Author's Note

"There is no way I'll regret this. Not in a million years!"
- me pushing the submit button

From the academy of science

Twilight was reading a book.

She couldn't believe it herself.

This one was about Celestia’s life. A very interesting read in that it was completely wrong from beginning to end. Twilight snickered a bit, as she was enjoying the privilege to know the goddess of the sun personally and therefore had a direct access to the truth.

And the truth was, Celestia never sung in a jazz band back in the days.

She played the battery.

But as the story had to begin at some point, a hoof grabbed the princess of friendship and a second later, she was caught prisoner in a huge comfortable hug.

“Hello Twilight.” Pinkie Pie greeted her.

“Oh, hello Pinkie.” Twilight replied, catching her breath again.

“Have you ever heard of the Equestrian academy of science?” the pink pony asked, not letting her friend any time to wonder why she had come in the castle.

Twilight tried to remember where she had encountered the name before, as she was certain to have heard of it once, long ago, and eventually remembered what it was all about.

“Oh yeah. It’s that club of ponies who like to play with non magical experiments, right?”

“Exactly!” Pinkie Pie congratulated her. “I came because one of my friends would like for you to participate in one of his experiments and I said you probably wouldn’t have time for that and he said he understood and I saw that it was making him sad and I said it wouldn’t hurt to try asking and he smiled and that made me smile and we came here together and that why he is blushing right now, because he is kind of shy and easily intimidated.”

Twilight turned her head and saw a stallion at the doorstep who was looking at the two mares with a clear feeling of embarrassment. The princess quickly regained her composure in front of the new guest and greeted him.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you, your majesty.” the stallion told her.

“Nonsense.” Twilight replied. “I’m always happy to meet a new friend. What’s your name?”

“My name?” the stallion asked in surprise.

He hadn’t considered that the princess would be kind enough to take any interest in his name.

“Matt, your highness.” he proudly replied, mostly because he felt honored that he had made his existence known to a pony he was holding in such high regard.

“Then Matt, tell me what I can do for you.” Twilight told him.

What he wanted was a very simple experiment. He had brought two apples that he put on the extremity of a table. He explained that the goal of the experience was to test the concept of gravity and try to find out if magic was the explanation of why it wasn’t working correctly. Who better than the element of magic to evaluate such an influence?

Matt tested both apples by pushing them off the table and they both fell on the ground. He then put them back on the table and asked both Pinkie Pie and Twilight to push them off the table. They did and both apples fell on the ground.

“Again please.” Matt asked.

They put the apples back on the table, pushed them off again and both apples fell on the ground.

“Once again please.” Matt asked.

Both Pinkie Pie and Twilight repeated the experiment and both apples fell once again on the ground.

“Once again please.” Matt asked.

“I’m not sure to understand what we are trying to accomplish here…” Twilight said, while putting her apple back on the table and pushing it off the table once again.

“This…” Matt responded, while pointing at Pinkie Pie’s apple that was standing in midair.

“You never saw an apple float in the air before?” Twilight asked.

“The law of gravity says it is supposed to fall to the ground...” Matt tried to explain.

“But the law of gravity is wrong. Why would you try to rely on old concepts we debunked long ago?”

“I’m certain there is a very rational explanation!” Matt said with passion.

During their exchange, Pinkie Pie had kept on playing with her apple. It had stopped in midair once again, then taken off to the ceiling, then flown away, done a few looping, two Heimlich turns, a spin and a tailslide to finally land on Matt’s head who just sighed.

“The rational explanation can sometimes be very hard to find.” he admitted.

Twilight could have let go of it all. She of course didn’t, as she was way too curious not to take interest in the weird fixation the stallion had with knowledge anypony knew was false. She began asking him questions about his science hobby, the reasons he had to do what he was doing and to think what he was thinking.
She had read about it long ago, but had forgotten as she had never met somepony actually living by those rules. The belief in the existence of the natural laws was anchored in the discovery of the book of “New Tome” where it was revealed that the world was actually following deterministic laws of nature that could allow whoever would discover them to predict the outcome of a given set of actions in a given situation and basically master the world.

