“No, I am not doing that, “ Twilight Sparkle muttered under her breath, reshelving a copy of “An Everfree Encyclopedia” with altogether too much force. For a moment, she clutched the cracked length of her horn, taking deep breaths until the pain subsided. “That’s something a crazy pony would do.”
“She told the voice in her head,” the voice in her head replied. So far as voices went, he was a pretty good one, with that villainously sibilant quality that made them so much fun to listen to. “Come on, Twilight, the crazy ship has sailed. It’s sailed and made port again a few times over.”
“Oh, I am crazy, I know that. That’s not a problem until I start acting crazy.” She picked up the next book, and sighed, because scientific journal publications were on the other side of the library. “So long as I act normal, everypony is fine. No matter how many voices I have in my head.”
“You do realize you’re talking to yourself right now, right?” There was a subtle hint of laughter in the voice.
“Of course I realize that! I’d have to be crazy not to. Crazy-er I mean.” She started the long trot across the library, pushing the book cart with her head. “Look, I’m not breaking into Princess Sunset’s personal chambers, and that’s final!”
For a moment, the voice fell silent, and Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps, this time, she’d won. Wouldn’t that be nice? The last week had been hard enough already, and the last thing she needed was to learn she’d developed a lifelong case of schizophrenia. That would just be the icing on the cake of her life.
“Ohhhhh, I know as song that gets on everypony’s nerves~” The voice began to sing.
“No, NO! No you do not get to sing that!” She immediately slapped her hooves to her ears, but it was no use.
“Everypony’s nerves! Everypony’s nerves! I know a song that gets on~” He continued unabated.
“Ms. Sparkle?” Twilight felt her heart skip a full five beats in a row. Slowly, battling the raw fear that had frozen her muscles, as well as the gradually rising decibel level of her mental intruder, she turned to face the object of her earlier dismay.
“Princess Sunset!” She immediately bowed, the motion so swift that she knocked her horn on the floor. On the plus side, the overriding waves of pain and nausea briefly drowned out that asinine song within her skull. On the minus side, it made her throw up all over Sunset’s hooves.
“Agh!” Sunset cantered back, disgust flashing across her features before she quickly schooled them into an almost Celestian concern. “Are you alright my little pony?”
“I’m fine.” Twilight slurred, the warm touch of Sunset’s magic helping steady her. “Just, little excited, that’s all.” She tried a nervous chuckle, but the taste of her own foul breath nearly made her hurl again. “Oh wow, that’s not good.”
“Don’t overexert yourself on my behalf.” Sunset cooed, her persona seeming more legitimate by the second. “I shouldn’t have startled you like that.”
“No, no, it’s completely my fault.” She managed a wan smile, finally achieving some sense of composure. “What was it you needed?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just looking for-”
“I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON-” Twilight’s eye twitched so hard she nearly winked. Frantically, she tried to lipread Sunset’s instructions as the song proceeded to blare out every other semblance of sound in the world. Sadly, she barely spoke to most ponies, much less read their lips, so the most she got was “book.”
“Alright, fine I’ll do it!” She screamed, making the new-fledged princess canter back for the second time that day. As the singing stopped, she put on her most nervous smile. “I mean, it’s just such an honor to serve you! I guess I get a little over-enthusiastic sometimes.”
“Riiiight, just deliver the book to my chambers by this evening, will you?” She offered a smile of her own, rather nervous in its own right, and slowly backed away from the deranged librarian.
“Of course Princess! Anything for you, hehehehe!” Still trying to smile her own face in half, Twilight watched her go with a mounting sense of relief. So, she wasn’t bound for the crazyhouse. At least not yet. No thanks to the voice. “What the buck was that?!”
“Hey, it got your compliance, didn’t it?” Again that voice held an insufferable note of laughter. “Anyway, this is the perfect opportunity. I mean, a master of illusion such as yourself should have no trouble taking a quick peek around.”
