TWI-WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW
“So,” Twilight said sharply. She let the word hang in the air and drift up to the castle library's vaulted ceiling. “This red-headed colt, he's in love with the blonde filly?”
“And the black-maned one,” Spike replied.
Seated at her reading table, Twilight lowered the comic book magically hovering in front of her face. She threw an askew glance at her number-one assistant. He lay stomach-down on the ground, his stubby legs kicking lazily at the air, engrossed in another comic book spread out in front of him.
“He's in love with both of them?” she asked.
Spike flipped the page, his eyes firmly glued to the pulpy, primary-colored paper. “Kind of, yeah.”
“So he's two-timing them? And this is a comic book for foals?”
“Nah, he just can't decide. They make up and they break up all the time.”
Twilight took a deep breath, then asked the question she feared most in the world. “And....how many issues does it take for him to make up his mind?”
Spike patted the cardboard box next to him, stuffed full of comics in plastic wrappers. “Eleven hundred. So far.”
A wave of despair washed over Twilight Sparkle. “Urgh!” she grunted, throwing the issue into the air. She let her head hit the table. The flat smack stung her face, but unlike the castle these days, at least it wasn't boring. “I should've gone with Rarity and Applejack,” she said, her voice muffled by her refusal to raise her head from the wood. “Who cares what that dumb old map says?”
The comic book fluttered down to the table in front of her. She very slightly raised her head to look at it. I'm not going to, she thought adamantly. It's too boring to deserve.... to be....
She groaned.
Igniting her horn, she levitated the comic, slipped it back neatly into its plastic wrapper and put it on the table so that it was square with the edge. Then it was over, and she was left with nothing to do again.
“I'm boooooored,” she wailed.
“You could always open the castle up to petitioners,” Spike said.
In her mind's eye danced fleeting images of very long and very boring hours spent seated on her throne, her tail aching, while ponies paraded through the premises so the princess might pass judgment over every single little friendship problem.
“Heh heh,” she chuckled sheepishly. “Let's keep that idea between ourselves, shall we? I'm sure the ponies of this town can get along fine without me.”
She distinctly heard Spike mutter, “But I'm not sure I can get along with you.”
“What was that?”
He tucked his comic book under his arm and stood up in a huff. “Twilight, you've been moping around for days saying how bored you are.”
“I've been through this library from top shelf to bottom,” she said. “My friends are all busy: Applejack and Rarity are in Manehattan, Rainbow Dash is busy training with Scootaloo for the Sisterhooves Social, Pinkie Pie roped Fluttershy into forming a comedy double act based solely around the gimmick that their names rhyme -- I give 'The Ayes Have It' a week at most -- and you just want to read comic books. So tell me, what the hay am I supposed to do?”
“You're a princess of Equestria,” he said, rounding on her. “Go outside and mingle with the ponies. Come up with a plan for mass transit. Solve horseshoe-space theory.” He dug his claws into his cheeks. “Do anything that doesn't involve telling me how bored you are every five minutes!”
“Fine, Mister Grouchy-Scales.” Twilight rolled her eyes. She walked to the base of the library shelves. “I guess I'll read a book.”
He turned away from her, dusting his claws. “Good.”
She tsked. “But I've read all these books already.”
He wheeled around, steam nearly shooting from his ears. “Then why don't you write a new one?!”
Her ears shot straight up. She gasped and smiled. “Spike, that's it!” She turned to him, pulled him close, and planted a big kiss on his forehead. “You're a genius!”
“Ew, yee-uck,” he said, pushing her away.
But Twilight ignored his little tough guy attitude.
Her mind was alive with prose! Wonderful prose! The shape, the feel of it: light, beautiful wit that nimbly danced off the page; dense, stout paragraphs packed with ideas; the dizzying highs of a great turn of phrase; the profound depths of a well-rounded character....
She staggered around the library in a jagged circle, trying to keep up with the thoughts spinning around her head.
A book! What a marvelous idea!
Naturally, being a well-read pony, she had made the attempt before. Quite a few times, in fact. But she honestly couldn't think back on all those manuscripts, those bits of juvenilia dating from before she had learned the magic of friendship that she kept tucked away in the trunk under her bed, with any real fondness. They were leaden in pacing and amateurish in prose. Copyrighted characters from her favorite books wandered into the narrative like it was a town festival. Every problem was solved by good fortune. Their content was not so much 'writing' as her oblivious young mind regurgitating unconscious fears and desires onto the page and blissfully thinking it art.
But now, with so much more life experience under her wings....