It was all absurd, of course, as magic was the only true factor in Equestria as anypony was able to observe on a daily basis, but it wasn’t hurting anypony whatsoever and was providing a pretty fun hobby for a lot of pony to find happiness in. A nice distraction from the study of magic.

“You should show me more of your hobby someday.” Twilight enthusiastically told Matt. “In the meantime, do you mind if I write to princess Celestia about it? I’m sure she would be as interested as I am.”

The look on the stallion’s face took a very weird turn, basically a mix of surprise, embarrassment and a bit of mockery. Still, he very politely just said:

“It would be illogical for me to mind that.”

This, of course, peaked into Twilight’s curiosity.

“What do you mean by illogical?”

“Well, because I don’t believe that Celestia exists, and as a none existent being cannot have any consequence, I have no logical reason to mind it at all.”

The reasoning was well and sound. Logical in fact.

And then Twilight realized.

“Wait, what did you just say?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not logical, because…”

“No, the part before that.” she insisted.

“I don’t believe that Celestia exists.” Matt told her with a straight face.

She looked at him like he had just eaten his own mane.

“I don’t understand.” she said, not finding better words.

“I don’t believe that the princess of the sun actually exists.” Matt replied.

“Are you serious?” Twilight asked, just in case, as a joke was the most probable explanation in her mind.

He was.

“Alright…” she slowly began, trying to find out where to go from there. “You do know that princess Celestia is real, right?”

“I just don’t believe she exists. It contradicts the laws of nature” he very simply responded, as if it was no big deal at all.

“Come on!” Twilight suddenly let herself burst out of frustration. “Who do you think is raising the sun every single day? Who do you think lives in the Canterlot castle? How can you say she doesn’t exist?”

“It’s actually quite easy.” Matt explained. “All you have to do is decide that what you believe is true, and all you have to do is to pronounce the words: I believe Celestia doesn’t exist.”

Twilight tried it. “Celestia doesn’t exist.” she told herself. She immediately thought of two hundred and sixty seven reasons why it was simply absurd. Celestia did exist. She was real.

On his side, Matt slowly understood that he was upsetting the princess and was feeling worse about it by any passing second. He had had no intention to create such a fuss by sharing his ideas about the world.

“I should better go.” he told Twilight. “I’m really sorry I bothered you with my beliefs.”

“But your beliefs are wrong!” she replied, not to insult him, not to fight with him over it, but only because it was the most obvious of truth. “There is no way you cannot see how wrong you are.”

Matt stepped back, misinterpreting Twilight’s actual concern for anger and disapprobation.

“Thanks for your time.” he told her. “Please have a nice day.” he added, to have the most polite goodbyes possible, even if he was already running away, as Twilight was sort of yelling behind him:

“I met the princess in person. I talked with her! All you have to do is go to Canterlot to meet her!”

He heard her arguments, but didn’t stop trotting away to hide away from what he thought was the royal wrath.

Realizing that he was gone, Twilight stopped yelling and regained her composure. Silence had come back again in the room, just as if nothing at all had happened. And to be honest, Twilight could have used a pinch on the cheek just to be sure she hadn’t dreamed the whole encounter.

“Here you go!” Pinkie said, while pinching Twilight’s cheek with her hoof.

And then, the pink pony added:

“Isn’t my friend fun? He has such crazy and weird ideas.”

While saying those words, she let the apple fall one last time from her hooves, just to see it teleport back on the table.

“I don’t know…” Twilight replied. “I think his weird ideas, as you say, might be more serious than you say they are.”

She looked at Pinkie Pie, who was eating the apple, and understood she wouldn’t find answers with her pink friend. She needed the counsel of a wiser pony. One with thousands of years of experience. She decided to go to Canterlot and discuss this matter directly with Celestia herself.

Which would give her the opportunity to quickly check that the princess of the sun did indeed exist.

Just in case…