“Illusion is a perfectly legitimate school of magic!” She huffed and turned back to her shelving duties, resuming the long trek across the stacks. “It’s not it’s fault it’s…”
“Cheap? Weak? Barely above filly-level?” The mockery increased with each descriptor.
“Shut up! I have a cracked horn! I should be grateful I can cast that much!”
“You’re shouting at the air again, Madame Loony.”
“Shhhh! That term’s offensive! What if princess Luna heard you?” She whipped her head from side to side, almost reflexively hiding behind her cart.
“What if she heard the voice in your head? Really? Please, just start listening to me, otherwise I’m afraid you’re going to wind up one of those pathetic crazy ponies. The ones that are always trying to hide from themselves.” The voice tsked quietly as she crept out from behind her cart, an angry flush covering her cheeks.
“Fine, fine, I’ll go and… wait. What book did she want?” For the second time that day, icy fear flashed through her body.
“Damn if I know.”
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” Twilight muttered over and over under her breath, toting the gargantuan weight of the “Comprehensive Celestial Compendium” upon her comparatively brittle back. If she couldn’t remember which book, then she ought to bring Sunset the most comprehensive one she could find. Hard to beat the infamous triple C in that department.
“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re built from brittle organic compounds,” the voice scoffed.
“It’s not my fault~” Twilight sing-songed. “Everything is your fault. You and your stupid song.”
“But just think how impressed she’ll be with your dedication!”
“Before or after she comments on my stupidity and spinal injuries?”
“Probably before, she seems like the positive sort.”
“Oh joy.” Transferring to grumbles of the silent kind, Twilight staggered into view of Sunset’s Chambers, the two guards outside turning to glance at her with surprise.
“Uh… ma’am? May I ask what you’re doing?” The two unicorns shared an awkward glance, caught in that strange limbo of questioning someone who was clearly in agony.
“Delivery for the Princess.” She grunted out in reply, her legs finally beginning to shake dangerously.
The two took another look at her, then quickly huddled and muttered. One of them finally coughed and faced her. “We were told to expect a book, and clearly you’ve come a long way, so we’ll just take it from here.”
“No!” Twilight shook her head, her librarian instincts taking over. It helped that she’d planned for just this scenario. “This is the library’s one, only, original copy of the Celestial Compendium! I didn’t even dare trust a cart with its frail pages, and I’m barely trusting a princess with it’s safety, so in no way am I going to let this priceless work of irreplaceable literature be handled by anything less than the most thoroughly licensed and practiced of antiquity handlers!” By the end she was practically spraying spittle, though some of that might have been the exhaustion speaking. “Do you know who I am!? I am personal curator of the Canterlot Royal collection! I care for tomes that are worth more than your entire family bloodlines! Ancient secrets that could some day hold the fate of our entire kingdom within their pages! So no, I am going to bucking deliver this myself before by bucking knees blow out and I leave you with the enviable task of explaining to Celestia why her head librarian is now crippled for life!”
The two guards stood there in abject fear by the end, blinking stupidly at the pony shaped manticore that had appeared before them. Without a word, one of them opened the door, allowing Twilight to stagger inside.
“Oh thank Celestia.” She dropped the book with a thump, and an audible groan of the load bearing pillars below. “I thought I’d never make it.”
“Okay,” the voice chimed in, “now execute the plan.”
She carefully gathered power in her horn, careful to avoid a freak short along the cracks in its surface. Quickly, the illusion took shape, gossamer flows of magic melding into a replica of herself. With a few final touches for detail, she sent it back out the door, opening and shutting it carefully to provide the illusion that her double had done the act itself.
Finally alone, she glanced around the room. Her own illusion done, she again gathered magic in her horn, but this time began to radiate it out in delicate flows. Letting the magic wash around the room in a fine mist, she watched as it swirled and churned in invisible currents. Sure enough, dozens of wards littered the room, many of them of the “explode if disturbed variety.” She didn’t care about any of those, however, because one of those would have been far too obvious for the object she sought.
