When she was young, Twilight built a telescope.
It was a haphazard affair, built out of two magnifying glasses, a mailing tube, and an unnecessarily large amount of tape. It was a major catalyst in Twilight’s parents’ decision to send her to Celestia’s School—after she adjusted it and described the individual craters in the moon’s surface in the squeaky, breathless way only foals could. Her parents packed it with the rest of her things when she went.
When she was a little older, in the twilight zone where one is young enough to see the world without personal biases or preconceptions clouding their vision, but old enough to tell when something doesn’t line up with past experience, Twilight decided it wasn’t fair that only Celestia and Luna could be alicorns. She had to be one as well.
She announced her decision at the top of her still-developing lungs, bouncing on a creaky wooden table that had been in her family for generations, ignoring the spiky pile of scales and claws that tried to climb her leg without success.
Her parents smiled and nodded at her proclamation, knowing she’d abandon the foalish idea of wanting to be a Princess when she grew up. They made sure Twilight and Spike—who they’d finally acknowledged as damage-proof enough to be around even Twilight "Takes-Apart" Sparkle—had the best time ever before the weekend ended and they had to go back to Celestia’s School.
Twilight developed quickly for a foal, and unthinkably faster for a dragon. While she studied Starswirl’s famous theories on magic, Spike played with the remains of her failed spellwork, and when he learned to read, became an unofficial librarian. She grew more and more distant as she pursued her goal of alicornhood, and Spike spent more and more time alone in her rooms as she explored vaults and archives in search of ever more obscure information.
While Twilight studied, her knowledge growing by leaps and bounds, Spike experimented. Her telescope was his first conquest, one he ended up having to ask Twilight to put back together after he failed to divine how it worked. Eventually, he replicated her effort.
Without a horn, and with no dragons around to teach him how to use his natural gifts, he took up the field Twilight had first explored: the mundane question of how things worked. She built an empire of books, and he the foundation to hold it. When she needed to practice speedy and accurate spellcasting, Spike set up a series of miniature catapults. When she ran out of patience trying to streamline a tracking spell, he set up a lightning rod and capacitor to provide the energy to brute-force it.
When the archmage grew old and her magical potency started to fade, and Spike spent his days curled around the Twilight’s tower, ferrying requests for materials to the castle.
And when Twilight knew she was nearing the end of her lifespan, they talked.
Twilight touched her horn to the shimmering purple field covering a window. It rippled and faded away.
“I won’t finish,” she said.
A large scaly head nearly the size of her torso faced her. “I know,” Spike said, as softly as he could.
Twilight’s horn glowed, and a book poofed into existence. “This is everything I know. Everything I’ve found out, from research to my own experience. I almost didn’t make it. A year ago—or ten, or thereabouts—I was so close…”
Spike said nothing. Years ago, Twilight had finally figured out how to use the power of the Elements, and then Discord had appeared. Her claim over the stones had been tenuous, and once she’d refrozen him they had crumbled to dust.
So she had reformulated her studies, over and over and over again, but the power requirements remained insurmountable.
“Can you still do the time spell?” Spike said. Every year her magic grew weaker, but still she delayed the act of stopping her personal time.
“I’m so close,” she said, eyes unfocused.
Spike reached a claw up to the window and snapped two talons against the book. They didn’t puncture it. Twilight’s spells for protecting the things had demanded almost as much time as her alicorn research when she was younger.
“You did well, Twi,” Spike said, and set the book aflame. It vanished in a shower of sparks and green flame, ready for Spike to conjure up when needed. “It’s time to rest. I’ll wake you up when it’s finished.”
At Spike’s words, wrinkles seemed to get deeper, and her head to droop lower.
“Maybe…I will.”
To the west of Canterlot a dragon guarded a tower nestled against the Smokey Mountains and occupied by a frozen archmage.
He’d given Celestia Twilight’s letter years ago, with no result. But he was patient, and eventually a pony came.
The unicorn was a pale orange, and had a cutie mark of a star with two crossing streams of blue fire. She announced herself as “Twilight Glimmer—yes, like the archmage. My mom was kinda nuts.”
Spike taught her magic. When he decided he could trust her, he told her of Twilight Sparkle’s—and now, her—goal.
When she reached two hundred years and started showing her age, he taught her the time spell, and she began adding her own progress to Twilight’s book. Eventually, she retired to the inner sanctum of the tower, and froze herself.
Spike sent out another letter. While he waited, he read, and he learned. When Celestia sent him another promising pupil, he taught.
Twilight Song was taught about her goal and her predecessors near the very start. She envisioned a town where everypony worked on the problem, one where everypony was unified in the single pursuit of alicornhood.
Celestia sent more unicorns. In a good year, five ponies arrived. In a bad one, none. A town soon sprung up around the tower, one where ponies taught each other as much as they learned themselves. Every so often, one would come up with a novel idea that would be added to the book. But most of the additions were made by one pony every generation, one Spike personally taught.
Centuries passed, and the now-crowded tower expanded.
The town became a city to rival Canterlot, and no more reliance on the outside world was necessary. The tower grew into a spire that could be seen for miles and miles around, and held most of the ponies dedicated to the goal.
The city of Cubaik became a target. The tower flashed with lightning for a day, and griffons fell from the sky. A permanent shield was constructed around the city, powered by the immense amount of energy the tower gathered from the roof the world.
Once, a poorly chosen pupil set the book back several decades.
Once, the Princesses fought and shattered the land with their quarrel. Their battle lasted three days and three nights, until Spike’s pupil went out and restrained their powers until they were forced to talk it out.
More time passed, until an alicorn was made.
And after one, many more.
