Twilight Sparkle used to like ants.
When she was a filly, she would spend hours studying anthills through a magnifying glass. There was something so fascinating about the little creatures; only a few millimeters tall and almost completely blind, yet they somehow still managed to work together as a team. There was something admirable about that.
Now, as she tore across a featureless linoleum wasteland, chased by a horde of monsters, Twilight felt anything but admiration for them.
“Almost there, almost there.” The mare muttered to herself, trying to keep calm. Hooves smaller than sesame seeds clopped on the rough tile. A crude rucksack smacked against her flanks. Almost safe. Almost there. Just a little further to safety.
At least, that’s what she hoped. The tiled plain had very few landmarks, just giant, alternating squares of black and white linoleum as far as the eye could see, like a god-sized chessboard. Off in the distance there was a hazy outline that might have been the Sink. Or not. She couldn’t tell.
In a fit of morbid curiosity, Twilight snuck a quick look back. She instantly regretted it. Even through the strange gloom that filled this world, she could see the horde of ants swarming towards her. These were not the cute little dots she’d known in her old life, dangerous only to picnics. These were wolf-sized nightmares, with chitinous bodies, snapping jaws, and beady little eyes.
It was amazing how much uglier everything became at 1/1000 normal size.
With a grunt, Twilight leapt over the shallow trench between two tiles. She landed hard, sprawling across the slick linoleum. Crumbs the size of hoofballs spilled out of her rucksack.
“Horse Apples!” Twilight cursed, frantically gathering up her meager spoils, trying not to stare at the chitinous wall of death rushing towards her. She could hear hundreds of scaly legs rasping against the linoleum; she could smell the stink of pheromones, see the forests of waving antennae.
Once the last crumb was safely tucked away, Twilight reared on her hind legs and galloped as if death itself was after her. Too late she realized that those little crumbs may have cost her her life; two of the ants had caught up with her, their jaws snapping like shiny beartraps. Scaly feelers brushed against her body, fondling her, probing her, tasting her.
Twilight jumped to the side, reflexively blasting the insect with an incineration spell. At full strength, it would have turned the ant into charcoal in an instant. With her near-depleted reserves, the raspberry-purple bolt simply splashed off the ant’s hide.
The ant closed in for the kill, jaws snapping. Twilight quickly dodged its attack and pulled a crude spear from her back, thrust the metal-tipped splinter into the monster’s abdomen,and twisted it like a corkscrew. The ant twitched. Colorless goo welled up from the wound.
Twilight pulled out the spear stabbed again, and again, until the monster’s tiny brain finally realized that it was hurt. The ant stopped. Its legs locked up, it rolled on its back and curled up into a ball legs twitching.
Twilight felt a massive rush. For a fleeting instant she wasn’t some helpless prey animal, fleeing for its life; she was a mighty warrior; Twilight the destroyer: slayer of monsters. It was a small victory, yes, but these days she took her victories wherever she could.
As Twilight ran, the outline in front of her became clearer. Her heart leapt. That was it: the Sink; standing tall and proud against the horizon like an ancient fortress. It wasn’t too much farther. Just another tile to go and she’d be safe behind its thick walls. She could already see the comforting wall of the baseboard.
Twilight’s euphoria was interrupted by a sharp, pain, quickly dulled by adrenalin. She turned her head to see the second ant burying its mandibles in her hide, she could feel it twisting and and pulled at her trying to rip her apart.
Without thinking, Twilight took her spear and brought it down on the ant’s head. “Die!” She screamed, clubbing the beast as if she could kill it with anger alone. “Die die die die die!”
Whether by determination, divine intervention, or sheer luck, one of the blows managed to crack the ants’ waxy hide. Twilight raised the spear one last time, and with a final “Die!”, plunged it into the ant’s soft innards. The monster’s released its grip, shaking its head wildly.
Gritting her teeth, Twilight galloped until she finally reached a cave-sized hole in the plywood. The second she was through, her horn sparked, and a wood scrap the size of a barn door dropped in front of the hole. For a second, the swarm beat against the improvised portcullis, scrabbling at it with their legs, rasping against it with their jaws. Twilight pushed herself against the wood scrap, tensing with every blow. Unwillingly, she imagined the scrap giving way, imagined the monsters pouring in and ripping her apart before carrying her carcass of to their nest. It wasn’t until they finally skittered off that she started breathing again.
