Twilight Sparkle sat with her chin resting on her fore-hooves, trying to warm up in the dying sunlight that shone through the small window in principal Rose's office. She knew what she was supposed to do when she was upset, which was to think about everything she had to be happy about, but all she wanted to do was wallow in her dejection.
She was happy about one thing, which was that she had found a reason to use the word 'dejection'. She'd looked it up in the dictionary the day before, and usually she had to wait a long time before she had an opportunity to use a new word. So there was that.
Mostly she was upset, though. Upset and dejected.
There was the sound of hooves in the hall, and Twilight had a moment to wonder who was coming. It could've been principal Rose, who'd left her to wait almost ten minutes ago. It could've been Droplet Egress, who'd been sent to the nurse's office even though she wasn't hurt at all and would definitely be getting a good scolding as soon as Nurse Bellum told everyone what a liar she was.
Then there was a third possibility. It could've been Twilight's parents. Detention she knew she could handle (though she'd never been before), and scolding was at least within the realm of the tolerable, but this was unthinkable. If Twilight had time to prepare them, word the story just right, she knew her parents would understand, but if Principal Rose got to them first she didn't know what they'd think. Not being able to predict how somepony would react was Twilight's least favourite thing.
Twilight silently willed the door to stay closed, but it opened regardless. She didn't know that sort of magic, and in any case spells could only delay the inevitable.
Principal Rose strode in, stopping momentarily to glance at Twilight and telekinetically adjust her spectacles. Twilight thought she probably wore spectacles that constantly slipped down her nose just so she could adjust them all the time, because it made her look more dignified. She was an old and matronly unicorn; the sort of old unicorn who kept her nose at the appropriate upward angle and wore heavy purple robes in spite of the sheer impracticality, just to make sure she was conveying exactly the right kind of gravitas. Twilight thought for sure she had a spell just to hold her expression in that way that made her look slightly concerned, as though you were doing something slightly dangerous and she wasn't sure whether she ought to stop you.
Following her, and faking a limp, was Droplet Egress. She was a unicorn as well, though given how utterly terrible at magic she was one would be forgiven for assuming she was an earth pony, and right now in particular her hair was so badly mussed it almost swallowed up her horn. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she gave a great big sniffle as she sat down.
"I've contacted your parents," Principal Rose said, addressing them both.
Twilight's stomach turned to ice. All the blood rushed to her face, and she found that she couldn't any more will it away than she could will the door to stay closed. The room spun around her, like that ride at the amusement park that always made her sick. She thought she might lose her lunch, right then and there, and if Twilight had had the power, she would've made the weather pick up until it buried Canterlot in snow, and then her parents would have no choice but to stay home. Except the pegasi would just clear it away, and in any case she would eventually have to go home anyway. The thought did nothing to ease her suffering.
Principal Rose continued speaking, as though the world hadn't just ended in chaos and darkness. "Now, I have Shining Armour and Estuary Absconsion in the other room, but before I bring them in here I'd like to hear from the two of you. Would either of you-"
"She started it!" shouted Droplet, clearly under the mistaken impression that the best way to win an argument was to be louder and faster.
"I did not," said Twilight, carefully using her indoor voice. Because she was smart, unlike Droplet, she knew that raising one's voice only reinforced ponies' perception of one as immature and therefore untrustworthy. Her father had told her that.
"Yuh-huh," said Droplet. "You hit me."
"You hit me first."
"Liar!"
"I'm not a liar, you're a liar!"
"Girls!" snapped principal Rose. She took a long, deep breath, running a hoof through curly pink-white hair. Her cheery disposition restored, she started again. "Now then, it doesn't matter who started it."
"It does so!" said Droplet. "She-"
Rose cut her off with a look. Twilight smirked.
"Now, can either of you tell me what you both did wrong?"
Twilight shook her head mutely, her smile vanishing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Droplet do the same.
"When you have a disagreement with somepony, no matter how angry they make you feel, you must always use your words, not your hooves. Explain why you're feeling upset, and if the two of you can't come to a compromise, you should go and get an adult. Both of you should know this already, and neither one of you went to get a teacher to resolve the issue, so it doesn't matter which one of you started it. Now, I'm going to go and fetch Shining and Estuary, and the five of us are going to have a conversation, but first I want the two of you to-"
There was a knock at the door. Twilight jumped. Rose moved to answer, but before she could even rise from her seat the door was open. A wisp of fog drifted into the office, and the smell of ozone and brimstone was heavy in the air. Just beyond stood Twilight's parents, their hats and scarves glistening with snowflakes rapidly turning to steam.
