The Greatest Question In The World
“Twilight, why are you still up this late?” Spike growled, rubbing his heavy and achy eyelids, his bed sheets thrust over his shoulders and his pillow held tight in his tail. “It’s like three a.m., in the middle of the night.”
A yawn distorted the young dragon’s face, his eyes blinking intermittently as he struggled to stand still. A shiver ran through his back. The living room was cold as a night of December. Spike spotted one of the library’s windows, shattered by a projectile that had come been flung through. Twilight did not notice, or chose not to, ransacking her own house.
“Twilight…” Spike sighed, his shoulders falling a little as he gave in to one of Twilight’s many tantrums. “You’re not in a hurry, go back to…”
Spike ended his talking, definitely defeated. Twilight had raised her hoof, and inquisitively waved it at him, asking for silence. She was ramming in her personal library with her alicorn magic, puff of purple and crimson violet grabbing and rummaging in the shelves. Pushing them and their content upside down, books flew in the air and fell on the ground, blasting dust in the air. Pinching his nose, Spike tried to repress a sneeze, to no avail.
“ATCHA!”
“Bless you,” Twilight reacted mindlessly, worried, reading the content of an old and creased manuscript, its dark red seal shredded into pieces.
Twilight’s eyes were bloodshot and kept wide open. Spike could see her pupils moving from left to right, again and again as she was eating up rows and rows of texts.
“Twilight, please,” Spike rambled with his pleading and exhausted voice. “You know I can help you. I’m your number one assistant.”
“Hoo?”
Spike shrieked and jumped, startled by Owlowiscious’s famous line. The owl’s two pinprick eyes settled upon the small dragon, lying in the middle of a pile of books, taking deep and noisy breaths in.
“Never. Again. Owlowi… Scious…” Spike berated, ashamed to having been caught up by surprise, a surprise that had never been meant to be. “And you’re only number two.”
“Hoo?”
“Who do you think I’m talk…” Spike stopped, closed his eyes and covered his face with the palm of his clawed hand. “Nevermind, owlowi’. Nevermind.”
Spike stood up with a pout, swearing he had seen the owl shrugged at him out of the corner of his eye. A book flew past his head and crashed into the middle of the room, bucking the table and its horse statue off balance. It crumbled down the floor, rolling haphazardly around. The horse’s head sculpture hit a shelf, pushing off a series of scrolls.
“And who’s gonna tidy this all up?” Spike grumbled. “It’s me of course.”
“It’s for science, Spike,” Twilight replied, stomping the ground with a half-hidden anger as she threw a new load of books over her shoulder. “Why can’t I find anything useful.”
“Friggin’ science, yeah.”
Twilight’s horn flared with pure magic and her eyes glowed white, spreading light before her like two beacons. Every piece of paper or furniture in the room began hovering over the ground, shining in an orchid-coloured mist. A whizz filled the air, forcing Spike to cover his ears wincing under the painful noise. A pop echoed and every book in the library disappeared in a puff of purple smoke, evaporated. Opening an eye, Spike’s mouth fell a little, dangling limply. Twilight was standing in the middle of the room, snub-nosed and with curled up lips. She blew airs with her muzzle, blasting the dust she had spread onto the floor away.
“I can’t find anything!” she raged, bucking her statue to the next corner of the room.
The horse head bumped against an empty shelf and rolled until it disappeared in the frame of the kitchen door.
“There is only one solution,” Twilight mumbled, muffling her voice behind her hoof as she rubbed her chin, thinking.
Her horn flared a second time, encasing her in magical aura.
“Twilight, where’re you going?”
Spike jumped and touched Twilight’s mane on time. In a puff of smoke, the duo disappeared, leaving behind an emptied library, a surprised owl and many questions for the first pony who would cross the golden oak library’s door.
The sudden teleportation as well as the landing spot surprised Spike. Rocketing through the new place, his back crashed onto a massive glass wall sounding half-empty. A gigantesque hourglass sitting in state in the middle of a majestic library. Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the archives. The place had not changed since the last time, filled with old and dusty books, all covered with the same thick layer of dust. In the penumbra, Spike swore he could see the hoofprints of Pinkie and Twilight, the last time they had wandered about the archives, nearly two years ago. This part of Canterlot was not famous for its number of visitors.
Twilight repeated the same goings-on that had left Spike wondering, back in Ponyville Library. He sighed, getting really tired of Twilight’s mess and common silence.
“Can’t you just explain to me?” Spike asked, huffing with his small muzzle. “Twilight?”
“I must find an answer to a question,” Twilight replied as she began emptying the millennium-aged shelves, taking great care to classify them on the ground, first by alphabetic order, then by size and finally by thickness of their layer of dust.
“To what?”
“To the greatest question in the world of course,” she answered mystically. “It’s just that I can’t find any answer to that. No book, nopony, nobody can bring a good explanation.” She paused and breathed in. “and it’s driving me crazy!”
“I’m going to bring somepony, you’re just tired and it’s playing on your nerves.”
“No, stay here and help me!”
“I don’t even know what you’re searching for!”
Spike hopped between the piles of book, careful about not slipping on an open one. But a laughter rose, echoing in the building like a chorus of eerie voices.
“You seem all chaotic tonight,” Discord began as his silhouette slipped out of a shadow, his lion paw rubbing his white beard. “All this order you’ve put great care to disorder. That’s quite sad.”
