Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and one-time bearer of the Element of Magic, sighed in quiet satisfaction as she closed the large, musty-smelling book she’d just finished reading. The tome was a treatise on hypothetical subthaumic particles and the proposed properties thereof. The author was proposing that these particles were responsible for the semi-random effects that sometimes cropped up when a mage cast the same spell multiple times and received vaguely different results.
It was utter nonsense, of course. Minor variations in casting procedure or the environment were more likely to cause those effects without having to invent an entirely new set of highly speculative hypothetical particles to explain things. Still, it had been an interesting read, particularly the proposed “aether foam” that the writer had gone on about at considerable length, and which, supposedly, attributed for the ten-to-twelve percent energy loss of spells cast without an inscribed spell circle.
Twilight’s mind was racing and her quill sped along the paper in order to keep up. She quickly detailed several experiments that, if they failed, would lend some weight towards disproving the various hypotheses detailed in the book. She stopped mid-sentence as a thought struck her: most of her equipment was still in bits and pieces, buried under the remains of the old library. She had ordered replacements, but these things take time. And, even though her monthly stipend had been increased considerably now that she was an actual Princess of Equestria—a fact that still managed to take her by surprise—she currently only had enough to pay for less than half of the equipment she'd lost.
Thoughts of visiting Tartarus with the sole purpose of repeatedly poking Tirek with an extremely pointy stick floated through her mind for a brief but very satisfying moment.
Still, even without the equipment she needed, she could at least get started on planning her experiments, which was all sorts of fun in and of itself.
It was well past midnight by the time Twilight decided to turn in. She used to have an alarm, of sorts, that warned her when she was staying up too late. But, these days, Spike had his own bedroom and no longer nagged her about getting to bed on time. She was now able to study and experiment as late as she wanted in exchange for a lack of proper sleep habits.
Maybe I should buy a clock, Twilight thought as she yawned her way down the hallway towards her bedroom. A nice, big grandfather clock, to keep in my study.
She liked the regular ticking of a clock; the predictability of it could be very soothing. She made a note to look into the cost after she woke the next day.
As she made her way towards her bed, she noticed that her horn was itching once again. It did that quite often these days, though mostly late at night. Twilight thought about it as she slid between the covers of her large, princessey bed. Horns aren't supposed to itch. Ache? Sure. But itching was something else. If this kept up, she'd probably have to see a doctor.
Can horns get fungal infections? Twilight wondered sleepily, caught between scientific curiosity and horrified nausea at the thought.
Thankfully, there was such a thing as the cool side of a pillow. Twilight flipped her pillow over and snuggled down into it, relishing the soothing chill as the fabric wrapped around her horn. After a few more adjustments, mostly dealing with getting her wings comfortable, Twilight started to slip off to sleep, visions of future experiments dancing through her head.
Thoughts fragmented and her mind began drifting. Her body relaxed, readying her for what she could only hope was a long, refreshing night of—
twee-whernk!
Twilight's eyes shot open as she came instantly awake. Her ears twitched, trying to catch some hint of whatever it was that had woken her up. A quick audit of her surroundings showed that she was all alone in her bedroom. The sound, though it had seemed to be coming from somewhere very close, could have been outside the castle, or in another room.
When no further sounds occurred after several minutes, Twilight dismissed the noise and settled back in, flipping her pillow in order to rest her head on the ever-elusive cool side. Once again, her eyelids drooped, her body began to settle, and her breathing became deeper, more regular. She was falling back asleep—
twee-whernk!
—when that blasted noise, sounding like a cross between a flute and a diseased kazoo, once again roused her from her near-slumbering state.
"Is somepony there?" Twilight asked, sitting up in her bed with an annoyed expression on her face.
There was no answer.
Twilight levered herself out of bed with an irritated grumble, lighting her horn even before her hooves hit the floor. The violet light chased away all but the deepest shadows, and still there was nopony to be seen. With a sigh, Twilight magicked up a small flame for her lantern—the Tree of Harmony hadn't wired her fancy, brand-new crystalline palace for electricity—and adjusted the wick. Several more sparks lit other candles and lanterns around the room.