Giggling wildly, she rushed out of the library. “Spike, hold my letters. I've got a book to write!”
“Thank Celestia,” the dragon quipped.
“Oh, this is exciting,” Twilight said to herself.
She stood at her writing desk. Rubbing her hooves together, she surveyed her domain. Stack of paper, quills, inkpot. Every single thing looked to be in perfect order--
Except for the one sheet of paper sticking out of the stack at an angle. Narrowing her eyes, she used her magic to tuck it in until everything was neat and orderly.
A plastic statue of an unspeakably ancient sculpture from the Pegaponnese, depicting a stoic mare clutching a writing tablet, sat atop her desk. She gave it a kiss for good luck, then positioned it so it would watch over her art.
“Muses, don't fail me now!”
She clapped her forehooves. “Right. Time to get to work.”
With a spark of light, made the top sheet of paper levitate off the stack and put it square in the center of the desk. Then she made sure it was squared with the rest of her accoutrements. That done, she stared at the empty expanse of white.
She breathed deep. Was there anything better than the smell of fresh parchment? That crisp, fresh smell? And the paper was so clean. A vast expanse of unblemished white. A tabula rasa. A blank map, unexplored and ready to get lost in.
This is it, Twi, she thought. You can go anywhere. Do anything. Be anypony.
Now....write!
She set the tip of the quill to the paper. Her tongue was stuck out sideways, and her brow was furrowed in concentration.
What should I write? she thought.
Her mind was as empty as the paper below.
Maybe I should start with a thesis statement?
She wrote, 'It is said by many that--' but then immediately struck it out. This wasn't a research paper. She needed to write lush prose. But about what? She tapped the quill's feather to her chin as she thought.
No, no, no. I need an idea first. That's where it'll all make sense.
She put the quill down, raised her forelegs over her head, and stretched them until they cracked. As she did that, she let her eyes wander around her room.
Idea....idea....
Nothing leapt out at her. “Come on, brain, do your stuff,” she said, knocking the side of her head, trying to work the block through.
Starting with an idea was a bad start. I need to create a great character first, and then everything else will follow.
There was Starswirl the Bearded, a character she had written a great deal about in her youth. But she wrote him as a blatant self-insert for herself, and now she was keen to move away from that part of her writing career. Besides that, she knew that her steadfast compulsion to historical accurary limited her writing on both Starswirl's manner and deeds.
So who would she write about then?
The wind was blowing across the big country on her desk.
This seemed so much easier when I was a teenager, she thought.
But that was because she was just making poorly-written fantasies to fulfill her adolescent pains. Now, though, she wanted to make ART. Lofty and high-minded, challenging and deep. Something academics would be debating for centuries. A new entry in the literary canon of Equestria.
She dunked her quill into the ink pot and sat back, sighing.
Maybe everything will seem a lot clearer after a cup of coffee.
Twilight finished off her coffee and then slammed the empty cup onto her desk. She turned back to her writing desk and got ready for the ideas to leap out at her from the dark recesses of her brain.
After ten minutes of nothing, she thought, Maybe I should have one more cup of coffee.
Seventeen cups of coffee later....
Twilight filled her cup from the steaming pitcher. She tried to raise the cup to her lips, but her whole body was vibrating so fiercely the cup flew from her grip, arced through the air, and shattered on the floor.
Spike turned over in his sleep and mumbled, “I just cleaned this room....”
Twilight galloped to her writing desk, but she overshot it, skidded across the floor, and slammed into the wall. Unfazed, she lunged for the desk and dug her fetlocks into it. It started to shake as well.
“Alright write a book gotta write a book now so what's it gonna be about Twilight huh huh huh gotta put that big old egghead brain to action and crack it open like an omlette and let its sweet idea yolk spill out onto the page and make it all prose-y beauty and write the next great Equestrian novel and everypony will read it and everypony will love it and it will be pure magic for mares and stallions of all ages and you're gonna live forever just like Celestia and Luna unless you're already going to live forever because they never really made it clear how that works but if you do live forever then you can go to book signings for the rest of time because they are all going to love this beautiful beautiful book that you're going to write right now and....WORD MAGIC!”
She shot her head forward until her muzzle was six inches from the paper. Standing ramrod still, she stared at the page with every ounce of concentration she possessed. Her eyes twitched and her body's shaking was growing in intensity, but she refused to budge, no matter how much it hurt.
Not until there were words to go on that page.
“Urgh,” Spike said, sitting up. “Twilight?”
She still refused to move, but it was getting harder and harder to control herself. She felt like she was about to vibrate right through space and time. Sweat poured down her face in rivers.
