Chapter 1: A Star called Littlewink
"Come Twilight Sparkle, sit by the fire with me" said Princess Celestia in her usual welcoming and warmful voice.
It was the way of her overall demeanour, it had that effect on everypony she would meet, especially Twilight. Whenever the lavender pony would be in her presence, she always felt loved. The little filly sprang to her feet and happily trotted over to sit under the bright, sparkly mane of her dear teacher. It was night-time in Canterlot castle, nearing around eight o'clock. Twilight and the princess were snuggled up by the fire, which wasn't burning too fiercely, but also not too softly. The tinder was being nicely charred to the perfect temperature, filling the entire room with a blissful warmth. The glow in the limelight danced around the room as it reflected off the windows touching the opposing curtains, causing them to attain a silky cinnamon glow.
It was a very cosy place to be indeed, the round study room that the two would sleep in was much like the tree-house that Twilight owns now over in Ponyville, in fact it was this very room that later formed the basis of her inspiration for that build! Books piled up to the high noggins almost touching the roof, all neatly organized into alphabetical order on every shelf. The entire room was perfectly round, which created a positive and vibrant spacial dynamic that allows the creative energies of the imagination to flow. There were long purple curtains draped around arched windows, which contained patterns of gold stars, suns and moons, that draped over the light blue stained glass frames.
Murial's of constellations and deep coloured nebulas painted all around the upper walls and all over the ceiling, forming a detailed model of the their part in the universe. There was a gigantic turquoise and violet rug that the two sat on, covering the entire floor, and sequin tasselled golden ends with circular spirals of yellow and blue woven into the fabric. Underneath a light purple coloured square shaped slabs which made up the flooring, each stone had a small sun carved into the centre, placed in a diagonal manor across the room.
At this point in Twilights life, she is just a little filly, about six or seven years old. That said she was still as bright as a button even for her age, she was able to understand complex words as she was very well practised with reading, although such feats of intellectual ability and talent did not come with ease. For Celestia had to make sure she worked hard everyday. Early mornings of meditation sessions, classes covering various magical topics on everything from theory and history, alchemy to potions, numerology to astrology, energy and object manipulation, herbal magic and divination as well as undertaking mainstream subjects that covered all levels of english, maths and science. The days would be long indeed, sometimes 14 - 15 hour days (with breaks for mealtimes of course), and some of Twilights time studying was spent alone as the princess was often engaged in some royal business or another. Although princess Cadence would often come over to help in her absence.
But It wasn't all work and no play her student though, the princess would try to make time to spend with her as much as she could, and when not in study mode. The two would have such playful ventures together, sometimes playing ball games, painting or just going for walks around the castle grounds and gardens. The Princess would even and only sometimes, take Twilight for a flight on her back and out into the stars. She always loved the exciting flight, but for Twilight it was always to get a better look at the heavens above. Learning about the constellations was one of Twilights most loved subjects (besides magic of course), for the inspire the most philosophical questions to arise in the mind, and the sheer sight at the conglomeration of brightly coloured objects in the sky would always make the hairs on the little fillies mane stand on end. For a young pony this was quite the proactive lifestyle and perhaps a little too much for one to take on, but bedtimes were always the most looked forward to by the little filly.
The study quarters were a very private place for the Princess and her Student, no pony apart from these two (unless on urgent business) would enter here. Not that this was a bad thing, but this was a place of learning for Twilight as well as a place of rest, and the Princess always wanted to make sure that she was achieving the best for her. There were several guards stationed just outside the door that would make regular checks and kept to a randomized shift pattern, it had been 993 years at this point since Luna had been banished to the moon.
The princess continued to feel terrible about doing what she had done, she knew she had to for the sake of the kingdom, to protect her student, and also to prepare her, for one day she may have to face her herself. In a way Celestia felt that if she could find any redemption at all, it would be through Twilight. Twilight knew this of course for she cared so much about her teacher, knowing the sacrifices she had to make for the Kingdom, and the little filly always worried that she might disappoint her wise mentor and guardian in some way shape or form. Despite this being a pressure on her, It was a glorious philliehood to be had, it wasn't without it worries and fears, but they nevertheless worked very hard each day, for love protects all who strive for it.