With her bedroom as well-lit as it possibly could be, Twilight did another scan, even going so far as to check her closet. When that search came up empty, Twilight scootched down and poked her head underneath her bed. The only things she found were several books that she was in the process of reading and had stashed there for easy access, and a plate with the remains of a very stale daisy sandwich that had been a late night snack a few nights back.
twee-whernk!
"Gah!" Twilight shouted as she jerked back involuntarily, smacking the back of her head into the bottom of the bed frame. Muttering darkly to herself, she pulled her head back out from under the bed, rubbing at the growing lump with a hoof. That time, the noise had sounded like it had come from on top of the bed, and it definitely wasn't her imagination.
"All right," she said to the room at large. "Very funny. You got me. You can come out now."
She waited. After a few seconds, she started tapping her hoof impatiently.
"I said 'come out'," Twilight said. She looked around. She couldn't see anypony in the room, but obviously there was someone here playing a joke on her. She considered the likely suspects.
Spike was out. He liked jokes, but he tended to be more direct and, in any case, wasn't capable of this. Discord was a definite possibility, though not a probability, as his pranks tended to be a lot... messier than simply making noises. That left only one likely suspect.
"Come on out, Pinkie," she said, trying not to let her strained patience show. A long, silent moment passed. "I'm not mad. It was kind of a funny joke." Another long moment of silence, and Twilight started to doubt herself. "I have cake?" she offered uncertainly.
Pinkie Pie completely failed to materialize.
That cast her hypothesis into serious doubt. Pinkie Pie would have come out by now, since she always owned up to her pranks. She considered them incomplete until she did so. Also, the odds of her not wanting cake were so low as to be not worth considering. And, so, Twilight found herself standing silently in the middle of her bedroom, chewing on her lower lip and trying to figure out exactly where that sound could be coming from.
Because of this, when the sound happened again, there wasn't much to distract Twilight from pinpointing exactly where it was coming from.
twee-whernk!
Twilight jumped at the sudden sound. Her eyes slowly lifted to her horn, making her go cross-eyed in the process.
"What the hay?" she asked, disbelief coloring her voice.
~~*~~
Twilight was at her desk in the study when Spike came downstairs. The small dragon stopped at the sight of her, his jaw dropping as his eyes took in the scene before him. "Uh... Rough night?" he ventured to guess.
"Wow, how could you tell?" Twilight asked with her snark in full bloom.
"Well, there's the bloodshot eyes, the twitching eyelid, the snarled mane and tail—"
"Spike," Twilight said with a clear warning in her voice.
"—the empty pot of coffee on the desk next to you, and the way your back leg is jittering like it always does when you have too much caffeine and not enough sleep—"
"Spike."
"—not to mention the sarcasm, which you only break out these days when you're really stressed out. Oh, and the pillow tied around the top your head with twine is a dead giveaway."
Twilight's cheeks colored as her eyes flicked up. She had been hoping to muffle the noise from her horn, but it hadn’t worked.
"Yeah... I forgot about that..." she mumbled.
"So, you want breakfast, or—"
twee-whernk!
Twilight groaned and lowered her head to her desk as Spike stared.
"Uh..." he pointed a claw at her. "Did your horn just..?"
"Yes," Twilight said, her voice muffled due to her head being buried in her forelegs.
"Okay." Spike waited for an explanation. None came. "Why?"
Twilight's head came up and she glared at him. "I have no idea! I've been looking all night, too. Unfortunately, I don't have that many books on magical illnesses, now. Stupid Tirek blew up most of the ones I used to have."
Spike winced. That was still very much a sore spot for the former librarian. Twilight might be soft-hearted, but Tirek had lost any possible chance at a Discord-style redemption once he blew up the majority of her books.
"So, what, that's been going on all night?" Spike asked. "No wonder you couldn't sleep!"
"Yeah..." Twilight rested her chin on her forelegs and sighed. "I've spent the night looking through every medical book I still have, and nothing has come up. I thought I'd find something in 'Magical Musical Maladies', but nope, nothing. Though, I did discover a way to stop the involuntary spontaneous musical numbers that keep happening in Ponyville."
"Aww... But I like those!"
"Yeah, they grow on you." Twilight's fond smile was short-lived, as her horn let out another twee-whernk! A look of utter despair settled over her face as she lowered her head back to her forelegs. "Oh, Spike, I just don't know what to do!"