Spike burped behind her, and a green glow lit the wall. His claws scratched on parchment. “It's a letter from the princess.”
Not....gonna....budge!
“She says there's a Hydra near Ponyville, and she--”
Like a powder keg exploding, Twilight jumped ten feet straight into the air. She let loose a bloodcurdling scream as all the potential energy the caffeine had stuffed into her body turned kinetic instantly. Her legs kicked the air, and as soon as she landed she was off like a shot, blasting out of the room and throwing up an enormous cloud of dust behind her.
Ten minutes later, she threw the unconscious Hydra to the dirt. The ponies in their sleepware who'd gathered to watch the midnight commotion stared at her, wide-eyed and wary.
Twilight dug her hooves into the ground, her heart and lungs going a million miles per second. “What's next?” she ferociously cried. “WHAT'S NEXT? Changelings?! Diamond Dogs?! The spirit of King Sombra possessing Lord Tirek?! I'll take 'em all! I'LL TAKE THEM ALL ON!”
She threw her head back and wailed to the moon. “AHHHH--!”
“--Ahhhh!” yawned Spike.
He opened his eyes to hazy sunlight that made the crystal castle glow. His lips smacked together as he shrugged off sleep and stretched. He saw Twilight at her writing desk and padded over to her, still yawning.
“Hey, Twilight. Still at--Ah!” He jumped backwards.
She turned to him so slowly he swore he heard her bones creaking and joints squeaking. Her eyes were bloodshot and about to fall out of her skull. Her mane was a messy tangle that stuck up wildly like porcupine quills. Her slack mouth was twisted into a ghoulish grimace.
“Spike. What's that....word....for when you open your mouth....and things come out?”
“Uh....puking?”
“No.” She struggled to sound stern. “When you puke words.”
“....speaking?”
“Right,” she croaked. She turned back to her writing desk. It took just as much effort as when she turned away. She tried to pick her quill up with magic, but the only thing that came from her horn was a few paltry sparks. So she grabbed the quill in her fetlock and wrote by hoof. Badly. Her leg careened wildly across the page.
“'You never win,'” she recited, “'he speaking loudly.'”
She reached the end of the line and, completely unable to make small movements, yanked her foreleg away and accidentally smacked Spike in the face.
He fell to his rear, squishing his tail, and rubbed his aching nose.
Twilight didn't notice. She wailed and let her head fall to the desk. “This is hopeless! I've been up all night, everything hurts because of how dehydrated I am, and I've only written six lines! And five of them are crossed out!”
“Come on, Twi.” He grabbed her by the withers and led her out of the room. “You'll feel better after some breakfast. Some pancakes, juice, nice cup of coffee--”
At the mention of coffee, Twilight whinnied and bolted down the hallway screaming in terror.
Spike watched her go, then put his claws on his hips. “That got her moving.”
Spike whistled a jaunty tune as he mopped up a coffee stain from last night. Back and forth, he got into the rhythm, back and forth, whistling his merry song, back and--
The door flew open, sending him flying into his mop bucket.
Twilight slid into the room on water-slicked hooves, her coat soaking wet and a froth of soap bubbles in her mane.
“Spike! Spike!” she said giddily. “I need a quill! I had an idea! Spike, quill!”
Groaning, Spike pushed himself to his feet. I'm starting to wish she was just bored. He put his claws on her side and slid her over to her desk.
“Thanks a bunch, Spike,” she said.
Sticking her tongue out and wrinkling her muzzle, she made a quill fly up, hurried dipped it into a inkpot -- splashing ink on the walls in the process -- and put the tip to paper with a huge grin on her face.
Shoulders slumped, Spike dragged his mop over.
The quill didn't move. Twilight's smile slipped.
Spike hefted the mop up, struggled to regain his balance, and then put the mophead to the wall to scrub the ink off.
The quill still didn't move. Her smile was gone.
The ink came off the wall, and Spike stepped back, mightily struggling to keep the upright mop balanced.
Twilight cried out and flailed her forelegs.
Spike darted backwards, out of the reach of her hooves. The mophead high overhead swayed back and forth, ready to come crashing down. His claws scrabbled over the pole, desperately trying to keep it upright as its weight sent him stumbling back and forth across the room. With a mighty heave, he managed to plant his feet and get the mop under control, and the feat of strength made him feel like one of the Power Ponies. Grinning to himself, he took a step.
Too late did he realize he was standing on one of his comic books.
He slipped and fell onto his back. The wet mophead came down right on his face.