At the end of each day the two would wind down after supper and would read from the book 'the legendary fairytale's of Equestria', but this was no ordinary fairytale book. This book was not one from any of the libraries in Canterlot or anywhere else in the kingdom for that matter, it was Celestia's personal story book, and had owned it since she could remember. But no pony knows it's true origin, or how she acquired it. Twilight sometimes thought of the ways it could have come into her possession just before she slept, dreaming up all kinds of theories like she normally would (it was always in her inner nature to be thorough and inquisitive). Could somepony have given it to her? If so could it have been a long lost distant relative? Did she find it on some crazy adventure?
This book possessed a special magical lock that could only be opened by her, for princes Celestia's magic was quite incredible, after all she was an alicorn. And alicorns were always known for being very powerful but also very graceful ponies indeed. With her magic she could quite easily form pictures from storybooks bringing them to life. Whenever she would open the book, a three dimensional image would project all over the room putting them in the centre of the story as its told. Adding not only affect but also useful information that a book wouldn't be able to delineate, contributing to the overall learning experience. What follows is an account of these nights spent at Canterlot castle. Our narrator for these stories is of course, none other than the glorious princess herself!
A Star Called Littlewink
"Long ago before the heavens and worlds were born, when all was nothing, there was only the empty. A mass of eternal and invisible darkness. Where all possibility, potential and dreaming writhes. It was like this for a long long time, for what seemed like time without beginning. But one "day" (in quotes since it didn't yet exist), the empty began to change. It had suddenly grown sentience, It became conscious of itself. It gained a soul and Heart. When these were born, it contemplated itself. And felt emotions, and felt a deep loneliness, and so began to yearn to end this feeling. When it contemplated it's loneliness, it realized its "oneness", that in order to end its suffering, it would need to share itself with another."
"For that's what caused it's loneliness, it needed to share the beauty of creation with another, and so the empty began to separate itself from its own infinite mass. First came embodiments of Night and Dark. And so the empty did the thing it was most afraid of, what it had been terrified of doing since beginingless time, it go of itself. It thought it would surely disappear into nothingness, but then what was nothingness? "Wasn't I nothingness before this?" It thought. Then came explosions of particles which each in turn exploded into their own mass, forming trillions upon trillions of individual masses of time and space, each giving rise to their own set of circumstances, of how matter would behave and what sort of worlds would be born there."
The room was filled with the most amazing display of sounds and colours as the dawn of creation was being formed in front of the two ponies eyes, each explosion creating it's own creation within the image Celestia was projecting. Her voice deepening as it merged with the images in the story, echoing into every dimension causing a low bass that jiggered off the walls of the room.
"And every heaven upon every heaven was both unique unto itself, and similar to each one in every way. It was now a vast expanse of creations that had birthed an infinite array that were perfect reflections of each other. Personified by the compassionate deed it had done in order to end it's pain, it had learn't to cooperate, and in return a marvel of exquisite celestial beauty."
In one of these creations, clumps of particles began to form together, creating beautiful coloured clouds of what we know as Nebulas. These vast clouds served as hatcheries for bright shining objects called stars, these stars spread out all over the cosmos, filling all of space.
The image suddenly panned into one of the millions of windows of creation that displayed as the multi-verse, and the princess and Twilight found themselves in the middle of the star lit sky. Bright shiny objects of colours shapes and sizes, all of them swirling around and some of them even singing to one another in heavenly voices. Some stars were very big and shone brightly for all the other stars to see, some even shone so brightly it blocked out the light from some of the smaller neighbouring stars. Some pulsated vibrantly creating a drumming sound that would often irritate the smaller stars, some stars were blue and ice cold emitting a strange sort of cold heat, causing the dimmer stars to gradually loose their brightness. It was a complicated predicament to be in and the stars all blamed each other for their individuality.
"Out of all of these stars, one of which, was a dwarf called Littlewink." Said Celestia with her voice beginning to soften.
"Littlewink was just small star, and thus always had difficulty producing heat in order to heat up it's neighbouring planet. The other stars in the sky were doing just fine looking after their planets, and would often mock poor Littlewink for his failed attempts to get his planet and moon to work properly."
"Poor Littlewink felt sad and hopeless for he felt there was nothing he more he could do, and began to doubt himself in the face of adversity. As he did so, his light emitting from his core began to dim, making him colder and colder as crumbled under his own disbelief upon this perceived failure."
"Then the moon turned to him and spoke", the princess said in a lightly stern voice, as if she had suddenly given this moon an omniscient and enlightened mind with which to impart it's wisdom.
"Do not let the remarks of others bother you, for haven't you noticed that the other stars got colder too?" the moon protested to Littlewink.
