Twilight Strikes Out Big Time

How it all pans out remains to be seen, but I'm confident that together we can turn her around.  It's all mostly up to her, now, and she's more than proven she's an intelligent, open-minded mare.  I fully believe that once we can help deconstruct the underlying insecurities, she'll put some of her more....extreme ideas to rest.

Serious matters aside, how is ev

"Spike," said Twilight Sparkle apropos of nothing, interrupting her own letter in the process, "Do you think I should warn Princess Celestia about the whole apocalyptic wasteland thing?"

Spike, for the seventh time in about an hour, gave her That Look again.  He did not feel grateful to be getting so much practice with it lately.  In fact, he was beginning to wish he'd never have to use it again, at least for the rest of the week.  Maybe until next month.

At the rate Twilight was fretting about some of the things that they had experienced in their brief trip through time and space, he might just have to start working on That Look even harder.  It didn't seem to be quite working.

"You want me to write a letter?"  He already had the quill in his little clawed fingers from the last time he'd offered.  Twilight simply flustered again.

"Oh, I don't think it's really worth worrying her over!  I mean, it's not like it was an image of the future or anything; it was simply a possible eventuality," she explained most reservedly, as if she hadn't said the exact same thing already.  Multiple times.  "Just because it could have happened had things been different, that doesn't necessarily mean it's still going to happen."

Spike did not put the quill down.  Again.

Apparently not noticing, Twilight turned back to her own writing, still half-speaking her own train of thought out loud as she went.  The young dragon had long since learned not to let that bother him, at least.  Whether it was worth worrying about or not, he just wished she'd stop second-guessing and get on with it already.

.....

The tap-tap-tapping and scritch-a-scratching of quill on parchment made for a comforting background noise.  Despite having already had so long, Twilight still found the odd way it echoed off the crystalline walls ever so slightly unsettling.  The soft, rhythmic sound of the ticking clock in the next room.  The little whispery swish that her tail made as it wafted to and fro, brushing against the mineral floor.  The absence of all those muffled sounds of wildlife leaking in through her study window in the dead of night.  Even the sharper, paler light that was cast out of the crystal chandelliers overhead, instead of that warm orange glow of candlelight.

It was growing on her.  She still found it strange, just a little bit uncomfortable, but it was definitely growing on...

Twilight set down the quill again.

"Did you say something?"  Her diminutive assistant just looked back at her with a patient expression when she turned to check.  "I was sure I..."

Something tickled in her horn.  A very peculiar sort of feeling.  Something in the air tasted...spicy?

BANG

Twilight Sparkle was looking up at the ceiling of her nice new study from a most awkward angle, with her back legs fluttering confusedly in the air.  Her wings were a tangled mess beneath her.  Her ears were ringing, just a bit.

"Well that one was a bit rough," said Twilight Sparkle.  "Note to self: re-check the flow calculations for non-contiguous crossover.  Might have to realign the interstice on the way back."

"Erm," said Twilight Sparkle, in an uncharacteristic moment of eloquence.

"Yes, hello, don't worry," explained Twilight Sparkle.  "This shouldn't take long.  At least this time we don't have to do everything the hard way."

"You're Twilight," said Twilight, redundantly.

"That's not scientifically possible," protested Twilight.  Twilight frowned at her.  "Don't worry," Twilight sighed with an apologetic wave, "I'm not a doppelganger or a changeling or your daughter from the future or anything wacky like that, I promise."

"This is about the time thing, isn't it."  It wasn't a question.  They both already knew the answer.  Twilight felt her horn itching again, but this time, it was just a headache starting.  Somehow, she knew it was going to be a long night.

Tuning out the Other Twilight's incredibly dense ramblings about the time-space continuum, Twilight picked herself up onto all four hooves again and shook the slight ringing out of her ears.  That teleportation had knocked over the ink bottle.  And her lovely crystal desk lamp.  And all of her photographs.

Her coffee was all over the floor.  At least it was easy to clean up; crystal tended not to stain so easily as wood.

