what had happened. Cadance had tried to tell her that even if her parents could tell, they wouldn’t hate her, but she hadn’t believed her. That was when Cadance had smiled, she’d started levitating books off the shelves and stacking them around Twilight. She’d been confused at first, but as the basic shape of the fort had taken form around her, she’d somehow felt safe, completely surrounded by books and with Cadance sitting just outside. She’s started to laugh as the fortress had become more and more ornate, Cadance using cantrips to hold precariously placed books in place. She’d spent the rest of the evening happily curled up in her fort with Cadance reading to her, and had barely panicked at all when her parents and Shining came home. Cadance had met them at the door and talked to them for a few minutes, after which her mother and father and come in, hugged her, and told her they were just glad she was alright.
Then there’d been those weeks and months directly after Shining had been assigned to Stalliongrad. It wasn’t just the fact that her father spent most of his time at the royal observatory or that her mother would often end up spending two or three solid days working on her manuscripts, leaving her alone. Even as a young filly she’d known that Stalliongrad and the border with the Griffon khanate was the most dangerous posting for a member of the royal guard. Looking back on it, she could see the signs she’d been too young to notice. Back then she’d simply assumed it was normal for Cadance to be as upset and worried about Shining leaving as she was, that it was just because of how wonderful he was. They’d spent evenings drafting letters and talking about him, though she could see know most of those conversations had gone right over her head.
When she’d become Celestia’s student, her parents had almost disappeared from her life, but Cadance had remained. Aside from Celestia herself, who was often busy with affairs of state, and spent most of their time together encouraging Twilights studies, Cadance had been the only pony who dared, or cared enough, to confront Celestia’s protege. She’d lost track of the number of times when, sometime around midnight, Cadance would barge into the archives, ignore her protests that she still had work to do, pick her up in her magic and carry Twilight to her room, where there’d inevitably be a hot meal waiting for them. They’d talk about whatever Twilight had been studying at the moment while they ate, then Cadance would tuck twilight into bed and get a promise that she wouldn’t leave until morning.
Even now, looking back on it all, she couldn’t quite identify if there had been any one moment where she’d started falling in love. Maybe it had started that evening with the book fort, or perhaps during one of those late nights at the dinner table, or it could have been some other time altogether. Still, even if she couldn’t pinpoint the moment she’d started falling in love, she knew the exact moment she’d realized she was in love.
She’d spent the day working nonstop and had finished almost an hour before she normally did. Her brother had been on leave, and she’d been so eager to get to spend a bit of extra time with him. She’d almost galloped through the streets, and had slipping through the front door of their parent’s house, tiphoofed her way to the living room, and froze as saw what was inside the room. Her brother, and he’d definitely just been her brother in that moment, was sitting on the couch with his hooves wrapped around Cadance’s barrel as he kissed her.
She honestly couldn’t remember how she’d gotten back to the palace, maybe she’d desperately galloped back to the archives, or maybe she’d trudged there. It was even possible she’d teleported. However it had happened, her next clear memory had been sitting in the archive, staring blankly at a bookshelf as a clock chimed the hour. Cadance and Shining had been there to meet her when she left, smiling and suggesting that they all go to Doughnut Joes. She’d plastered on a smile and agreed as eagerly as she could manage eagerly, not that it had fooled Cadance. When she’d been asked what was wrong, she’d lied and made up a story about a problem with her current project. That night, alone in her room, she’d spent hours deciding what to do, eventually settling on starting the graphs and charts that now lay in front of her. After all, graphs could be trusted, jealousy and anger couldn’t make them change their truths, and neither could pain and guilt. Graphs simply laid out facts, and therefore, they could be relied upon to guide her actions.