“Spike, do you mind?!” Twilight called, not looking up from her desk. “I'm trying to concentrate here!”
Spike flopped onto his belly. “So sorry.”
“This is hopeless.” Twilight was facedown on the desk. “I've been to the astral plane! Source of all ideas! If I had it in me to write a story, it wouldn't be this hard.”
Despite his annoyance, Spike walked over and patted her on the back. “It'll be alright, Twilight. It's just writer's block. You'll get over it.”
She lifted her head and smiled at him despite her tears. “Spike, you're soaking wet.”
“So are you,” he said, pointing at the soap bubbles in her mane.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she said, giggling. “You're right, Spike. This is just temporary. Let's get you cleaned up, why don't we?”
“Why don't you run your ideas by me?” Spike asked.
Twilight's head was turbaned with a towel. She took a sponge and scrubbed the dirty mopwater off of her number-one assistant's head while he sat on a stool, kicking his legs out.
“That's just it,” she said. “I don't have any ideas.”
She wrung the sponge out over the sink until the water was squeezed out, much like the ideas in her brain were gone, leaving only a dampness of ideation behind.
“I'm just....blank,” she said.
“Aw, everypony goes through a creative dry spell,” Spike said.
Creative....?
“Why, when the creator of the Power Ponies couldn't write herself out of a cliffhanger ending, she--”
“That's it!” Twilight exclaimed.
“What's it?”
“The answer to my problems. If I'm going through a creative dry spell, then I know just who I need to talk to....”
“Who?” Spike asked.
But Twilight just grinned to herself.
Twilight dropped the dusty, ageworn book onto the table. The resounding thud echoed up to the vaulted ceiling. She blew the dust off the cover, and it swirled in the air. Spike hooked his claws onto the table's edge to heft himself up enough to see it. There was an embossed image of a circular dragon eating its own tail on the cover.
“What is it?” he asked.
“After Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever journeyed to the ancient city of Neighbakhr, the crossroads of the ancient world, they wrote about the lost secrets of the alchemists and magicians they discovered inside its catacombs. This is one of the few copies left.” She flipped through its pages and stopped at one. “Here it is.”
“What's it do?”
“It's a spell that lets a pony take pieces of her soul and make them manifest.”
“Make them manifest?”
“It turns them into a pony in their own right. Gives them a body, a voice. My creativity is getting in the way of me writing this book. So I'm going to take it out and ask it ideas, and I'll write the book that way.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Twilight?”
“Well, if my creativity isn't going to come out and help me, I'll just have to go in and bring her out.”
Twilight poured over the text, letting the ancient words writ on the parchment sink deep into her mind. She worked them over in her soul, using the letters as symbols to manipulate the latticework of reality they represented. Her horn ignited and she felt the surge of magic energy build inside her.
Spike backed away.
Twilight felt the magic stream out of her glowing eyes. She threw her head back, crafting the stuff of reality to her will, both outside her body and within her soul. Light filled the library, blinding majenta light.
Gradually the light subsided.
Twilight opened her eyes, blinking against the afterimage of the blinding luminance. Her eyes focused on the mirror in front of her.
Wait, I wasn't in front of a mirror.
She raised her hoof. Her wide-eyed reflection did not. Instead, it cocked its head.
“Whoa,” Spike said, rubbing his eyes. “Double-vision.”
“Hello,” Twilight said stiffly. Her creativity had caused her much grief, so being stern seemed the best option.
“Hiya,” her creativity said.
Spike approached her and peered at her curiously. Wonder sparkled in her eyes as she returned his curious gaze twofold.
“I'm Spike,” he said. “What's your name?”
“Huh?” Twilight's creativity asked in confusion.
“Spike,” Twilight chided like a schoolmarm, “she's just a fragment of me. She doesn't have a name.”
Twilight's creativity, still very confused, looked to her original. Twilight continued to act the stern schoolmarm and gave her a withering glance that made her flinch.
“Hmm,” Twilight said. “Calling you 'my creativity' all the time would be a mouthful. The most logical name to give you would be....Calliopony. Callie, for short. That should suit you.”
“Like....a suit of armor?” She jumped on Twilight's back and pointed to the horizon. “On a fantastical quest?!”
Twilight shrugged her creativity off her back. “Where were you yesterday?” she muttered, then turned away and cleared her throat. “Ahem. You've been giving me some grief lately--”
“Wheee!”
Twilight spun round to see Callie perched atop the globe in the corner and spinning round with abandon. Spike was perched on her back and giggling gleefully.
