The Chapter in Which Twilight Has a Bad Day
“FUCK.”
The word rang through the crystal walls of the Friendship Castle, causing Starlight Glimmer to lift her head up off of her pillow. She had just got done having an adventure with Trixie and it had left her drained so she’d gone home to take a nap. She blearily wondered if she’d actually heard what she thought she had, before the door to her room opened and Spike peeked his head in.
“Right, so I didn’t just hear that,” Starlight muttered as she slowly clambered out of bed.
“I don’t know what happened, I was sitting in my room just reading when she...you know,” Spike said warily.
She worked her way over to the door and Spike scampered down the hallway, Starlight following. The sound of her hooves on the crystal floor was the only sound as the pair made their way to the map room. They entered to find Twilight slumped over in her chair, her hooves on the arm rests. Twilight looked up at the pair and sighed. She didn’t look good, to Starlight anyway. Her hair was a mess, as in the ‘I’ve been worrying too much about something stupid’ mess. Her eyes were bloodshot and her breath was coming out in a hoarse pant. It had an unnerving effect on Starlight and made her tense up.
“Uhh, hi Twilight, are you...okay,” Starlight asked.
“About as okay as can be expected,” Twilight responded.
Starlight and Spike shared a look before they slowly moved onto either side of Twilight. Spike reached a claw up and lightly touched Twilight, before yanking it back with an “ouch.” Starlight lightly touched the lavender mare and had to suppress a yelp as she was shocked, her hoof feeling a little numb from the jolt.
“What happened exactly, and why are you all...shocky,” Spike asked, sucking on his finger and pouting.
Twilight twitched before saying, “Well it started with-”
Twilight’s Worst Day Ever (Probably)
Twilight had woken up bright and early to find that the sun was still below the horizon. She was tempted to turn over and simply lie in bed until the sun rose but something told her that she needed to be up. So up she was, using a candle to guide herself, even if she was on autopilot mostly, down to the nearest bathroom in the maze of halls of her castle. She opened the door and spent the next hour making herself presentable to the world, the sun peeking over the horizon by the time she had finished. Working her way through the castle, she began climbing down a set of stairs, stumbling over something she hadn’t noticed. She fell about a full flight, coming to a rest and wincing as she turned over, looking down and noticing a few scrapes on herself. She sighed and applied some magic to the scrapes, healing the minor damage she had taken during the fall. She stood up, feeling stiff and wincing as she looked up the stairs, looking for what had tripped her. She found a bannana peel. Of course it was a bananna peel. She picked it up in her magic and huffed, carrying it with her to the kitchen, encountering nothing exciting on the trip.
She entered the kitchen and threw the peel away, getting ready to make some breakfast. She picked up the box of pancake mix, hoping that pancakes would break the mood that the fall had put her in. She tilted the box into a measuring cup, frowning when nothing came out. She tilted the box a little more and suddenly all the powder inside rushed out, filling the cup and overflowing onto the counter before Twilight could react. Her forehead furrowed and she groaned, setting the cup down and levitating the trash can over, sweeping the mound of pancake powder into it. This caused a cloud of it to float up into her nose and she sneezed, bumping the cup on the counter and causing it to tip over, spilling powder onto the counter before rolling and falling to the ground, causing a crash behind Twilight. She closed her eyes and groaned to herself, turning around and glaring at the shattered cup on the floor. She used her magic to gather all the pieces and began cleaning. At this point Spike wasn’t up so she couldn’t just force this on him, and she couldn’t exactly just leave glass lying all over the floor.
Twilight had given up on breakfast at this point.After cleaning the kitchen she’d grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, carrying it with her on her way to her work room. She opened the door and settled down at her desk, pulling out the drawers and getting her ink and quills ready for the day’s work. After pulling out a few scrolls she needed to reply to she picked up a quill in her magic, dipping it in the ink while taking a bite of her apple. The following sound can only be described as a mix of a squak, a scream, and some sort of cough as Twilight spat out the piece she’d bitten off her apple. She looked back at it and frowned, it was wax. Why was there a wax apple in the fruit basket in the kitchen? She’d have a talk with Spike about that later. She used her magic to toss the apple across the room into the bin by the door and turned back to her desk. A mangled scream escaped her throat as she saw the state of her desk. Ink was everywhere, the pot having tipped after her she bit the apple, causing her to knock the quill into the pot.