"Why not do what you always do when you run out of ideas?" Spike suggested.
Twilight gave him a puzzled look. "What's that?"
~~*~~
"Hmm, this is quite a puzzle, it's true." Zecora sighed and leaned away. "But I'm afraid that I have found nothing physically wrong with you."
"Nothing wrong?" Twilight replied, incredulous. "There's obviously something wrong!"
"Yes, your horn is making music. And yet I can find no way in which you are sick." Zecora hummed and tapped a hoof against her chin. "Were there any symptoms you might have had before these noises got so bad?"
"Well, my horn has been itching periodically over the last few days." Twilight blushed, really hoping that it wouldn't turn out she had some odd, magical fungal infestation in her horn. “Come to think of it, it hasn’t itched since last night.”
"Hmm... Itching should not take place in your horn. Is it not made of pure alicorn?"
Twilight knew that Zecora was talking about the bone-like substance that comprised the horn of a unicorn rather than a winged, horned pony. It was a confusing thing, having the word “alicorn” apply to both, but Twilight’s letters to various academic circles with proposals to rename one or the other were always shot down.
"Mostly true." Twilight replied. "There are blood vessels and nerve endings wound throughout it, though. So, I can feel heat, cold, pressure... and, apparently, itching."
Zecora leaned forward and examined Twilight's horn once again. "I see no sign of any distress. I am at a loss, I must confess."
Twilight sighed and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. She stood up and did her best to smile at her zebra friend. "Well, alright. I'm sorry to have bothered you for no—"
twee-whernk!
"Agh, I hate this!" Twilight stomped a hoof on Zecora's floor. "I'd be able to deal with it a little better if I at least knew why this is happening!"
"You may think more clearly with a little sleep," Zecora said as she rummaged through a shelf full of potions. She produced a jar made of red clay and stoppered with a wax-covered cork. "This potion here is for you to keep. Take a sip or two before you lay down for the night, and I promise, noise or not, you will be out like a light."
Twilight's lavender aura took the pot from Zecora's hoof and floated it into her waiting saddlebag. "You're right... I am pretty tired." Twilight smiled wearily. "Thank you, Zecora."
Zecora put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder and pulled her into a hug. "Sleep well, my friend, and never fear—"
twee-whernk!
"—curse it all! That was right in my ear!"
~~*~~
It was called by many names. Some called it the Palace of Harmony. Others called it Castle Twilight. A growing number of ponies called it the Castle of Friendship. Most ponies in Ponyville, however, called it "that huge eyesore".
Twilight angled her way towards the balcony outside of her bedroom. To fly properly, one had to balance speed and power, and Twilight was not having too great a success with either of those. This was, in large part, thanks to some uninvited company she'd picked up on her way back from the Everfree Forest. She quickly adjusted her path as said “company” once again dive-bombed her head.
"Get away from me, you crazy goose!" the Princess of Friendship shouted as she flapped awkwardly to avoid getting hit.
The goose honked angrily. Twilight's horn did its twee-whernk! thing again, which only served to infuriate the bird even further. It looped around, an elegant flash of white in the sky, barely missing Twilight's head. Twilight didn't so much land on the balcony as she did crash. She hurried through the glass door and closed it, just as the goose landed outside.
The goose, which had been the epitome of grace while in the air, instantly transformed into a large, goofy-looking bag of feathered hate once it folded its wings. It glared at Twilight through the glass, watching her every move with its fury-filled beady black eyes.
"Note to self," Twilight muttered, "ask Fluttershy what 'twee-whernk' means in goose language."
She levitated out Zecora's sleeping remedy from her saddlebags and placed it on her nightstand table. However, there was one thing she needed to do before she slept. She needed to eat. It was well past lunch time, and she'd skipped breakfast and lunch, while also flying to Zecora’s hut and back. Her stomach felt achingly hollow.
She tried to ignore the noise her horn was making as she walked down the hallway. Unfortunately, the large and mostly-empty castle acted as a rather large echo chamber, bouncing the noise back at her from every angle. Whatever substance the palace was made of, it reflected sound quite effectively.
The upside of that was that Spike heard her coming. He was waiting in the kitchen with a large cucumber and lettuce sandwich, a glass of milk and a guilty expression. Twilight eyed the first two hungrily and the last one warily.