“I’m not seeing anything.” She finally admitted.
“Look harder. I’m sure she’d still have it. You don’t just dispose of something like that. You need it, if only to keep faith in your own sanity.”
“What a comforting concept.” She deadpanned. Still she continued her search, until one eddy in particular caught her eye. Intensifying the flows of magic, she began to pick out its form and an appreciative smirk twisted her features. In a way, the hiding spot was genius. Quietly, she trotted over to the waste basket, and tipped it on its side. A quick burst of magic dispelled the illusion, and there, taped to the bottom, was a lone letter.
“I told you! I told you I told you,” the voice crowed. Rolling her eyes, Twilight simply took the letter and opened it.
Dear Sunset,
This is you. I’m serious, this is a letter from you in the future. I know such things as actually altering time should be impossible, but I think I found a way. Or rather, I had/will find a way. If you’re reading this, then maybe I won’t find it again, but hopefully I won’t have to. Anyway, look, I know you’re the greatest unicorn in the past era. I am too, obviously, but you need to change the way you’re living your life. You need to, or else you’re going to lose your shot at princesshood, and trust me, I know. It happened to me. Starting now, you need to start living humbly, very humbly. Apologize to Celestia, stop pestering her about anything, and for the love of the sun and moon, if you’ve seen the mirror, forget about it. It’s useless and crap and your plan fails. Hard. Instead, take it slow. Celestia wants you to succeed, so if you just back off, show her some respect, and try that whole making friends thing. I promise she’ll be eating out of your hoof by day’s end. As a matter of fact, I even know the new elements of harmony, so if you move now, I suspect you can befriend them first, and become the element of magic yourself. I know you can do this, because I could have, if I’d known what you know now. The following is a list of the elements, and everything I know about them…
Twilight couldn’t believe her eyes. Below it all was a list of the elements of harmony, all of them except one. One of the names wasn’t an element, and its existence there set her mind reeling.
“I-I was going to be the element of magic?” It was as though the heavens above had caved in on her, impaling her with a broken shard of starlight and blue sky.
“Seems so. Still, what did I tell you? She did something very bad, and now the whole world is broken.” It stopped to snicker. “And to think, she screwed you over in the process.”
“But, but, she vouched for my appointment as head librarian! She even helped make sure I’d get the treatment that saved my horn!”
“The actions of a guilty mare perhaps? Shameless victory can breed a certain compassion for those you’ve ruined.”
“I… I….” Twilight stared dumbly. It was all too much. And then there was even more. “How did you know about this? You’re not really a crazy voice, are you?”
“Hmmmm, I might be crazy, and a voice, but no, not in the way you mean. Still, it was a fun part to play.”
“Who. Are. You?” She ground out the words, her voice half rage and half fear.
“The soul who’s reminding you that we’re in enemy territory, and that you should probably get out of here. Sooner rather than later.”
“I--, fine!” Stuffing the letter in her invisible saddlebag, she pulled out a length of fabric she’d enchanted for just this purpose. It had taken the better part of an hour to make, but hopefully it would last the few minutes it had to. Again layering invisibility over herself, she opened the window to the room, checked the sun, waited three minutes, then threw herself out. Blood racing through her head, she quickly cast the second part of the enchantment on the fabric, causing the square to snap out to its full length, forming an impromptu hang glider. With a heavy grunt, its straps caught her, and she quickly drifted towards the ground, plowing into the royal gardens to carve out an unsightly swath of dirt. Slowly, she staggered to her feet, blinking wildly as she tried to still the tumbling in her head.
“Told you, again.” The voice snarked.
“Shut up.” She quickly cast an illusion to cover up the churned earth behind her, and took a glance at the walls. Sure enough, not a single guard had their eyes on the inner courtyard. One of the weaknesses of a rigorous patrol schedule, her brother had taught her, was a certain predictability in where they were looking. With enough planning, a pony could walk right into the princess’ chambers, or in this case, fly out of them. She let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, what now?”
“Now, we run.”