“Stop that!” Twilight called. “That's an antique!”
“Come on, Spike,” Callie shouted boldly. “Somewhere there's adventure. Somewhere there's danger. And somewhere--”
She leapt off the spinning globe. Her hooves clapped against the marble and she stood bold and brave. Then she stood sideways, wobbling from side-to-side uneasily.
“....somewhere, there's a cure for motion sickness.”
She toppled over, and Spike with her, and they rolled around on the floor, laughing heartily.
Twilight stomped her forehoof on the ground. “This is exactly what I'm talking about!”
Twilight grabbed Callie round the barrel, heaved her off the ground, and slung her over her own back. It was a bizarre feeling to hold her own body, but she was too determined to get her book done to take in the wonder of it all.
“Come on, we've got a book to write.”
Twilight dropped Callie into a seat next to her writing desk. When the figment of her spirit started to rock back and forth, she grabbed her around the shoulders and forcibly seated her.
“Spike, please get us some drinks,” she said.
“What kind?”
She thought for a bit, but nothing came to mind.
“Ooh, lemon waters,” Callie said.
Spike asked, “Twilight?”
“Lemon waters are fine.”
The dragon scampered from the room.
“Alright, Callie,” said Twilight. “You've been shirking your duties for too long.”
“Duties?”
Twilight seated herself at the desk. “To me. Yourself. Your whole self. All I wanted to do was have some fun writing a book, but you were nowhere to be found. So now I'm going to write, and you're going to give me the ideas. It's what you're here for, after all.”
Twilight cracked her joints, then levitated a quill into the inkpot, and then let it hover over a blank piece of paper.
“So what should our book be about?” she asked.
Callie bent her brow in thought for a moment. Then she popped up, her eyes aflame with joy. “Oh, oh, ooooooh, oh oh! I know, I know! I got it--!”
“Then tell me already!”
Undeterred, Callie cleared her throat. “What if....?”
“I like it so far,” Twilight quipped.
“What if it's about a mare....”
“Right.”
“Who builds a bridge....”
“Okay.”
She jumped atop her seat and spread her forelegs wide, as if to embrace the whole world. “Made out of tin cans held together with puppy dog kisses and butterfly's laughter so she can reach Mister Rain-Beau, the fancy aerostallion who paints the rainbows on the sky!”
Twilight slammed her head into her desk once, twice, thrice. She lifted her head up and said, “That is the dumbest idea I've ever had.” Wryly, she added, “I didn't know I had it in me.”
Callie spryly sprang off her seat and galloped to Twilight's phonograph. “You know what always helps me create better? Music!”
Twilight slapped her hoof into her face and tried to control her rage.
Within seconds, her record collection was a mess as Callie dug through them, glanced at the sleeves, and tossed them aside.
“Too sad. Not jazzy enough. Too last decade. Aha!”
She popped out the top, holding one sleek vinyl record up. She vaulted over the pile, soared through the air, and slammed the record down on the platter as she fell.
“Careful!” Twilight shouted.
From her place on the floor, she reached up and flicked the needle over. It dropped onto the vinyl and, with the crackle, the drums started to thump. Callie jumped into the air and landed on her hooves.
“Dance party!”
She shook and shimmied to the song while Twilight sat and steamed. Callie jumped on Twilight's bed, bounced halfway to the ceiling, and sang along to the chorus at the top of her lungs:
“In a wide, wide world
Dreams make it come alive
Like a friendly voice
Ignites the moors and the tors”
“BAGPIPES!” Callie shouted.
As the shrill whistle of the recorded bagpipes blasted from the phonograph horn, she hollered along with them as she used her momentum to swandive off the bed. She landed in a pile of Twilight's dirty dresses, rolled off the top, and somersaulted to her hooves an inch from Twilight's face. Her broad grin filled Twilight's eyes.
Twilight shoved her away. “Are you almost done?”
Callie shook her tail and stomped her hooves to the beat. “Maaaybe.”
Oh, jeez, Twilight thought, blushing. Is that what I look like when I dance?
As the song headed for the chorus again, Callie grabbed Twilight and started to spin and traipse around with her.
“Come on,” Callie shouted. “Sing it with me! 'In a wide, wide world....'”
“Enough!”
Twilight broke free of Callie's embrace. With a spark of light in the phonograph's direction, she stopped it playing.
“There is a time for dancing,” she said sternly, “and there is a time for writing, and the time for writing is now.” She dragged Callie to her hooves, marched her over to the desk, and forcibly seated her on the stool. “Now, you're going to give me ideas, and they had better be solid gold. Understood?”