"Promise that you won't be mad," Spike said, which was never a good phrase to start out a conversation. He was shuffling his feet and fidgeting with his claws, too.
"After the day I've had, Spike, I really can't promise that," Twilight said with a sigh.
"I made you a sandwich, though," he said with a hopeful tone of voice.
"Yes, I can see that," Twilight replied. She heaved another sigh and sat down. "What is it, Spike?"
He cleared his throat. "Well, you see... I was worried about you, so I did what I always do when I worry about you."
"In other words, you panicked a little bit." Twilight picked up the sandwich with her magic and took a bite. It was pretty good.
"Yeah!" he replied, nodding eagerly.
"So, what did you do, Spike?"
"I, uh..." He hesitated, then said in a breathless rush, "I wrote a letter to Princess Celestia about what's going on and please don't be mad because I was just worried!"
Twilight blinked. "Oh."
"You're not mad?" Spike asked, hope lighting in his eyes.
"Too tired and too hungry to be mad, I guess," Twilight said with a shrug. "I'll just finish off this sandwich."
"You might want to hurry it up," Spike suggested.
"Why is that?"
"Because Princess Celestia already wrote back. She wants you in Canterlot as soon as you can get there."
Twilight sighed and brought her hoof up to meet her forehead. "Of course she does."
~~*~~
You couldn't walk through Canterlot castle without tripping over Royal Guards. They patrolled every hallway and stood guard at the most important junctions and doors. To reach the throne room, for example, you had to pass three different portals, each with no less than two guards standing ready, with another full sixteen guards on standby within range of a quick shout should there be any trouble.
The same was true of the doorway to Princess Celestia's chambers. Her guards stood stoically against any and all uninvited guests. If you weren't on the Princess' appointment list, you weren't getting in.
Which is why Twilight marveled at how strange it was that nopony thought to guard Celestia’s balcony. After all, this was a land where roughly a third of the population were pegasi. And yet, pretty much anypony could simply land there, open the glass-fronted doors leading to her study, and walk right in.
Twilight, being the polite pony she was, knocked first.
The door opened with Celestia's signature golden glow. As she trotted in, Twilight let slip a small smile. Her mentor already had the tea set up, the ancient porcelain teapot steaming and releasing a spicy, peppery smell. Luna was there as well, sitting next to her sister and getting crumbs down the front of her chest as she nibbled on a scone.
"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna," Twilight said as she approached.
"Princess Twilight," Celestia said gravely, and Twilight immediately knew her mistake.
"Uh, sorry Pr— Celestia." Twilight cleared her throat. "Luna. You're both looking well."
"As are you, Twilight," Celestia said with a pleased smile. "How was the trip out here?"
"Oh, it was alright," Twilight said, then grimaced. "I had to shake an evil goose on the way up here, though."
Luna brayed with laughter, spraying crumbs of scone across the table, much to Celestia's obvious annoyance. "Your modern euphemisms are quite amusing!"
"I, uh..." Twilight exchanged a confused look with Celestia. "It wasn't a euphemism. I really was being chased by an evil goose."
"Ah." Luna winked. "No worries, your secret is safe with me."
Twilight was at a complete loss as to what Luna might think "shake an evil goose" might mean. Her brain, always eager to please, started conjuring up a series of increasingly disturbing images that might fit until Twilight forced it to stop. "Right. Anyway, you wanted to see me, Princess?" Celestia cleared her throat, and Twilight blushed. "I mean, you wanted to see me... Celestia?"
Celestia nodded and smiled warmly, her eyes twinkling. Luna had already returned to eating her scones with single-minded dedication. It was a scene that warmed Twilight's heart, a reminder that she was considered an equal now, no matter how much she felt like she hadn't earned it. It was very nearly a perfect moment.
twee-whernk!
Which is why, of course, her horn chose that exact moment to make everything embarrassing and awkward for her. Twilight groaned and hid her flushing face behind her hoof. Which was too bad, because if she'd been looking at the sisters, she would have seen them sharing a knowing look.
"Well, well, well," Celestia said, a proud smile spreading across her face. "Our little Twilight is growing up!"
Luna nodded somberly. "Indeed."
