Taking 'twilighting' to a new level
"It's a perfectly rational plan," Twilight said, twitching and wide eyes staring through Spike.
The young dragon didn't particularly buy it and signaled as much, crossing his arms and giving Twilight look #47: head tilted forward and to the left, letting him glare at her over non-existent glasses while keeping his mouth in a firm but slight frown.
"It is!" Twilight tried to sound commanding but came out almost entirely as petulant.
Spike just closed his eyes to brace for it. "Since you're going to do it anyway, why don't you explain yourself? Slowly and in words Rainbow Dash would understand."
Twilight perked up. "I'm glad you asked!" She ignored the obvious sarcasm. "Before I detail my plan's details, we need to establish a few baseline points! Most importantly: did you know that it's Luna's birthday in two days?"
With a heavy sigh, Spike nodded. "Yes, Twilight, I know it is. I make your schedule. And even if she wasn't your marefriend, I'm smart enough to have the birthdays of all of the Princesses on your calendar."
"AND!" Twilight barreled forward with the grace of a punch-drunk yak. "Did you know that in addition to being the Princess of the Night and very cute, Luna is also the Princess of Dreams?"
Another sigh. "Yes, Twilight."
"She visits mine often," Twilight noted before leaning close and conspiratorially whispering to Spike. "Sometimes we do things."
Spike's face squinched up in disgust.
Which made Twilight start giggling. "I know, I can't believe how lucky I am! But the problem is that she visits my dreams. So if I want to surprise her with a birthday present, I can't let that happen! Otherwise she'll find out what the present is and ruin the surprise!"
"...Twilight. Princess Luna can see your dreams, not read your mind."
The concern was waved away. "And dreams are in my mind, so she'd see it! And that's why I can't go to sleep until after her birthday."
Spike took another careful look at Twilight: pupils wide around bloodshot eyes; wings twitching; the telltale reek of coffee on her breath. "Twilight, how long has it been since you last slept?"
"Six days!" There was far too much enthusiasm in Twilight's voice. "Which is pushing the boundaries but it's nowhere near the record," she lectured. "And since I'm an alicorn I'm sure I could last longer than anypony else. Did you know that according to legend, Princess Celestia once stayed awake for fourteen days while engaged in a contest of wills against Dragonlord Inferno?"
There was a long pause as Twilight smiled as if nothing was wrong and Spike stared at the impending disaster.
"Go to bed."
"No."
"Go to bed."
"No!"
Spike threw up his hands. "Alright, I tried. This one's on you from here." And he meandered out of the room so he could write a letter to Princess Celestia and warn her.
Glowing with victory, Twilight stuck her tongue out at her retreating brother. And then she stopped. And she looked around. "...Why am I standing on the map table?"
It took several minutes but Twilight was able to eventually remember why she was on the map table. And once she did, it was time to get back to work.
The room echoed with crystal scraping against crystal as Twilight hauled the thrones out. Her magic was being a bit... flickery and so she'd been reduced to shoving. Which was good! Physical exertion was great for keeping you awake!
About the same point that all seven thrones were out of the room - and thus the cacophony of noise stopped - was when Twilight heard Rarity's trilling voice. "Oh Twi~light! Knock knock! I was just coming by to--" And her horrified shriek marked the moment she got line of sight on Twilight. "Darling! What's happened to you? You look horrid!"
Rarity descended on Twilight with a brush - only to be batted away. "Hello Rarity, I'm fine."
"You most certainly are not fine," came the return challenge.
"Totally fine!" Twilight ignored Rarity's comb swooping at her, instead ducking so she could start to scribe the beginnings of a magic circle on the floor of the throne room with a horn laser.
Rarity paused as the inscribing began, looking at the start of the great work with the same curiosity one would have observing two hobos fighting over a bucket of fried chicken. "Darling, could you perhaps explain just what it is you're doing? Normally I only see you like this either when the world is about to end or when you're twilighting especially hard, and I feel as your friend I should know which direction I should be bracing in."
The inscribing paused so Twilight could project an image in the air - unfathomably complex, deeply intricate, and totally inexplicable. The massive circle of runes and sigils was gibberish to Rarity (and probably to every other pony in the world save a half dozen of the most learned scholars.) "Luna's birthday is in two days and I'm creating a present for her using this spell matrix." The projected illusion vanished and Twilight set back to work. "So I can't sleep until then because otherwise Luna will see what I'm planning in my dreams."