Callie nodded solemnly.
Spike pushed the door open, carrying a tray with two glasses of water topped with slices of lemon. “Here's your lemon water, Twi--” He took one look at the mess Callie had made. “Yeah, I'm not cleaning this room up again.”
“Thank you, Spike,” Twilight said. “Here you go, Cal--”
She looked to the stool and saw Callie was gone.
“What the?”
Twilight looked around the room.
Callie stood at the window, forehooves resting on the sill, watching the afternoon bustle in Ponyville. “It's so small,” she said. “It's like a painting, but it's alive.” She pointed. “I could crush Granny Smith. But I wouldn't ever do that. But I could.” She turned to Twilight in awe. “What if there's, like, a giant painter above us, and our world is their canvas?”
Twilight angrily rounded on her. “That is so....wait, what? Oh, my Celestia!” She rushed over and grabbed Callie by the shoulders. “That's a good idea!”
“It is?” Callie asked.
“Yes! More, more!”
Callie bent her head in thought. “Um....”
“Yes?”
“Hmm....”
“Yes, yes?”
“What if....?”
“Yes?!”
She shrugged. “That's all I got.”
“Ugh!” Twilight sneered, pushing her away. “You're useless. Beyond useless. You contribute nothing, you loaf around, you make a mess of things. What good are you?” Twilight put her back to Callie and headed back to the writing desk. “Well, they say success is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. You've come up with your good idea for the decade, I guess, so I'll take over from here.”
“Harsh, Twilight,” Spike said.
“Somepony has to be harsh,” Twilight said. “The world runs on order and discipline, and she shirks both of them. Now, let's see if I can make anything worthwhile from her scattered ramblings.”
She seated herself at her desk and took up her quill. “Ahem. Let's see. 'Once upon a time....' My books on fiction writing say that's a pretty cliche opening, but I can remove it in the second draft if it's a problem. 'There was a painter whose canvas was our world.' Yes, nice. Poetic and fairy tale-ish. I like it. 'She was....'”
Twilight's brow furrowed. “'She was....' Huh.”
“What's wrong?” Spike asked.
“Nothing. 'She was....a mare....' No, no.” She scribbled the last part out. “Too rote. Those are just words written for the sake of having words there. I need ideas. Hey, idea mare.”
But Callie just stared forelornly out the window, the breeze blowing her mane back.
“Little help here,” said Twilight
Callie didn't reply.
“Fine then,” Twilight said, returning to her writing. “'A mare of....twenty-five years. Her coat was blue, and her cutie mark was....' Urgh! No, no, no. If she was that powerful, would she even be a pony? Probably not. So what would she look like?”
Nothing. Blank. Empty. With dawning horror, Twilight realized she couldn't form a single idea. She had no ideas whatsoever.
Pi to twenty decimal places? she thought in panic.
3.14159265358979323846.
Alright, so there was no problem with facts. With memorized information. With learning and rules and....
Twilight turned to Callie. “What's the value for standard acceleration due to gravity?”
Callie stared blankly.
“32.1740 feet per second squared,” Twilight recited. “Article three, clause eight of the Ponyville bylaws?”
Callie shrugged.
“The wearing of polka dots is outlawed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Though obviously that's not enforced very much. Taxonomic name for Griffons?”
Callie grimaced and shook her head.
“Chimerificus Equuminimica.”
Giggling, Callie said, “That's a pretty word.”
“You wouldn't think so if you knew what it meant. But you will, because you're going back now.”
“What?” Callie asked, her voice hoarse.
“You took my ability to come up with ideas with you, and I need it back now.”
“Aw, do we have to?” Spike asked.
“Yes,” Twilight said. “This was a mistake. I see that now. I never should have taken you out of me, Calliopony.”
For a moment, Callie let her head droop until her muzzle was almost touching the floor. Tears spilled onto the marble. But she bravely picked her head up again and walked closer to Twilight and Spike.
“Spike,” she said, “outside your bedroom window, there's a whole world full of adventure, just waiting to be found. I just wish we could've explored it together.”
Spike sniffled. “Bye, Callie.”
Callie turned to Twilight. “How do we become one again?”
“If I've understood the book right, your natural state is to be part of me. So we just kind of....touch each other and think about rejoining.”
“Oh. OK.”
Then Callie grinned.
She powered her back hooves and leapt into the air, coming down right on Twilight's head and driving her to the floor. “I don't think I'll have any trouble remembering that bit of info!” she cried as she sailed through the air. “Thanks!”