"Night Light, Twilight Velvet," said principal Rose. "I wasn't expecting you so soon. How-?"
"Teleportation," said Twilight Velvet curtly. "Are you finished?"
"Not exactly. In fact, I was just about to have Twilight and Droplet apologize to one another."
"So, just about done then. You can go ahead and apologize, Twilight."
Twilight was momentarily stunned. In her dejection, she was having some difficulty keeping up with what was going on, but she managed to choke out an "m'sorry," just quickly enough to keep the silence from getting awkward.
"Alright, that's that then," said Twilight Velvet. "I'm sure we're all very busy, so Droplet can just direct her apology in Twilight's general direction and we'll just be on our way."
"Now, honey," Night Light said, "I'm sure the principal-"
Heedlessly, Twilight's mother levitated her right out of her seat and into the hall, and there was just enough time for principal Rose to shout, "wait a moment, we aren't-" before the sound of the teleportation - so much louder from the inside - drowned her out, and the office's sights and smells were lost in the fire and ozone of her mother's magic.
And then they were outside.
The snow was coming down heavier than Twilight had expected, and she pulled her scarf tight around her face. Her glasses immediately fogged up, and as she walked she set about trying to find a position that would both protect her nose from the cold and let her see.
Shining Armour, she noticed, was with them, though she hadn't noticed her mother pick him up. He looked a bit dejected himself, with the beginnings of a black eye forming. Twilight adjusted her scarf to hide her split lip, hoping the inevitable shiner/Shining pun would make them forget to check her for injuries.
They were all used to this mode of travel, teleports punctuated by short walks to get away from the waste magic, so Twilight Velvet could charge another hop. Other Canterlot families travelled in carriages, and most of Twilight's classmates had animated carriages, or carriages drawn by golems or even servants. It was much more relaxing, and warmer, but nowhere near as fast, and so they'd never once owned a carriage of their own. The subject of classmates was somewhat on the forefront of Twilight's mind, at the moment, so she couldn't quite dispel the thought.
They teleported twice in silence. The first brought them out of the downtown, and the second into their little neighbourhood on the northern face of the mountain. The towers weren't quite as tall here, but in Canterlot every building was a tower of some kind; it was the only way to make enough space. Night Light and Velvet spoke at once; Night Light cut himself off, and Velvet started again.
"Twilight, Shining, I trust I don't have to explain to you why what happened today was completely unacceptable?"
"Yes, mother," said Twilight, and Shining nodded solemnly along.
"Good," she said. "Did you win?"
Shining smiled. "Yes, mother."
"Velvet!" Night Light said. "Don't encourage them."
"Bah!" Velvet exclaimed, then again: "bah! Encourage them. Like they're animals we're training to follow instruction. If we just tell them never to get into fights, either they'll ignore us, or they won't and they won't be willing to stand up for themselves when it's important. What they need to do is carefully weigh the costs and benefits of their actions, not follow a set of overly simplistic rules."
"And I suppose you carefully weighed the costs and benefits before you decided to completely undermine Principal Rose's authority in front of the kids?" Night Light said. There was no accusation in his voice; it was just how they talked. Velvet made the decisions, and Night Light challenged them so she had an excuse to explain herself.
Velvet wheeled around, her mane throwing off snowflakes in every direction. "Authority? What authority? If her authority is so fragile that I can undermine it by ignoring her, I don't think she ever had any, and in any case I don't care for her ideas about discipline. If Twilight and Shining aren't up to her standards, there's not a thing she can do about it; she's completely toothless. However-" Velvet stopped to charge another teleport, and for a moment it was too loud to speak. When the light cleared, they were inside.
Twilight's family owned the top floor of a six story tower, the lower three floors of which were stores, and the remaining split between six apartments. While most of the wealthier families competed to drive up prices on apartments near the nicest schools, Velvet had simply elected to buy a home in a more middle-class section of the city and teleport Twilight and Shining to school every morning. As a result, they enjoyed more space than most families in Canterlot, at the expense of a bit of a disconnect with their neighbours, which Velvet's attitude did little to ameliorate.
Velvet hated climbing the stairs, and needed an open space to land, so the apartment was centred around an oversized living room, the middle of which was just a big empty area of floorspace. The remainder of the room was given over to books, with a small consideration given to chairs in which to read those books, and the ceiling was a magically-enforced glass dome, which Night Light used to teach Twilight and Shining the stars and constellations on Saturday nights, and for his own work the rest of the week.