Twilight's eyes snapped up, looking back and forth between the two of them. "What? You know what this is, Pr— er, Celestia?"
"Indeed I do," Celestia replied, her voice as placid as a lake. "Please, sit down. Tea?"
"I don't..." Twilight considered her options. "Sure, why not?"
Celestia poured her a cup, and Luna begrudgingly passed over the plate of scones. Twilight levitated one to her mouth and took a bite.
Mmm... blueberry, she thought as she munched. That sandwich back in Ponyville hadn't been enough to fill her, not after skipping breakfast. A second scone quickly followed the first, Luna watching them go with an expression that conveyed a sense of deep loss.
"It's something that, eventually, happens to every alicorn," Celestia said. Then she hesitated, considering. "Well, nearly every alicorn."
"But what is it, Pr— Celestia?" Twilight asked. "I couldn't find any reference to it, in any book I checked!"
Admitting that books had failed her caused an almost physical twinge of pain. Celestia, though, just chuckled and sipped her tea.
"You wouldn't have, of course. It's not something that we are... well, very eager to spread about." Celestia blushed delicately, like a sunrise. "It's a bit embarrassing, after all."
"Indeed," Luna said. "Most vexing!"
"So... this has happened to you? Both of you?"
"Yes, Twilight," Celestia said. "And now, you will learn one of the greatest secrets of alicorn kind."
"Oooh!" Twlight leaned forward eagerly, ignoring her tea and scones, the latter of which were deftly fetched back by Luna's magic.
Celestia took on the tone of voice that Twilight was so used to, and had so missed since she'd first moved to Ponyville: the voice of the mentor teaching her student.
"You see, Twilight, alicorns have a much greater magical potential than unicorns, pegasi or earth ponies. This potential gathers in us, and it leaves... well, a residue, for lack of a better term. No matter how much and how quickly we use our magic, this buildup will accrue. Rather like how scales will build up in a teapot."
"Ugh." Twilight shuddered. "That doesn't sound healthy."
"Well, if it were allowed to continue indefinitely, then it wouldn't be," Celestia replied. "The residue gathers in our horns, which is the most potent conductor of magical energy in our bodies. It begins with a horn itch—"
"I've had that!" Twilight blurted. Then she covered her mouth with her forehooves, mortified at having interrupting her teacher.
"That infernal itching," Luna muttered, twitching an eyelid.
"Yes," Celestia said with a shudder of her own. "Fortunately, that passes quickly. The residue then removes itself from the body. Why it does that by making loud, obnoxious noises is anypony's guess. I've never been able to find out why."
Twilight's horn decided that this would be a prime opportunity for a demonstration, once again letting out its now-familiar twee-whernk!
"Yes! Exactly like that!" Celestia said, clapping her forehooves together. Twilight felt oddly proud and embarrassed at the same time.
"Okay. I guess that makes sense?" Twilight considered that for a moment. "Well, not really, but..." She shook her head. "Never mind that. How do I stop it?"
Celestia sighed. "You can't stop the buildup of residue. And you can't keep it bottled up inside, or it will eventually cause an aether blockage. That can lead to illness, or even complete magical burnout."
Twilight shuddered at the thought.
"No," Celestia continued, "you can't stop the release from happening. However, you can redirect it."
"How?" Twilight asked desperately. "Please, Celestia. I need sleep, and I can't get it with all this noise!"
Celestia smiled gently. "How do you like my mane?"
"Uh..." Twlight blinked, confused at the sudden non sequitur. "It's very pretty? I've always admired..." It suddenly clicked in Twilight's head. "No," she gasped, unbelieving.
Celestia smiled and nodded.
"You mean... you can redirect the magical residue buildup to go out of your mane and tail, instead of through your horn?"
"Ah, alas," Luna said mournfully. "She got it right away. I now owe you ten bits, sister."
Celestia shot a glare Luna's way. Twilight, meanwhile, was glowing with the knowledge that Celestia had bet on her being able to figure it out.
"Ahem, yes." Celestia said. "It's a very simple process. I can show you how it works, if you like?"
"Oh, yes! Yes, please!" Twilight said eagerly. In the back of her mind, she was doing a little dance. Not only would she learn new magic, but she'd get an ethereal, flowing mane and Rarity would be so jealous!