Her hooves clapped against the marble, and she was off like a shot out the door, laughing merrily.
Twilight picked herself off the floor. “After that pony!”
Spike hopped onto her back, and Twilight galloped into the hallway in pursuit.
Callie traipsed along the hall, verringly wildly from side to side as she sang, “If....you're in a spot, don't get so distraught. If....you're in a spot....trot, trot away!
“Get back here!” Twilight called, charging after her.
Callie looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out, then bolted. Twilight gave chase around the bend in the hallway, head down and heart pounding. But too late did she notice Callie sailing past overhead, going the opposite way, hooves digging into a hanging tapesty.
“Hey, that's an antique!” Twilight shouted as she clumsily made a U-turn. “I think!”
Twilight chased Callie into the castle's kitchen. The mischevious pony leapt atop the counter and plowed through the hanging pots and pans. Twilight gritted her teeth and batted them aside.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Spike shouted as they hit him in the face.
“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
Callie took a running swan dive off the end of the counter, and landed right on a bag of flour. It exploded and blew through the room like gas, clouding everything and obscuring Twilight's vision. When it dissipated Twilight looked around the room for Callie.
“Yoo-hoo!” she called from the doorway, grinning.
Twilight twisted around in place to glare at her. She took one bold step forward.
Callie nodded downwards.
Twilight looked at her hooves and saw she had coated the whole floor in grease. She had just enough time to think, Oh, no, before she started slipping and sliding everywhere. She slid right into the pantry and into what felt like every single thing inside it.
“Ow! Oh! Ah! Oh! Ow!"
"Twilight," Spike called, "watch out!"
"Yeeouch!”
Like greased lightning, she shot back out of the pantry on her belly and sailed right out the door, leaving shimmering streaks on the hallway floor, before finally slamming into the opposite wall face-first.
She slammed her hooves onto the floor and pushed herself up, but Callie was nowhere to be seen.
They galloped all throughout the castle, looking for the wayward sprite, but all they found was the front door left ajar.
“Oh, no!” Twilight cried. “If she gets away with my ideas, I'll never be whole again!”
“We'll find her,” Spike said.
“Need to think,” Twilight said, pacing back and forth in the entrance hall. “Need to think. Need to figure out the most logical place she'd go. But I can't, because I don't have any ideas! I just have facts and figures! ARGH!” She tore at her mane in frustration, then whipped around and loomed over Spike. “If I were an untamed ball of energy full of stupid ideas, where would I go?!”
Spike thought for a bit. Then his eyes brightened and he raised a claw.
Twilight kicked the door open with her hind legs. It crashed against the wall terrifically. She leapt across the threshold, Spike holding her neck and hanging on for dear life, and landed with her four legs splayed out, tensed and ready to give chase.
“Oh, hey, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said.
Twilight shot her foreleg out and pointed clear across the sales floor of Sugarcube Corners, to the table near the stairs, where Pinkie was having a cup of tea with Calliopony.
“YOU!” Twilight roared.
“Say, Twilight....” Pinkie asked, looking between the two of them, “you haven't been getting into the Mirror Pool juice again, have you?”
Spike slipped off Twilight's back and explained, “She was having trouble writing a book, so she split her creativity off into a different pony, but then it decided to run away.”
Pinkie spent a moment taking that in, then said sprightly, “Oh, OK. Want to join us for tea?”
Twilight took one measured step.
“You,” she said.
She took another step.
“You took my ideas away from me.”
A third step.
Callie replied, “It's not like you were doing anything with them.”
Twilight took a fourth step and said, “They're mine.”
“Come and get them, then,” Callie said, smiling slyly.
Loosing a cry of rage, Twilight charged. Callie blew her a kiss as she closed the distance, then hopped onto the table. Twilight lunged for her, but Callie jumped onto the end of the table. Its balance shifted and its the opposite edge flew up and smacked Twilight under her chin. Callie stepped lightly off and pranced away.
“Get back here!” Twilight shouted as she ran after.
“Wait up!” Spike called, huffing and puffing as he waddled after her. He stopped by Pinkie, who remained in her seat, and doubled over to catch his breath.
“Sheesh,” Pinkie said, sipping her tea. “Somepony has issues with herself.”
“Issues?” Spike said. “Issues! That's it! Pinkie Pie, you're brilliant!”
“Yuh-huh. Tea?”
“No, thanks, I've gotta save Twilight from herself.”
“Eh, suit yourself.”
Renewed by his brief rest, Spike ran out the door after Twilight.