For a moment, Rarity considered the situation before declaring, "So you're twilighting. Good to know!" Her magic tried to grab Twilight by the scruff of the neck. "Come now darling, off to bed with you! This is for your own good."
She didn't get far before Twilight's superior magical power broke the hold. "Rarity, I know that you've decided that this is silly but it's also none of your business." Twilight's magenta magic grabbed Rarity's scruff and lifted her. "Thank you for your concern but I'm very busy right now."
The doors swung as Twilight floated a struggling Rarity out of the room.
Rarity did not take the hint and crashed back through the doors, full of indignant fury. "Now see here--"
So Twilight teleported her to Manehatten.
It was fine. Rarity liked Manehatten. She had friends and a boutique there, so she would be okay. Yes, she'd be mad later but that was a problem for Tomorrow Twilight and was dwarfed by the need to stay awake and do magic.
It was fine.
Thankfully, Rainbow Dash didn't immediately start the way both Rarity and Spike had. Instead she opted to observe while hovering nearby, watching Twilight work. This was suspicious, of course, because there was no way Dash understood any of what was being done aside from it being 'magic stuff'. But she'd been watching silently for several minutes now and so long as she didn't disturb things, Twilight was content to let Dash continue.
It was, unfortunately, too good to be true.
"So why all the coffee."
Twilight paused etching the fourth ring of runes so she could sigh with frustration. "So I can stay awake."
"Nah, I mean why coffee," Dash prattled. "There's no way you don't have half a dozen spells to keep you awake with way less hassle."
It should have been a clue that Rainbow Dash hadn't asked about why Twilight was trying to stay awake. In retrospect, Twilight would later realize that Spike had probably spread the word to try and get help. But in that moment, she was otherwise mentally occupied and after six days without sleep thinking was getting kind of difficult. "There are plenty of spells to help somepony stay awake," she lectured, barely thinking about it as she started on branch B-2θ. "But they all have major complications or side effects. Every year a few students at Celestia's School try to use them so they can study more but usually they end up making their situation worse. The best one I know of is Callosal's Split which lets half of your brain sleep while the other half stays awake. In this case that not only wouldn't help me because I'd still be partially asleep but it would make my work harder because it requires constant magical effort to maintain. "
Rainbow Dash nodded, at least feigning understanding. (A darker part of Twilight's thoughts assumed she did because being half asleep all the time was fairly normal for Dash.) "Right, right, that makes sense. But what are you gonna do once caffeine doesn't cut it any more? You know there's a wall eventually."
"I just need another day and change." Twilight squinted. Her vision wobbled, tired eyes not wanting to cooperate and focus on the tiny sigils she had been working on. "After that, I can go to sleep and everything will be fine."
"Why not grab some sleep now?"
Twilight grunted. "Dash, you know why."
It was a special Rainbow Dash talent to be able to shrug while hovering. "So just grab a really quick one. You don't start dreaming immediately, it takes time. You only dream when you're sleeping like a sheep."
That completely threw Twilight, derailing her brain like a record scratch. "Like a-- REM sleep, not ram sleep!"
"Okay, but I'm right aren't I?"
Twilight sputtered, brain sluggishly struggling with the paradox of knowing Dash was right and not wanting to admit it. "That's irrelevant!" It was a weak denial. "Dash, this is important. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little to do something for a friend. You understand that - I know you do!"
Rainbow Dash's face squished up like she was eating a lemon-soaked onion. "I mean... yeah, I guess."
"And doubly so for a marefriend!"
That made Rainbow Dash hesitate. "I guess?"
It was a weakness. Twilight's wings flapped, pulling her up to eye level with the pegasus. "You guess?"
"I mean..." Rainbow hesitated. "I'm really busy, okay? There isn't a lot of time for me to go and, uh..." She avoided eye contact, trying to look anywhere but at Twilight. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with flying solo sometimes."
Jackpot. "You don't have to," Twilight pointed out in the most predatory way possible.
The tone was not lost on Rainbow Dash. "Uuuuuuuh..."
Twilight quickly recovered. "Not me! I'm, um--"
"Private Princess Property," Dash offered, far too suggestively.
Which made Twilight blush. "What I'm saying," she pivoted to, "Is that I'm offering you a deal. You help me by making sure I don't get disturbed while I'm doing this, and then I help you with asking out a certain somepony."
"Pft." Dash rolled her eyes dismissively. And three seconds later looked back to Twilight with poorly hidden hope. "Not that I need help, but--"
"But you're a very busy mare," Twilight observed, "And there's nothing wrong with a friend helping a friend with a friend."