Levitating a cloth out of the drawer, she mopped up the mess almost by reflex alone while her attention was busily focused on the perplexing appearance before her.  The room was in shambles, cleaning up the whole mess would take hours, but all that really mattered was seeing Spike climb his way up onto the lovely recliner he'd fallen down behind and dust himself off, seemingly unscathed.

"Maybe first you should just sit down for a minute," he deftly interrupted Other Twilight's rambling attempts to explain just what the heck was going on.  That seemed to bring the agitated mare up short, and she tried to hide the slight blush as she settled on her haunches.

"Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a state, I guess.  It's been a long day."

Twilight tried not to stare at the other her's starkly unadorned whithers.  No wings.  Yes.  Hm.  That was....odd.  Seeing herself as a unicorn again...very strange.  She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.  Wait, was that some sort of horrible problem that Starlight Glimmer's spell had caused?  Was this some kind of alternate-timeline-nonsense created by their going back in time and altering the past?  But it was all resolved now, surely?

"Oh, I'm going to have to go over everything all over again!  And I just finished modelling the aetheric flow process through the ingress point."

Not-A-Princess Twilight Sparkle made a very undignified noise.

"Please don't remind me, I just spent five damn hours trying to factorize all the possible resonances."  Unicorn Twilight stomped (Twilight walked in an incredibly pouty way; she was not very good at stomping) over to the recliner and flopped into it petulently.   "I didn't even know that stupid tree existed until last night!  It's one headache after another."  Princess Twilight Sparkle offered her a muffin.  Well, at least supper had survived the unpleasantly energetic teleportation, she thought with some force.  Look on the bright side, Twilight.

"You know, I think Spike has a perfectly good idea there," she said, and Spike in no way even attempted to not look smug about it.  "So long as you're in no great rush, I think it would do us both good to sleep on this and sort it all out in the morning.  I know I could certainly do with the rest."

"...."  Unicorn Twilight looked lost for just a moment, before a very hesitant smile started to appear.  "Huh.  You know, I think this is the first time it's not an emergency.  Nice to have all the time I want to work on it, for once."  She glanced at her be-winged alter-ego.  "Though, I don't think I'd feel right imposing on you like that.  Besides, I think it's probably better for the fabric of reality if I go sleep in my own bed and spend as little time here as necessary."

"In that case," said Twilight, "Perhaps I should give you some of the diagrams I've managed to draw up on the hypertoroidal functions, just in case."  Other Twilight looked like she'd just showed her a brand new kind of algebra.  "Maybe it'll help you...sort out whatever this big problem is on your end."

"I'll happily give you the research notes once I'm done compiling everything, believe me."  Other Twilight smiled an oddly melancholy smile.  "Makes a change, this.  No trouble at all.  Ah, speaking of which, since you're the first Me that actually seems to know anything about this one, I'm going to need the full incantation and the fundamental and compound construct from you...er...please," she finished, looking ever so slightly sheepish.

Princess Twilight Sparkle brought a hoof to her forehead.  There it was.  She could feel that headache starting again.

"I don't have those.  Starlight Glimmer is the only one with a complete copy of the runic matrix itself, and I think she did most of the final incantations in her head.  I'm amazed she was able to construct what she did from the original unfinished concept."

"Starlight Glimmer?  She's the one who started all this?"  Twilight didn't quite like that tone of voice.

"She's been quite a nuisance indeed, but I don't think it'll be any tro"

"UUUGGGHGH" grunted Other Twilight in a very undignified manner, standing up.  "Be right back."

The second teleport wasn't nearly as energetic as the first, thankfully.  Spike was probably going to have a bruise in the morning.  Twilight made a mental note to take him out for some extra ice-cream to make up for it.  At the rate she'd been going the past few days, she might need to just buy an ice-cream machine.

Other Twilight reappeared in a scintillating FLASH and a lingering scent of ozone.  Twilight looked at the strange dark stain on the end of the baseball bat with mild alarm.

"Okay," huffed the unicorn, telekinetically hefting her slugger.  "Where is the bitch?"