Twilight chased Callie into the Everfree Forest, and the deepening night. “Come back here!” she shouted. To herself, she added, “I've had ideas get away from me before, but this is ridiculous!”
She rounded a bend in the path and saw the knavish sprite ahead, resting against a stump.
“Aha!” Twilight cried. “Gotcha!”
Callie spotted her coming and gave flight again, but she was tiring, and Twilight's determination was growing stronger by the second. With a final burst of speed, ignoring the ache in her legs and in her sides, she ran down the figment of herself and tackled her to the ground. Through the brush they tumbled, head over hooves, their coats and manes and tails being torn at by brambles and branches. They rolled into a clearing, Twilight straddling her creativity and holding her down.
“Get back inside me!” she shouted.
She grabbed the sprite by the shoulders with her fetlocks and shook her fiercely. The impish gleam had gone from Callie's wide eyes, replaced with pure fear of her original.
You better fear me, Twilight thought savagely. You better do exactly what I say.
Spike's voice sounded through the woods. “Twilight, stop!”
Twilight and Callie both looked to him as he carefully made his way through the brambles. “Ouch. Ow. Eee!” He stumbled out, wheezed for breath, then said. “Don't do this.”
“But she's a part of me! She belongs to me!”
“No,” Spike said. “She doesn't. I just now figured it out, thanks to -- suprisingly enough -- Pinkie Pie. She's not a part of you.”
“She's not?”
He shook his head. “When she first appeared, you said she didn't have a name,” Spike said. “But that's not true, is it? You do have a name, don't you?”
Twilight looked to Callie, who avoided her eyes.
“....Yes.” She nodded at Twilight. “You never even asked me. You just assumed I didn't have one.”
Twilight slowly let go of Callie and backed away. Foreboding overcame her, as if she knew where this conversation was headed, but didn't want to acknowledge it. Callie picked herself off the ground and glared at Twilight.
“What's your name?” Twilight asked.
With a look of disgust and despair, she replied, “Twilight!”
“Don't you see?” Spike said. “Ever since you cast that spell, you've been so rigid and stiff and humorless, but it was only just now that I figured it out. She's not a part of you, she is you. Half of you. And you're the other half. That spell split you right down the middle.”
“Oh, no,” Twilight, the logical Twilight, said.
“I know you better than anypony else in the world,” Spike said. “I think she feels like she's been in a cage for a while.”
“We used to be friends,” the creative Twilight said. “You didn't realize who I was, but I knew right away. I guess it's a creative insight you couldn't have. When we were young, we would take walks through fictional woods, where the golden hour lasted for an eternity, and sing songs of magic and mayhem and mystery to each other. But then you changed. You became so domineering and rigid. Shoved me down, to be used like a hammer and anvil when you needed to craft ideas.”
“But....I only tried to follow the rules,” the logical Twilight said. “That's all I've ever been doing. Studying the rules of friendship. The rules of stories. That's how you learn what to do!”
“No,” the creative Twilight said. “That's how you make something precious stagnant and dead.”
“You need both halves to be complete,” Spike said. “Rules and imagination. Your balance has just been a little out of whack lately.”
“How do I make this right?” the logical Twilight asked him.
“It's not me you have to ask,” he said, jerking a thumb at the creative half of Twilight.
“When I'm with you,” the creative Twilight said, “I feel like I'm drowning. I don't want to go back in there. I don't want to live under your iron hoof.”
“You won't,” the logical Twilight said. “You're not just a part of me, you are me, and you always will be.”
She pulled her other half close and embraced her tightly.
“Let's go home,” she said.
“I'd like that,” she said.
“Another walk through those fictional woods?” she asked.
“Always,” she said.
“Uh, Twilight?” Spike said.
Twilight opened her eyes. Her other half was no longer in front of her, but only because she was where she belonged: walking through life right beside her. Her best and oldest friend. Twilight breathed deep of the forest. The air tasted crisp and new, tingling with the remembered scent of a spring past and the vitality it had lent the world. Twilight was whole again.
“We should be on our way before the Timberwolves come out,” she said.
They started along the path, which wound through trees standing like sturdy, dark sentinels bathed in silver moonlight.
“So, Twilight,” Spike asked. “You got any ideas for your book?”
“Oh, loads of them.”
Her stack of blank paper was waiting for her at home, but there was no reason she couldn't get started now.
What kind of story shall we tell? she asked herself.
She began, “Once upon a time....”
“That is such a cliché,” Spike said.
“Shush, Spike. Ahem. Once upon a time, there was the wisest and bravest dragon who ever lived....”
“I like it already.”
