Twilight's Kingdom....Under Puddles
Past midnight, some odd hours....
So I'm in bed and my one-time buddy Balrog calls me up on my PSP that's been augmented to work like a phone. It takes me a couple tries, but I answer it while trying to gather my thoughts from the previous night--I had somewhere between 3 and 5 times the size of a can of some dangerously unethical energy drink to stay awake to finish my night shift at my day job 'cause I had to get up that morning to see "Twilight's Kingdom." So you were (Transliterator's note: spoilers until 05/17/14) Goddess for an hour. Big whoop, want to fight about it?
I was looking over the edge of my bed while trying to get my PSP (not a Vita. An old, beat-up PSP slim) to work and realized I had accumulated leftovers from a Cafe Rio with no memory of getting to eat there. Or that might just be trash, an empty tin with napkins and sour cream, but with how long I was lights-out, it didn't matter; though to prevent pests, I had to get rid of it...later. When I finally get the phone (I hung up on Zoidberg 'cause I wanted to hear Balrog first), he says to me, "Are you seein' dis!?"
"Seein' what?"
"Look, dummy!"
I get a dread feeling because in light of recent events--what with the Twilight Sparkle and all--I think I know what he might be talking about. I know where he wants me to "look" without any further explanation. At 3:56 in the morning, this was one impressive feat for my normal human mortal male brain. The sky. I have to see the sky. Thankfully there's a window less than two feet above the head of my floor-sitting, unsupported mattress and though I stapled a blanket to it to keep the sun out (no blinds! I got no blinds and no money to afford blinds!) the whole bottom's left untouched so whatever's in front of that wall gets sun-bleached...and I can just wave part of the ghetto drapery aside to see the sky.
And, holy hell, the sky.
Dense old Balrog wasn't punkin' me like he does to Vega!
I am on the ground at 3 meters below sea level yet surrounded with enough arid land that a flood, however unlikely, could only bring luck, and I am looking at the sky of no stationary planet! Out of my single-story house window they're immediately visible: the black expanse of outer space, sinister-looking black-and-orange waves of magic gushing overhead, and celestial bodies from light years around aren't being shy to the naked eye! Goddess, what are you doing? You're making the whole Earth dizzy! You're also not supposed to be here. And when did Balrog and I exchange numbers?
Royally crowned and crystally tree'd Princess Twilight Sparkle had held that 4 x alicorn magic for just two scenes too long. While we slept and caught an early night, she realized (well, "remembered" might be more accurate) that her power works best in twilight time. That's not to be confused with Twilight Time. The time of day that's too late to be day and not night yet because you don't need lights to help you see the road or your house. So before relinquishing the goddess-powers back evenly to her adoptive older-sisterhood, she nonchalantly galloped into space and prepared a more mild-mannered spectacle than SHIN YUKOKEN (re: S04E26). I struggled for balance kneeling on my bed gazing out the window at space, and a reflection of the Earth with a space-eye view of what came next.
The sun and the moon were orbiting freely and quickly around the world; the sky was wavering around shades of purple to reflect the time of day, but it was no indicator of the time. Just then, to join the sun and the moon, a third planetary object rose up from the ether! A Super Mario Bros.-style question mark (Transliterator's note: "?") ball--not block, ball--sailed past the ionosphere to enter orbit with the planet. Once in place, all three celestial bodies ceased their incessant movement (and I dared not think about the tides around coastal states) in an instant, and the giant white question mark (?) faded away and the true form of the ball began morphing into place.
Twilight was thinking too hard--no, not like she was having a tough time coming up with an answer, I mean her thoughts were so intense we all heard her thinking to herself! "...know, I haven't seen a planet take on those colors before...I know some ponies who are going to like this idea! Chocolate and...what color is peanut butter? That color...orange frosting...not frosting, just orange coloring...come on, comet! Bake already! I'm falling asleep up here with no air. ... ... ...4, 3, 2...yyyes! It's done! I'm sure nopony would mind if I just set a new time of day to call my own in motion...hello, stars. I'm a star . . . think I'll call it . . . I can see puddles on it. Puddles! We'll leave that the way is. Third star and satellite, you are now Puddles!"
We were effectively dying because her transmitted thoughts were ungoddessly loud. Balrog shouted over the PSP, "HEEEY MAAAN, WHEEERE YOU AAAT!?"
"I'M HO-OME!"
"I KNOOOW THAAAT! WHAT'S IIIN THE SKYYY FOR YOU!?" He's not jerking me, either. I looked up and saw that right now when it should be night, it was half-day and half-gray.
And, uh...the sun was glaring straight onto my pillow.
Later I found myself at a going-out-of-business furniture warehouse that was under the bizarre light Twilight's new moon Puddles was casting. With a name like that, I surmise she'd had a Pinkie pill or really was getting worn out after a dance with a demon king and was overdue for a good twilight's sleep, but she didn't go for it. Now we had three orbiters to worry about. Not only that, but...the longer I thought about it...we used to orbit the sun. That all changed when the Twilight's Kingdom attacked--but still. The intention was that Puddles would cast twilight on the Earth, but instead it cast my favorite sky and its uplifting-for-me atmosphere: gray and cloudy. And, as time passes, different shades of gray shift forward, making an undulating gray-dient in the still winds outside. Yet, curiously, this grayness cuts through walls--I had ducked inside the warehouse on a whim because I like the very open-yet-closed feel a large, empty building gives, and realized that in Puddles--which stays in place, doesn't orbit with the other two--that feeling is everywhere outside! --and it's inside, too! You get an eerie feeling seeing a fog of the rainy day sky across the walls and halls of a building like this and every size smaller.
Regular news stations, fabricated news stations, and largely-unused alien response news stations all focused on this planet-sized event. I had neglected to think the full range of consequences through (not that it was my responsibility or I had any control over it, of course) since I was too busy basking in the gloom to pay attention, but the world went from 12 hours in day and 12 hours in night, to about one-third of the planet covered in evening and the other two thirds doing 8 and 8 with a tiny sun and enlarged moon prancing around magnetically equidistant from Puddles, a magic moon that came straight off a Reese's Puffs commercial. Immediate effects amount to nothing.
Long-term, just what did that foreign dignitary do to us?
Author's Note
This was just a dream I had last night (05/10-11/14). I don't think it'll go anywhere.