"What do you mean" Said Littlewink in an alarmed voice.
"The stars heat requires loving energy for it to generate its fusion, without that the star begins to loose its heat and will eventually go out. Since the other stars have been mocking you, they too have lost their love from, as you are allowing yourself to be hurt by those taunts thus taking yours away." said the moon.
"But that means the whole havens are going to freeze and all the planets with them!!" Cried littlewink as he began to panic.
"How do I stop this? And even after that wont the others just mock me then?" "Will this ever stop?" Said the little dwarf.
"Why not? But what do I know, I am just the moon, but without you I will also perish, and your planet beneath you will, without you the future will never come to be". Said the moon in a solum voice.
"The Future?" Littlewink asked, worrying to himself there was little time to be going off on a tangent.
"As you rise the day, so time passes and your direction is that of the past, as I rise the night time passes by that of the night, the absence of your light allows me to see into the future. Our plane is one of three faces, one looking into the past, another the present (earth) and me into the future. And this planet below us is to be a very special and important place indeed, one day we will cause it give birth to two children, and one day these two will be the ones to take care of us in return for taking care of them. For without us, their lives wouldn't be possible."
At this point Littlewink realized the great importance that dawned, and fear spread into his fire. This was now an even more disdainful task to be dealing with, for what if the future couldn't be saved, then it would all be Littlewinks fault, and the larger stars would name him a failure forever. He didn't hate the other stars for their comments, for he thought maybe they do have a point. I am surely doing something wrong which is making the universe tick the wrong way. Littlewink was still pondering the way he could save the stars, but still felt crippled by the remarks he endured before. He feared that they might not believe him in his efforts to rescue the cosmos, he had never done anything spectacular before in his life, so why should they believe him now?
Then he remembered his conversation with the moon, sure the stars did not believe in him. But the moon did, 'was the moon not once made of stars' he thought.
And with that, was filled with an overwhelming sense of confidence, Littlewink suddenly began to warm up, then get hotter and hotter. The fusion inside of him caused him to expand shining brighter than he ever had done, and then all around the night sky, the other stars began to heat up, the largest stars were the first to feel the heat radiating towards them. They were shocked, but more overly were relieved for they could now continue to burn too, then the smaller stars, the pulsars, the red giants and the brown dwarfs. All in perfect succession one after the other, each individual star gave its love to the next. And before time could even catch up the heavens had reached a new point in its history. It had learnt to cooperate.
Each star turned to Littlewink in song, and gave their deepest thanks and said. "We were wrong to tease you in the way we did, or complain about your brightness. How foolish of us it was to blame you for the problems of the heavens, you may be the smallest star, but you shone the brightest for the sake of all of us, even when we were nasty to you, you still shared your love. That to us is the greatest love there can be. And so from this time forth we will all work together and share our love".
What came next was truly wonderful indeed, each star gave up a bit of itself. The red giants didn't burn so brightly to dim the light from the smaller giants, the pulsars didn't pulsate too loudly so the red giants could sleep peacefully. And the cold stars moved a little further away from the smaller dwarfs so that they could have enough space to radiate their heat. But what of the empty, what happened to all that nothingness after it let go. Where was it conscious now? Well it was everywhere, in all dimensions except now assuming physical forms, born into new forms of continuum. Although the reality it had birthed came with a price, to be inside reality and to experience it is to also be separate form it since there was no empty any more, it was now a creation filled with love that was shared among all. But being inside reality is not being separate from it or fully inside, we are simply held together in it by the love that was first created!
The end.
The princess looked over at Twilight and saw that she was already asleep, the princess gave a little laugh and gently carried the little pony over to her bed, she tucked her in underneath the sheets and blew out the candle next to her beside table. But Twilight wasn't fully asleep, her waking mind had began to shut down, but she could still slightly hear what was being said before. She could just about remember some fragmented bits of information towards the end but she was already in a dream by this point.
In her dream there was the happy ending, that conversation with the moon, the empty sharing itself. something about the moon and sun having children, and that one day these children would take care of them? How could small beings take care of large celestial objects like that she pondered, the moon and sun began to hurtle towards each other and smashed into a thousand pieces, knocking the earth into the universe. And with that she woke, sat up bolt right! She realized, she had started to fall asleep towards the end. And then realized that it wasn't a dream, the order that it came in and then realized that the end bit wasn't in the story. And the question began to dawn, what were these children the moon mentioned?