“Stop bothering me, Discord,” Twilight spat, swimming under the content of ‘K’ shelf she had brought down to the ground. “You can’t answer my question.”
“Are you so sure about it?”
Discord’s shape slithered between the books, merging with the shadow until it materialized again in Twilight back. The draconequus stretched his paw and hand over Twilight’s shoulder, his hoop tail weaving around. Nearing his face close to hers, still his hand over his hairy chin, Discord’s eyes peered in the alicorn’s. A large smile cleared his face.
“Since when can you read minds, Discord?”
“Oh, why are you so prompt enouncing such infamy about my person? I thought we were friends,” he complained, mimicking one of Rarity’s laments, until his voice swung back to his normal, deep and strange tone. “And you’re not so difficult to read Twilight. You’re like an open book to me, and you’ll always be one.”
Twilight screwed up her eyes at him.
“So, what’s your idea, Discord?” she grumbled, disrespectfully.
“Your dire tone is nearly hurting my old empty shell.” The magician at heart Discord enounced, trying to pet Twilight’s ears.
When she pushed his paw back, Discord held between his tips the two parts of an oyster shell, and made them clatter.
“My answer, Princess Twilight is…” Discord smiled. “Why don’t you ask your question to him, personally?”
“Don’t be stupid Discord, he is dead. I can’t go back in…”
Twilight spotted the amused smile on Discord’s face. From exasperate, she became meditative. Spike tried to interject.
“Don’t listen to him, Twilight, he just want to trick you, somehow.”
“Oh, you have a poor conception of myself, little Spike,” Discord sighed, poking the draconic youngling in the nose.
Twilight cleared her voice.
“I think you’re right, it won’t hurt anybody.”
“And it seems that it’s really important for you,” Discord added, keeping the same unsettling smile.
“Yes, it is. It will explain a mystery.”
Twilight focused as her horn burst out in magic, encasing her body in tendrils of pure light and magic.
“Twilight!” Spike shouted. “Don’t do it, it’s Discord you’re talking with.”
“Oh, party-pooper,” Discord cackled, flogging Spike’s rear with a gentle sweep of his tail. “Just wait.”
And Twilight’s form disappeared in a flash, leaving behind nothing but empty space.
“What have you done, Discord?” Spike accused.
“Nothing,” the draconequus chanted with a grin.
λ λ φ ΰ Ϫ ΰ φ λ λ
Twilight reappeared a few feet over the ground. Taken by surprise, she fell, hitting the ground with a loud thump. Her wings spread on the ground, she shook her head, trying to chase away the dizziness. She was not given time.
“What are you doing in my laboratory?” a loud and cranky voice roared.
An old grey stallion stood before the princess, rubbing her face with her hoof to regain a perfect consciousness. A long, puffy white and nearly silver beard scrubbed Twilight’s nose. And opening her eyes, her pupils filled with admiration and awe.
“Star… Swirl… the… Bearded,” Twilight spelled.
Her eyes sparked with lights, full of admiration for the old and angry-looking buck. Her pupils dilated and her hooves pressed onto her blushing cheeks.
“I can’t… believe… it,” she blabbered.
“I can’t believe it too…” Star Swirl grumbled. “What are you doing in my shed, in my lab and in the middle of my research?”
Twilight jumped on her hooves, remembering she had a short time left.
“I need to know, I have the greatest question ever. I come from the future and in order to finish my research, I need you to answer a question!”
“A time spell?”
“Yeah, you invented it,” Twilight bragged until she caught the baffled look in Star Swirl’s eyes. “Not yet I guess.”
The sorcerer facehoofed.
“You know that your mere existence now is a th…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Discord thought it was a good idea to ask you directly. But you need to answer my question?” Twilight cut him off as glitter of magic began to orbit around her limbs.
“Dis… cord?”
Twilight took a deep breath.
“Why are you bearded?” Twilight caught Star Swirl aback. “Stallions never grow one, or if they do it’s really hard and took years. And yours is just the longest ever recorded! Why are you bearded? Do you get some magic from it? Is it for the lore and legends? Is it stylish?”
Sparks crackled all around, and Twilight began hovering in the air. With his magic, Star Swirl pulled a small leather bag from his bureau, and with a smile flew it as fast as he could to Twilight's side.
“Sometimes, miss, reality doesn’t live up to the legends’ expectation…” He laughed, rubbing his long white beard. “I just awfully hate razors.”
And Twilight was gone.
λ λ φ ΰ Ϫ ΰ φ λ λ
“Did you get it?” Discord asked.
Twilight opened an eye. She was back into Canterlot library, disappointed.
“No, I didn’t get the answer I wanted. I got an answer nonetheless,” she mumbled.
“I’m not talking about that?”
Discord flew to Twilight’s position and snatched the leather bag off her flank. From the inside, he pulled a small razor, its handle chiselled with gold and diamonds, drawing stars and suns.
“Yes, you got it.”
“Hey, it’s Star Swirl’s gift! It’s not yours!” Twilight burst out in front of an overwhelmed Spike.
“Oh, but it’s mine!” Discord grinned, while rubbing his white beard. “Technically.”
“Since when have you been shaving, Discord?”
“I’ve just told you I didn’t like it,” he smirked.
A silence settled between the princess and the draconequus. Spasms ran through the eyelids of the first, and a playful smile from ear to ear drew on the face of the latter.
“Ciao!”
And Discord was nowhere to be found.
Author's Note
By the way it's still 42!