There was another pause as Rainbow Dash considered it. But Twilight knew her friend well enough that the end result was inevitable. "...So what do you want from me again?"
Unable to suppress a smile (one that looked as dopey as her sleep-deprived brain was right now), Twilight laid it out simply. "All I'm asking is for you to lend a hoof and keep Pinkie Pie out of the castle until after Luna's birthday." Pinkie was the one Twilight was truly worried about anyway - she was liable to pop out of a closet with a mallet to force the sleeping issue, while she'd at least see the others coming. "And then you'll have me as wingmare when you make your move."
It was a good enough temptation with high reward and low cost. "Piece of cake! Have a good magic whatever it is you're doing!" Rainbow Dash rocketed out a nearby window, off to do her job.
Twilight didn't have the heart to tell her that Applejack was planning on asking Dash out that weekend anyway.
It had taken the entire night and halfway into the morning, but Twilight was finished. Her brain was full of cotton and her vision was swimming but she was done. The floor of the map room was covered with thousands of tiny precisely placed sigils and runes, creating a massive ritual circle that would allow her to amplify and focus her intended spell. Now all that was left was waiting until tomorrow.
Which was a problem. The work had been good for keeping Twilight awake: it had kept her mind focused and her magic active. Now without that she found herself drifting. Copious coffee helped, but as Rainbow Dash had predicted it was getting less and less effective with each mug.
So she went outside. A walk around town would get her blood pumping and the fresh, crisp air of autumn would invigorate Twilight's senses. (She hoped.) Also she had realized she was fairly hungry, having consumed nothing over the prior twenty-four hours but uncounted mugs of coffee and three bananas.
It was only after she arrived at the market stand she realized that Spike had probably told all of her friends about the situation.
"Twilight," Applejack said with cool seriousness.
"Applejack," Twilight said with a smiling grimace.
"Spike says you're doin' something that's pretty foolish." The farmer was already putting together Twilight's usual order of apple products without looking, keeping her eyes locked on Twilight.
There was no point in lying. Even if the Honesty Stare didn't break Twilight, she knew that the whole story was likely already circulating and making up a story would only delay the inevitable. "He thinks I am, yes."
Nor was there any avoiding Applejack's even, half-lidded stare. "Do you think you are?"
Again, there was the urge to lie. To make excuses. To evade. None of those happened. "It isn't my wisest choice," Twilight admitted.
"Mmhm."
That was all Applejack said and it hit Twilight harder than two bucking hooves. "I have to, though! Luna deserves it! Please Applejack, you've got to understand!" The words spilled out rapid as her eye-twitches.
Another apple slipped into the bag. "Not too fond of my friends bein' hurt," noted the farmer. "Even if it's by themselves."
"It's only until after her birthday," Twilight insisted - pleaded. If she was being honest with herself, whined like a child who was bargaining with their parents to stay up just a little bit longer.
And just like a parent in that situation, Applejack fixed Twilight with a stern, disapproving stare.
The alicorn quailed. "I... I have to, Applejack. This is important. Luna's important."
Applejack... relented. Slightly. Her stern gaze softened just a touch and she sighed. "Never said she wasn't, sugarcube. That you're doing this at all shows how much you love that mare and just how lucky she is. But this ain't healthy. You know that."
"Just until tomorrow," Twilight begged. "I swear that as soon as I've given her the gift, I'll go to bed. Please. I can't have come this far just to fail now. I have to finish the job."
The farmer's lips pursed tightly. Her internal conflict was obvious: she knew she should scold Twilight and force her to bed, but of all ponies in the world? She understood that urge to do a difficult job and see it through. It wasn't as if she hadn't hurt herself before to keep working. So it struck a chord and she gave an inch. "You swear it? Because if you don't--"
"Then you'll be after me with a pillow and a hammer to knock me out," Twilight completed. She quickly crossed her heart and poked her eye (too hard) to seal things. "I swear, I'll give Luna her gift and go to bed immediately. Within ten minutes."
Still, Applejack frowned. She didn't like it. She very obviously didn't like it. But she nodded in acceptance of the terms. "Within ten minutes," she agreed. Then she gave Twilight a bag of apples. "Twelve bits."
Twilight gave her fifteen and told her to keep the change, which helped.
