The Whole Story is This Chapter in Case You Were Wondering
Twilight's eyes began to cross. She had been focusing on this assignment for hours and she was tired.
Why did the princess even need to know about underwater basket weaving? She thought to herself.
She had spent the majority of the day trying to find books on the subject, but to no avail. She searched through the entire library, but found nothing. Asking around town for any experts on the art of underwater basket weaving had just gotten her laughed at, again. She had almost decided to write back to the princess to tell her that she had failed when Lyra walked up to her.
Lyra said, "I heard that you've been looking for this," and she threw a six hundred page tome labeled, The Art and Strategy for Speed Underwater Basket Weaving (For Dummies). "Underwater basket weaving is one of the human's most popular spor-"
"Okay, thanks. Bye," Twilight didn't have time to waste listening to Lyra rant. She had work to do.
Twilight rushed back the the tree house as soon as the book was in her magic. She closed all the doors and locked them. She couldn't have any visitors while she read about this important subject. She turned off all the lights and pulled down all the blinds on the windows. In retrospect, the neighbors probably think she's plotting something against the town, with all the secrecy and privacy, but at that moment, she could not allow any distractions from her duties.
She spent the next few hours reading the large brick, which brings the story back to crossed eyes.
In her crossed-eyed fury, she noticed something that she does not usually notice, her nose. Her nose is there, right at the front of her face, but it is pretty useless. Besides smelling, there is no real purpose of having a nose. Even smelling doesn't need a nose that protrudes off of a pony's face like that. After a few seconds of deep thought, she came to a conclusion.
"I guess... I guess you could put stuff on your nose," she said tentatively, as if anypony could hear and judge her. They are, after all, asleep because that is what one normally does at 2 a.m.
She scanned the room for a suitable object to hold on her nose. She began to tap herself in the chin as her eyes flitted from object to object.
Scroll, no.
Clock, no
Bookshelf, no
Sleeping Spike... nah.
Then something caught her eye. It was the glow of her own magic. What was she holding?
A quill! It's perfect!
She plopped that sucker right there on the tip of her nose. It slid off to the left and landed with a clatter on the ground.
"Well, I guess that's that," she said, completely intent on going back to her studies. She grabbed the quill with her magic and put it straight to the piece of paper to continue her work.
Only, something was wrong.
She could feel a tickle in the back of her mind, as if someone ripped open a down pillow in her mind and started throwing the feathers against her skull. It was the almost imperceptible urge to try again. She tried to remain adamant in her desire to keep working, but the urge couldn't be ignored. It's probably because it was just barely there that Twilight had to abate it any way she could. I mean, you can block a punch, but you can't stop a tickle.
Anyway, the short of it is, she tried to balance the quill on her nose again.
The long of it is as follows:
Twilight studied the quill. If she was going to do this, she had to do it right. She calculated the center of gravity in her head, taking in part that the tip of quill tended to interact with the Higgs field in more erratic ways (This is ridiculous pseudoscience in case you didn't know. Laugh, please). She tested her prediction with her hoof briefly and with the affirmation she needed, went ahead and put it on her nose.
There was a moment, for just a second, that she thought it was going to fall. It wobbled back and forth. Her breath was held harder than an angry ex's alimony check. It stabilized and remained stable for a whole second.
You probably asked yourself, "Why'd it only remain balanced for a second?" That's because she, like anybody would do in a similar situation, jumped in the air when she achieved this. She felt so pumped, she couldn't contain herself. She knew that it was just her brain releasing dopamine as a reward for accomplishing a tough goal, but she didn't care. It felt good.
She placed the quill back on her nose. This time it remained there for a little while. It gave a little rush, but it wasn't enough. She needed more.
There had to be something else that she could balance on her nose. Something like...a book!
She took the priceless tome and threw it right on her face. Miraculously, it stuck like a fly on vinegar...or was it the other one? Which one attracts more flies again? It doesn't matter. It stuck like flies to a substance and was immediately balanced.
But what was that? It wasn't the rush Twilight was familiar with. Where'd her high go? Twilight stamped the ground. She felt a little excited, but there wasn't the challenge; there was no anticipation. It just happened. It's the equivalent of winning a sports game by default for the other team not showing up, completely unsatisfying. And, as is usually the case for this kind of thing, she still wanted more.
She had no other choice. She had to go bigger and harder. So, she moved on to a stack of books. And when that was done, she moved to a small bookcase. With little satisfaction from that, she tackled the hardest challenge, balancing a fully set table without dropping her huge collection of porcelain sculptures. With an effortless flick of her nose, it was already balanced.
"I'm just too good at this," she concluded. "It's like someone has to be fighting against me so that I can actually fail."
Spike walked into the room drowsy-eyed. "What's all the noise about?"
"Spike!" Twilight said with an epiphany. "Just the dragon I was looking for."
Twilight had that look on her eye, the same one she had when she was tardy last year. Spike had no idea what was going to happen, but with Twilight, it was never "My parents died" or "We're out of ice cream" or anything serious like that. It was always trivial and Spike always got roped into it. He rolled his eyes before asking, "What is it Twilight?"
"I need you to hop up onto my nose and then try to lose your balance so I can prove that I'm the best."
Spike blinked. This request was so far out of left field that he had no idea what to say. His brain must have shut down the next couple seconds because somehow, he heard himself say "okay" and started to climb up on Twilight nose. When he got up there he wasted no time in trying to fall off, not because he is so subservient (although he definitely is (probably kissing some flank to get some political power in the future)), but because he is such a clumsy oaf who can rarely do anything right.
But the darn dragon just wouldn't fall. Twilight was too good for that. She succeeded in balancing a living being who was trying to fall, and still no fix!
She groaned, then ran out into the street in frustration.
"I guess I'll just have to build up more and more until I can't add any more." She was clearly running out of options.
The sun was just breaking the horizon and the first ponies started to make their way to the street at this point. Twilight grabbed the first pony she found and balanced the pony on her nose. Then, she grabbed the next one, and the next one, etc. until she had seven or eight of them on her nose. She was getting no enjoyment out of this, but she felt she had to in order to feel sane.
She grabbed a fountain in her magic, ripped it out of the ground and placed it on top of the pile of ponies. Besides a little strain in her neck, there was no difference.
So, she took a desperate move and grabbed an entire building and balanced it. She got a small rush, then she collapsed, the weight of the building crushing her.
|><|-------|><|
Twilight woke with a start.
With a little check of her surroundings, she realized she wasn't underneath a building, but asleep on the underwater basket weaving book. She's alive!
Upon realizing this, she ran to find Spike. She entered the kitchen with a wide grin on her face.
"Spike, guess what--" She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of Spike.
"Hey Twilight, look what I can do." Spike had a quill balanced across his nose.
Twilight flipped out. "Spike, addiction is a terrible thing! You must stop this at once!"
Later Twilight beat the addiction out of him.
THE END