Shaking her head, she looked away from the picture and scanned the parchment for one particular pair of graphs. In the past they had been zero-sum graphs, and had in fact linked to another set of graphs that pushed her away from ever acting on her feeling. Now however, she hoped that might have changed. Hoped was the wrong word she supposed, as she flicked her horn to remove the old ink from the graph and picked up her quill to started drawing in new lines. She’d known how the graph was going to change since the moment she’d ascended, but there was a part of her that wasn’t going to truly believe it until she saw the proof that it wasn’t just a mixture of her jealousy and hope talking. As she lowered her quill and looked down at the graphs, her smile grew wider and wider until it started to hurt her lips. Odd, that hadn’t happened since that day she’d realized she had no friendship report to send to princess Celestia. Now certainly wasn’t the time to worry about smiles however, no this was a time to plan, because those newly drawn lines changed everything. Before today both graphs had been identical, both showing Candace's long-term happiness resulting from a relationship with Shining or her. Other graphs on the parchment showed how much happiness she estimated either one of them could give Cadance, but where those graphs were drawn in years and decades, this one was drawn in centuries and millennia. Twilight knew Cadance, she wasn’t the sort of mare who would forget about somepony she loved, no matter how much pain the memories caused her. Even if it were just on the anniversaries of their death, she would look back and mourn their loss, and that emotional pain, multiplied by her infinitely long lifespan, meant that, in time, both relationships would cause her an infinite amount of pain. And while that still held true for her brother’s graph, it most assuredly did not for hers. Now, assuming that she was able to bring more joy than pain to Cadance’s life, and she was certain she could, the graphs showed that a relationship with her would in time bring an infinite amount of joy to Cadance, while one with Shining would bring an infinite amount of pain.
She felt a little bit of guilt as her eyes darted to that other pair of linked graphs, a pair for her B.B.B.F.F., a pair that showed the estimated happiness that he’d get from his relationship over his lifetime and the estimated amount of pain a breakup would cause. Still, the amount of pain Shining would suffer was finite, unlike the pain his death would eventually cause Cadance. Suddenly an idea sparked and her head whipped towards the shelves where she kept her other graphs, specifically the shelf dedicated to Rarity. With a flick of her horn, another scroll flew to the table and unrolled. Rarity’s love life had always been a depressing thing to graph, charting her slow progression through the nobility of Canterlot. The graph suggested that, based on the temperament of the less pleasant members of said nobility, and the frequency of apocalypses that needed averting as well as changes in fashion that would bring large orders to fill, it would probably take her between six and ten years to encounter a noble who would do something that would drive the fashionista to murder. Another graph suggested that Rarity would last between three hours and a week in jail before the prison outfits, and unladylike environment, drove her to do something drastic in an attempt to escape. After some thought about how she’d escape a jail, Twilight had decided that using her cellmate as a blood sacrifice to summon a bound eldritch horror to free her and wreak revenge on all those who had wronged her was probably the best choice for a unicorn. A part of her wanted to chart the damage she estimated the monsters eventual rampage cause and compare it to the benefits that that the ensuing repair and new construction jobs would bring, but that could wait until one of those nights she couldn’t fall asleep.
As she quickly scribbled a few new charts estimating the benefits and drawbacks of the possible courtship she considered, would Shining still be an honorary prince after the divorce went through? Well, it hardly mattered anyway she supposed. Because of some old laws, one which were in Twilight’s opinion highly speciesist, she was unable so to name Spike her hair. So, at least until she could convince Cadance to marry her, shining would be her heir, and the heir of a princess was officially be a duke. Twilight shook her head, that darn mussel twitch in her eye was making it hard to focus, none the less she was sure Rarity would be thrilled with either a prince or a duke. Smiling her lip hurting smile, Twilight scanned the graphs and charts one last time, her eyes lingering on the positive and negative infinities before she began to put them away. Sitting back in her chair, she ran a hoof through her frazzled mane and began to consider just how to destroy Shining’s marriage so completely that Cadance wouldn’t even greave his eventual passing. After all, it was all right there on the graph, inaction would cause infinite pain for Cadance while action would bring her infinite joy, clearly only moral thing to do was to destroy her brother’s marriage and then seduce his wife, and graphs didn’t lie.