Mere hours to go. It was noon and Luna's birthday festivities were due to begin at sunset. Twilight had everything prepared: her speech was memorized, she had a teleport set to go to Canterlot and back, Spike had the night off, and Twilight had used a magic laser to cut a hole in the castle's roof so the map room was exposed to open sky. (She could have done that later but she had time to kill and was impatient.) She had even pre-cast the spell and set it up on a delay timer so should the worst (sleep) come to pass it would still execute on time. Luna would have her present, no matter what. This all left Twilight pacing around, looking at the clock every ten seconds or so, then looking at it again as her blurry vision lied to her about what she'd just seen.
But that didn't matter. None of it mattered. The only thing that did was the countdown to when Twilight could give Luna her birthday present and then sleep.
Just thinking the word 'sleep' was enough to make Twilight's eyelids droop and her body start to doze off.
She had thought ahead to prevent this, however, and the enchantment she'd placed on herself jolted her awake - literally, as it used a small amount of pegasus magic to shock her.
The yelp must have been quite loud as it drew a response: Fluttershy's gentle voice. "Twilight? Is that you? Are you alright?"
Scrambling with the smooth coordination of a newborn fawn on ice, Twilight drew herself up and prepared for one more confrontation. "I'm fine! Everything's fine!"
"That didn't sound fine," Fluttershy ventured. The door to the map room opened - Twilight could have sworn she'd locked it - as Fluttershy entered with two mugs of steaming coffee in her wings. "Here, would this help?"
Twilight squinted at Fluttershy. Then the mugs. Then Fluttershy. "What are you up to?"
"Bringing you coffee," said the pegasus quite simply. "Spike told me you were staying awake to try and do something nice for Princess Luna and I thought I'd help."
Alarm bells went off in Twilight's fuzzy brain. "You're not going to try and talk me into going to sleep?"
Fluttershy shook her head. "Goodness no. I know that wouldn't convince you at all, Twilight, and I'm sure the other girls already tried. If you're this determined to stay awake, as a good friend I should be helping you."
Perhaps it was the weariness clouding her judgement, or perhaps Twilight was simply glad one of her friends understood. "Thank you. I really appreciate it, Fluttershy." She levitated over the mug of coffee, taking a deep drink. It tasted... Twilight grimaced, unable to place the odd not-coffee taste. "Fluttershy? What's in this?"
The pegasus answered with the calm cheer of a doctor's diagnosis. "Just coffee, two spoons of sugar, and enough tranquilizer to put down an elephant." There was a momentary pause. "I wasn't sure how much would be needed for an alicorn, so I erred on the side of caution."
"I see." Twilight considered the situation, even as she could feel the sluggishness starting to take hold of her already weary body. "Well played." And then she teleported Fluttershy to Manehatten as well, mostly out of spite.
Twilight knew she was asleep. Even if somehow she had forgotten Fluttershy's vile betrayal, the fact that her head was clear (rather than swimming in cotton from sleep deprivation) for the first time in days was undeniable.
It was also a very definitive signal that she was asleep because her marefriend was looming over her with a disapproving look. "Oh Twilight, you silly fool."
"Aheheheheheh..." Twilight blushed demurely, not quite able to meet that gaze. "Um, hi, Luna."
"I was becoming worried, you know," Luna pointed out as she walked closer. It was a slow advance, each step taken with firm purpose. And each time her hoof struck the nothingness, it caused a scene to spring up around them - vague at first, coming into sharper focus each stride until it fully realized as a dream version of Luna's bedroom. The Princess of the Night lay down on her wide, plush bed - and patted the space beside her with her wing. Cringing with embarrassment, Twilight still couldn't resist the beckoning and lay down in the indicated space. "Normally I see you in your dreams each evening. It is one of the highlights of my duties and gives me the opportunity to end even the most difficult of nights with the pleasure of your company. A week without you was most distressing. I had planned to seek you out after you continued not appearing, but faithful Spike let me know of your, ah. Difficulties."
Twilight's expression cycled rapidly between shock, horror, and betrayal. "He told you--"
She was cut off. "He told me only that you were avoiding sleep because you feared your dreams would betray your plans for my birthday. Which is very sweet of you, but wholly unnecessary." Luna kissed Twilight's cheek. "I am a dream walker, not a mind reader. If you did not wish me to know something, you could easily have not dreamt about it." She nudged Twilight with her nose. "You, in particular, whom I have taught so many lessons to upon the principles of lucid dreaming and control."
"But I--! I..." Twilight bit her lip adorably. "I'm not sure I could not think about you when I'm around you. And I'm so excited to give you this present!"