Her eye was twitching sporadically and her breathing was heavy as she attempted to calm herself and compose herself. This was fixable, everything would be fine. She could manage this, documents were easy to restore. All she needed, was focus. And the sun outside definitely wasn’t conductive to focus. She closed the curtains to the room and lit a candle.Working by the candlelight made the work tedious and slow but Twilight had no problem with that, as long as she could get this done, she’d be fine. It was at that exact moment when a loud crash resounded, followed by a faint shouting from what sounded like Starlight and Trixie.
The next thing that reached Twilight’s ears was a whoosh, as the entirety of her desk went up in flames. The candle had tipped over during the crash and had caught the ink on fire. Because of course it would, Twilight summoned water and splashed it on the desk, drenching the fire and what was left of the papers on it. Twilight wasn’t sure how much of this she could take. She opened the curtain to look outside, glancing at the position of the sun in the sky. It was only 10 am. And her day had already been this shitty. She sighed heavily and looked back at the ruin that was her desk. She could clean that up.
Or, she could take a walk. Which is what she decided to do. It was nice outside, the sun was shining, the sky was clear, and Twilight could feel her mood improving as she greeted the ponies she passed. Everyone had a smile on their face and it was infectious. Twilight felt her mood improving bit by bit as she had conversation after conversation, asking how shops were going, families were doing, and how things were in general. It was nice. Until she reached town square that is. There, the statue that had been in the middle of the square was absolutely demolished, with a crowd of angry ponies surrounding it.
They turned around upon noticing Twilight and angrily explained to her that Starlight and Trixie had come through in a flash and were gone in a second, but the statue was gone when they left. Apparently no one had actually seen what the pair had done. Twilight sighed and used her magic to fix the statue. She decided that she’d had enough walking around and headed back to the castle, entering to find everything the same she’d left it. Thankfully. She trudged through the castle, arriving at the map room, settling into her chair and feeling her body groaning internally at how terribly everything had been today.
She sighed and forced herself to focus on how to make the day better. Maybe she could go see Fluttershy, she always managed to put a smile on Twilight’s face. Maybe she could go see Pinkie. She could probably go for a spa date with Rarity. As she thought of ways to make her day even slightly better, there was a loud noise and a flash of light before Twilight’s whole body froze up. Her muscles were tensing and releasing, her nerves felt like they were frying, and she felt like she was dying until it was suddenly over.
Twilight slumped down in her chair, the anger that had been building up all day boiling before releasing in the form of-
“FUCK.”
“And so that’s why I said fuck,” Twilight finished explaining.
Spike opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before finally asking, “What hit you though?”
Starlight cleared her throat and shuffled her hooves before saying, “I think I might have an idea. You see, me and Trixie kinda had a full day today and we might have had Rainbow shoot a bolt of lightning at us at one point and it may have missed and bounced off a mirror. I’m not saying it’s the same bolt, but, I feel like I should bring it up. And also point out that it was Rainbow who hit the cloud and not me and Trixie and Twilight please you don’t look well and-”
Twilight put her hoof in Starlight’s mouth and leaned close. “Starlight Glimmer, I want you to understand that I have had a stressful day today. I am going to find some way to relax, and if I am disturbed at any point during this relaxation, I will personally blame you. I will hunt for you, and I will find you, and it will not be pleasant for you when I do. Do we have an understanding?” Starlight nodded. “Good, I hope the rest of the day goes good for you two, I’ll be back in a while. Stay safe.”
And with that Twilight walked out of the room, leaving a stunned Spike and a scarred Starlight.
Author's Note
I wrote a thing. Maybe I'll write Starlight's half eventually.