She tried to pretend she hadn't had that last thought, and focused instead on the learning of new magic.
"But, wait, though," Twilight said. "What about Cadance?"
"What do you mean?" Celestia asked, exchanging a look with Luna.
"Well, she's been an alicorn longer than me, and her mane isn't all wavy. And, the last I checked, her horn doesn't... er... make music."
"Ah, well..." Celestia looked away, obviously uncomfortable. "You see, there's..." She trailed off, cleared her throat and started again. "Different ponies mature at different rates, after all. And Cadance, while she's certainly as strong or stronger than the average unicorn, well..." She gave Luna a desperate glance. Luna stared back, expressionless. "Compared to other alicorns, Cadance is... how do I put this nicely?"
"She's a snub-horn," Luna said bluntly.
Twilight stared blankly, not having any idea of what Luna meant. Her confusion wasn't helped at all when Celestia gasped and rounded on her sister.
"Luna!" Celestia said, scandalized.
"What?" Luna drew her head back and folded down her ears. "'Tis true, is it not? Compared to other alicorns, Cadance is a snub—"
"We don't use that word anymore!"
Luna pouted. "Why not?"
"It's... it's not polite," Celestia said. "It's actually considered extremely offensive, and has been for the last three centuries."
"Why?" Luna asked, her brows knitting. "It is a perfectly good term to describe the magically deficient!"
Celestia winced, and this time Twilight joined her. "We don't use that term, either," the elder sister said.
"Preposterous!" Luna declared. "How will you rank ponies in magical prowess, if you don't have any way to tell who is inferior?"
"We don't do that anymore," Celestia said.
"That's ridiculous," Luna said flatly.
"You weren't there for the protests," Celestia said with a shudder. "Trust me, it's better this way. Quieter, at least."
Luna looked away and crossed her forelegs over her chest with a disaffected "Hmph!"
An awkward silence descended, broken when Celestia cleared her throat once again. "In any case, I will cancel the spell on my mane and tail in order to walk you through it, Twilight." Her horn glowed golden, and her mane suddenly went limp. "We will have to hurry. The buildup will happen quite rapidly, and I don't wish to have my own horn go off. Please, Twilight, stand."
Twilight stood quickly, her wings flexing in eagerness as she followed her mentor to the center of the study, where there was a bit more room. Celestia had an urgent look on her face, her mouth strained and her eyes narrowed.
"Are you alright?" Twilight asked.
"The itching has already returned," Celestia said shortly. "No matter, Twilight. Attend closely."
Twilight watched as Celestia performed the magical ritual that would redirect the buildup away from her horn and into her mane. Celestia talked slowly and evenly as she did so, explaining all the different ways she was weaving the threads of magic together. During the lecture, Twilight couldn't help but notice the increasing twitching of Celestia's ears and the occasional thrashing of her tail. When Princess Celestia started pawing at the ground with a forehoof, Twilight couldn't restrain herself any further.
"Is everything okay, Princess?" she asked.
Celestia grunted irritably, a sound Twilight had never heard from her before. "I'm... yes, I'm fine. Don't distract me, please. This infernal itching is doing that quite well enough on its own." Celestia must have noticed the downcast expression on Twilight's face, because she smiled and said more gently, "And it's not 'Princess' anymore, remember?"
"Yes, Celestia," Twilight said meekly.
"Thank you, Twilight," Celestia said with a warm, if somewhat twitchy, smile. "Now, as I was saying, you tie off this thread here, and... oh."
"Oh?" Twilight repeated. tilting her head.
"Oh, dear. I think..." Celestia's eyes widened. "I can't... Cover your ears, everypony!"
"What?" Twilight asked. "I don't—"
Whoooonk!!!
The noise that came from Celestia's horn was like a foghorn on steroids, which Twilight experienced more as an enormous sense of pressure, rather than as mere sound. The room shook, glass broke, and small objects tumbled from the shelves and bounced across the floor.
Twilight, meanwhile, was wondering if it was possible to teleport without using magic, because she certainly didn't remember diving underneath Celestia's couch. And yet, here she was, surrounded by dust bunnies and wondering vaguely if the palace cleaning staff ever cleaned under here, and who she should talk to to make certain that they did.