Twilight pulled out a chip of mage-light crystal tied to a splinter, and ignited it with a spark from her horn. She made her way through the pitch-black cavern of the sink, weaving her way through the city of soap flake boxes and bottles until she reached a her home-within-a home, a discarded matchbox the size of a warehouse.
Only then did she allow herself the luxury of pain.
-
With a wince, Twilight set down her haversack. and examined her wound. She was lucky-for whatever reason, the ant hadn’t been able to bite too deeply. Anything deeper and she might have needed stitches, and, given that even the finest thread was a rope to her, that would have been a challenge.With the last of her remaining magic, she blasted the bite marks with a first-level sterilization spell, followed by a coagulation spell to stop the bleeding.
“There we go!” Twilight wrapped the wounds with a few scraps of paper towel for good measure. “Good as new!” She said with forced cheerfulness. Yet again, she thanked Shining Armor for teaching her those elementary first-aid spells.
The world started spinning. Twilight laid down on the rough cardboard, waiting for her magic to recharge. Starswirl’s second law had caught up with her; the amount of magic a creature can store or generate is directly proportional to its size. Thanks to her tiny size, even the most basic spells were a challenge. Anything more advanced might drain her completely.
Once she recovered, Twilight picked herself up and accessed her mental checklist. “Let's see,what do we have?” She opened the rucksack and dumped its contents floor: Seven breadcrumbs, small, one bit of cheese, stale, and a few pieces of wood.
Twilight looked at her spoils, then took a breath. She turned to a splinter crudely carved into the shape of a pony “Well, what do you think, Splinty?”
The ersatz companion just stared at her. If it had an opinion, it was keeping it to itself.
Twilight’s ears drooped. “Yeah. me too.” The Gods’ new maid was too meticulous. Before, she would have carried back twice this amount in a single expedition. Now she was lucky to get this much.
Gods. Though Twilight knew that they were ordinary ponies, but the label was just too appropriate. They could cross unimaginable distances with a single stride,and ate veritable mountains of food every day. With a simple hoofstep, they could cross miles, crush whole armies of ants to paste, shrug off bites that would kill her a thousand times over. What else could she call them?
It was hard to believe that she’d once been one of them. Even more so that they used to be her family.
Twilight levitated her loot over to an improvised net, sorting it by size and type: bread crumbs and cheese in the food pile, splinters went into the raw materials pile.
“Right, food has been stored. “Again, Twilight accessed the checklist in her head. “Next order of business: check water supply.” Twilight trotted over to a chunk of kitchen sponge and gave it a slight squeeze. A bead of water the size of her hoof oozed out.
“Adequate.” Another item was crossed off the checklist. Twilight continued through her checklist.
Cleaning up bits of dust? Check.
Organizing tools? Check...
Something tightened in Twilight’s head. Ah, checklists, your security blanket of choice. One more weapon in your losing fight against insanity.
“I am not going insane.” Twilight muttered. She did not need this. Not now. Not ever. “I’m just trying to be organized. After all, just because I’m tiny doesn’t mean I can’t be organized.” she said, laughing nervously.
Right. Organized. Gotcha. The pressure eased up.
Twilight clutched her head and groaned. It was getting worse. At first it had been just a few lingering doubts floating at the edge of her consciousness —annoying but bearable. Now, those doubts had matured into a condescending Voice. Every day it became a little more frequent and a little more acidic.
What really unnerved her was that, most of the time, they were right.
Shaking her head, Twilight went through the rest of her chores.
Spear sharpened? Check
Raw materials sorted? Check
Rucksack checked for damage?
“Check, check, and check check!” Twilight said with all the cheerfulness she could muster. Everything was complete. Now it was time for some dinner.
Twilight trotted over to the food pen. “Let's see,” she said, looking over her meager food stash. “What’s on the menu today?” After some thought, Twilight selected a bread crumb the size of a rock, brushing off a few particles of dirt. She soaked it with water from the sponge, closed her eyes, and took a bite out of of the soggy lump, chewing it slowly to make it seem like more than it really was. The crumb was hardly palatable; even with the water soaking it, eating it was like eating a soft spongy rock, but it was better than starving. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.
“Right.” Twilight swallowed the last of the rock hard bread, trying not to gag. Now that dinner was done, it was on to the next order of business: studying. twilight trotted over to the last relic of her old life; an embroidered saddlebag, pinned to the cardboard wall with a splinter. She dug her muzzle through the little bag and pulled out an old, book titled: “Long-range Teleportation Spells: A Primer”
“Alright” Twilight opened the hydra-leather cover and turned to a page bookmarked with a bit of tissue paper..