That being taken in, Velvet continued her sentence: "However, while her standards are tripe, my standards are both more valid and quite a bit higher, so the two of you had better put your brains together and come up with some very good excuses, because right now I'm thinking this is going to be four thousand lines. Each."
Twilight gulped.
Ever since she'd been able to lift a pen, punishments had been an educational opportunity. While neither of Twilight's parents approved of taskmaster-parenting, they also felt that the school system was inadequate for their purposes. As a compromise, they (meaning mostly Velvet) doled out at-home education instead of time-outs or spankings as was more traditional. Penponyship, levitation, Prench, potion-making, and mathematics were the favourites, and it could take Twilight weeks to finish a particularly harsh sentence.
Twilight mentally reviewed which arguments had and hadn't worked in the past, and which words she'd read in the dictionary recently that she thought might make her sound more convincing.
When she was confident in her phrasing, she said, "Droplet repeatedly insulted and belittled me, often backed up by her cadre of followers, in a way that made me very upset and dejected. Though I didn't go to a teacher, I know from observation, having seen other ponies try to get teachers to help them with bullies and heard anecdotal testimonies of the same, that they can't or won't do anything to stop her. Because Droplet knows exactly how far she can go without consequences, she could freely victimize me; my only way of stopping her was to impose my own consequences. So I stole her favourite bow, which she wore to school every single day, and threw it in the river."
Shining laughed, then stifled it with a cough. The river running by their school turned into a waterfall not a hundred meters downstream. There were bars before the drop in case a pony fell in, but the bow would've gone right through and over the edge.
"And that's when the fight started?" Velvet asked.
Twilight shook her head. "Droplet ran off and got a teacher, but I said I hadn't done anything to her bow, so the teacher didn't do anything. That's when Droplet went and got Estuary. They went after me after school was over."
Velvet nodded. "Shining, I'm assuming this is where you came in?"
Shining nodded, then cleared his throat. "Game theoretically speaking, if we assume n agents in competition with one another-"
"It's alright if you just say you wanted to help your sister, Shining," said Night Light.
Shining nodded.
"Both of you did poorly," said Velvet.
Twilight's heart sank.
Velvet started to pace. "Twilight, your plan was flawed to begin with. While imposing consequences on Droplet would work in theory, in practice it only made things worse. If you were able to hurt her badly enough, consistently enough, to make her genuinely fear you, she would've stopped; anything less, though, and she would only retaliate. Because you can't realistically do that at your level of magical ability, let alone do it without getting caught-" Night Light shot her a look, and she amended: "-and also that would be wrong - you would've been better served pursuing alternative angles. I want you to write the words: 'I will always think my clever schemes all the way through' one thousand times by Friday, in cursive. Every day you're late will be an extra hundred."
"Shining," she continued, "your mistake was simple: you never should've joined the fight. Involving yourself was prideful and unnecessary. If you'd run for a teacher instead, wailing about your sister being assaulted by a hooligan, the administration would've seen it as a beating rather than a fight, and Twilight would've escaped punishment with nothing but a few bruises, while Estuary and Droplet would've been dealt with much more severely. I want you to write the words: 'I will always prioritize accomplishing my goals over appearing strong' seven hundred times by Thursday, in cursive. Every day you're late will be an extra seventy. Now both of you go do your homework."
Twilight let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and left the room posthaste. A thousand lines was nothing to sneeze at, but she'd had much worse. On the other hand, she was in the middle of three books at the moment, and this would really cut down on her reading time. She debated dividing the number of lines evenly into the days she had before Friday, but that would mean her reading sessions would be shorter. Instead, she resolved to finish writing them as fast as she could, so she'd be able to go back to her preferred schedule of reading her books right from the moment she got home until her bedtime, .
That decided, she went right into her room to fetch her favourite pen.
The moment she went through the door, before she could even make it across the room, she sensed something amiss. There was a feeling in the air, not like something so much as like nothing at all - like nothing was happening, not in the sense that nothing important was happening, but in the sense that nothing was happening, in the grand cosmic sense. In fact, having considered it, she felt more like something was un-happening, like all of reality was unravelling in front of her, and she stood at the precipice of nonexistence.
And then there was a flash of un-light, and a smell that was only noticeable in its absence, and the tingling of ambient magic, and all at once, without even the sparks of teleportation or the flickering of an invisibility spell, there was a pony standing before her, and though she'd never seen that pony before, Twilight recognized her at once.
"I'm you, from the future," said the elder Twilight Sparkle. "You need to save Equestria at least four times, possibly more, contingent on certain unclear magical laws relating to destiny. You'll probably fail. I'll give you my notes before I go."