Luna had managed to cover her ears in time, both with her hooves and with a noise-dampening spell that she'd had ready to cast since the lesson had begun. After the sound faded and Twilight's hearing began to return, she became aware that the Night Princess was laughing outrageously, holding her sides and lying on the floor as her hind legs kicked and her wings fluttered helplessly.
Wide-eyed guards burst into the room a moment later. At first it was only the door guards, but others soon followed. Soon, the room was crowded with guards, all of them twitchy, all of them armed, and all of them looking for trouble. One of them was using his spear to prod at a potted plant, as if he expected assassins to spring from the soil.
Celestia, standing in the middle of her now-devastated study with a mortified look on her face, raised a hoof to her mouth and coughed, immediately getting the attention of everypony in the room.
"Pardon," the Princess of the Sun said sheepishly.
~~*~~
It was a normal day in Ponyville. The pegasi had scheduled a short rain shower in a little over an hour, just to cool down the summer heat a little and to provide some much-needed moisture to the gardens and flower beds of the town's residents. Two ponies, one taller than the other, stood on a balcony of the Castle of Friendship, pretending to watch as the weather team began assembling the cloud layer needed for the rainfall.
"So, that's different," the taller of the ponies said.
Twilight made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, not meeting the other mare's eyes.
"Don't get me wrong. It's very pretty. I like the way it moves.The little starbursts are nice, too."
"Thanks," Twilight muttered, even though she wasn't really all that fond of it, herself. Ethereal manes weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Sure, it sounded cool and all, but it made her scalp feel like it was crawling, and her mane would occasionally flow the wrong way and obscure Twilight's vision or get into her food. Celestia had assured her that she would get used to the first, and the second would eventually stop as her mane and tail began to "train" themselves to flow in the proper directions.
And, if Rarity had been jealous at all, she had hid it well, showing only enthusiasm and joy for Twilight's sparkly new princess-hair. This caused Twilight both mild annoyance and a great deal of shame at feeling annoyed in the first place.
"I like how it seems to glow. I mean, the highlights were always a stunning contrast to the darker parts of your mane, but now the pink and magenta really stand out."
"Thanks," Twilight muttered again, not knowing what else to say. Her wings twitched on her back, as if wanting to spread so she could fly away.
"I only have one question, though," Princess Cadance said, and Twilight felt her nerves ratchet up another notch.
"Yes?"
"How come your mane started doing that, and mine hasn't?"
Twilight's very soul cringed at the question. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Cadance's feelings, but no explanation she could think of would stop that from happening. After a few moments of frantic thought, she latched on to something Celestia had said.
"Well, you see," she said carefully, "Different ponies mature at different rates, you know."
Cadance's head drew back. Then her eyes narrowed. "You know I'm ten years older than you, right?" When Twilight only blushed and looked away, Cadance huffed irritably. "Fine. Don't tell me, then."
The pair stood in awkward silence on the balcony. Twilight was trying to think of something to say when she noticed Cadance raising a hoof to her horn out of the corner of her eye. She watched as her sister-in-law rubbed her horn while scowling.
"Uh, Cadance?"
"Yes, Twilight?" Cadance replied, a little snappily.
"Does your horn itch?"
"Yeah, just a bit," Cadance admitted. "It started a couple of days ago. Why?"
Twilight loved information. The feeling of knowing something that other ponies didn’t was wonderful, and was topped only by being able to share that knowledge with others who needed it. There was nothing quite like the feeling of being the mare with all the answers.
Still, after what she’d been through to learn about this particular bit of alicorn biology, Twilight decided to play up the delivery a little bit. She drew herself up to her full height and gave Cadance a Celestia-inspired look of serenity and confidence.
“Well, Cadance, there are many mysteries regarding being an alicorn. What I’ve recently discovered is—”
Twilight was interrupted by a faint noise, like a brass whistle being played a long distance away. It made a sound like this:
toot!
Cadance gaped, staring cross-eyed up at her horn. "What the hay was that?"
Twilight’s carefully-composed expression of serenity shattered as she collapsed, laughing, next to her bewildered sister-in-law.
Author's Note
This was a story that got lodged in my head and refused to go away. I had to write it, just to get it out of the way.
Many thanks to Coandco and BrilliantPoint for their editing help and suggestions, and I hope you enjoy this silly little story.