“I think I’m onto something, Splinty” Twilight said, going over the book with the scrutiny of a detective. She scribbled a formula on the floor with a chunk of pencil lead, pondered it for a second, then crossed it out. “Last sleep, I got an idea: Maybe if I tweaked the spell’s charging sequence and altered the spell’s parameters a little, it might reverse the molecular compression effect. ”
Splinty, being a piece of wood, said nothing.
“Exactly!” Twilight picked up a chunk of pencil lead and started scribbling an equation on the floor. “Let's see if it checks out!”
This was going to be it. Twilight could feel it in her core. After countless sleeps of painstaking work, she was finally on the verge of a breakthrough. She knew it. She could feel it.
Yeah, just like you did the last time you tried this. And the time before that, and the time before that...
Twilight winced. Not now.
Do you remember what they say about insanity? They say that it’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Twilight slapped the side of her head, her eyes burning. “Shut. Up!”
I’m just saying... The Voice said before burrowing back into Twilight’s subconscious.
With a snort, Twilight continued studying long into the night. Or day. It was hard to tell. Without access to a clock, or even sunlight, time had ceased to exist for her. There was no more bedtime, no more lunchtime, no more anytime. She ate when she was hungry, and slept when she was tired. Her rest periods were the only real measurement of time that mattered.
Even though she was no longer aware of it, time began to take it’s toll on Twilight. Her hoof ached from holding the chunk. Every cell in Twilight’s body begged her to quit for now and get some sleep. It was just an equation. wasn’t like the equation was going to disappear the moment she turned away.
Twilight ignored her body’s pleas. Her hoof flew across the floor as if possessed. She couldn’t rest. Not now. She was close. Very close. Everything was fitting together. Every formula she plugged into it was a tiny step forward. It was almost done; she just needed to plug Starswirl’s Constant in and…
Twilight dropped the chunk. It would work. If cast, her modified spell would increase her size...by one tenth of a millimeter. A year. Anything more would rip her apart on the atomic level. At that rate, she would return to normal size in a few millenia.
“Buck!” With a growl, Twilight hurled the book against the side of the matchbox, then crossed out the equation on the floor. Emotionally and physically drained, Twilight plodded over to the bit of lint that served as her bed and flopped onto it like a limp rag. Everytime. Every Time it looked like she’d found a solution, there’d always be that one catch that made all of her hard work useless.
Twilight hugged Splinty, rocking herself back and forward. “It’s alright, Splinty. It’s alright,” Twilight muttered, forcing out a chuckle “I didn’t fail: I just learned how not to restore my size,” She stood up. “I just have to keep trying.”
That’s right, Twilight, keep on trying. After all, you know what they say; two hundred and third time's the charm.
Twilight said nothing. If she just ignored the Voice, it would go away.
Why do you keep torturing yourself like this, Sparkle? You’ve gone over the book a hundred, nay, a thousand times, and for what? Face it, Sparkle, you’re stuck like this. You’re a bug. You’ll continue to be a bug. And, when you die, be it by hunger or thirst, you’ll die as a bug. It’d be better if you just accepted it.
“Shut up!” Twilight yelled at her own subconscious. “I am not going to die a bug! Do you hear me? Do you hear me?! I’ll read that book a hundred times over, a thousand times over. I’ll write until my hooves wear down to nubs. I don’t care how long it takes; months, years, whatever. I will find a way!”
Good luck with that. You can barely find enough food to keep from starving, you were nearly killed by ants, and your only friend is a splinter. You’ll be lucky to survive another week. ”
Twilight ground her teeth. “You’re not real. You’re just a thought that’s gotten too big for its britches: just a collection of electrical impulses jumping from neuron to neuron. Nothing more.”
The Voice paused for a moment. Then why are you talking to me?
Twilight stopped for a moment.”Just shut up!”
Fine then, be that way. Nighty night, Twi.
The pressure left. Twilight rubbed her head and closed her eyes, pulling a bit of tissue paper over her. If last sleep’s trend continued, she’d probably have a horrible nightmare, probably being chased by something unspeakable, or being unprepared for something important. Back in her old life, she would have been apprehensive about going to bed with the possibility of nightmares lurking overhead. Now she didn’t care.
Whatever the dream world held for her, it couldn’t be any worse than this.
Author's Note
Just an idea that's been brewing in my head for a while.