Luna laughed. "You could also simply have asked me not to look. I am no foal, Twilight. I waited a thousand years on the moon, I can withstand a scant few days for a present from my beloved. Had you said you wished to keep the secret, I would have simply not visited your dreams to ensure that privacy."
"...but I like you visiting my dreams." Twilight's tiny, meek voice managed to be both cute and petulant at once.
"And I did not visit you whilst you remained awake for days," Luna pointed out. "So you have not had my company and have harmed yourself. Two injuries when you could have only had one."
To Twilight's credit, her look of shame made it clear she'd realized she had made a mistake. And she didn't attempt to pretend she hadn't. She did, however, whine. "But I wanted it to be perfect!"
Luna - wings wrapping around her marefriend - hugged Twilight close. "And it will be. You simply made it perfect in the worst way possible." This did not stop Twilight's sour grumbling, but it reduced it to a mere mutter. "Now. When do you wish me to wake you up?"
"...eleven thirty," Twilight muttered. "Set the timer to trigger the spell at midnight."
"Then I shall see you at eleven-thirty," Luna declared. "Until then? Rest, my beloved."
She kissed Twilight's forehead - and the depths of sleep overtook the smaller mare.
Their eleven-thirty meeting was not the picture of romance. Twilight had bedhead so severe it would have made Rarity faint, breath bad enough to make Spike recoil, and the bags under her eyes could carry both Cake twins. But eleven or so hours of sleep had done wonders for Twilight and her mind was sharp once more. (Or at least it was after she had some time to shake off the grogginess and wake up properly.)
She didn't care about that, though. In no small part because she was awoken by Luna at her bedside - a very real and not dream one.
The next half hour was split relatively evenly: ten minutes were spent as Twilight slowly came to wakefulness with Luna held close in the bed; ten minutes as Twilight scrambled to brush her teeth, tame her mane, and take care of other biological needs; and nine minutes of Twilight apologizing profusely to Luna for being so short-sighted and silly.
"--And you're right, if I'd thought about what I was doing I probably would have realized there were other options. But by that stage I was already two days without sleep so I suppose my judgement was mildly impaired and--"
"Twilight."
The younger alicorn's head rotated like an owl's. "Yes Luna?"
"Stop."
"...okay." She blushed - adorably, by Luna's reckoning.
The elder of the two smiled her enigmatic smile. "Perhaps focus on the here and now? You have but a minute before your prepared spell takes place and you have not yet revealed what it is to be."
She perked up as the opportunity to be Lecturer Twilight reared its head. "Um. Yes! Right!" The little alicorn drew herself up straight and motioned to the reconfigured map room before them. "I originally had an entire speech planned for this, but my practice runs said it needed four minutes thirty-seven seconds so I'll have to do the abridged version." Twilight cleared her throat. "The idea came to me after talking with Sunset Shimmer about her world. Over there, one of the biggest achievements of the humans is that they made a journey to the moon under their own power. It was a massive project that combined the work of thousands of their most brilliant minds over more than a decade, but it remains one of their proudest moments. Then I thought about you and, well, um, the moon. And I thought that if humans were so inspired by the moon and they don't have, well, you..."
Luna managed to fill in the blanks as Twilight stumbled over herself. "So you wish to have ponies journey to the moon as some sort of tribute to me? But then why a spell?"
"Because first there needed to be the drive to do it! To make a grand project like that the center of so much thought and culture and... and..." Twilight glanced at the spell-forms on the ground as they started to glow and gave Luna a gentle nudge backwards.
At exactly midnight, it flared to life. Ring within ring, layer upon layer. Dozens of hours of Twilight's work erupted into a massive circle of magic. One singular spell, focused and extended and enhanced to a level of power never before seen in Equestria. All of the energy pulsed around the runes and markings, swirling as it lit up the room with bright magenta power. Then - mere seconds after it started - the power came slamming together at the working's central point and a massive beam shot out. The column of energy rocketed upwards, rocking both alicorns backwards as it left the castle and rose into the sky with a deafening roar.
Both Luna and Twilight wobbled in its wake, eyes tingling from the afterimage of the flash. "I..." Luna coughed. "That was most impressive, my beloved, but what did you do?" Her question was partially one of curiosity - but also partially of worry for just what had been unleashed.
Her response was only pride. "I cast a Want It Need It spell on the moon."
By the following week, every nation in the world had a space program and Twilight was back in Magic Kindergarten until she figured out how to dispel her enchantment.
