Twilight paced around the library. Her normal order was replaced with slightly controlled chaos. Books sat in stacks littering the floor, often with tomes propped open atop recklessly erected towers. To an unpracticed eye it was a complete mess. For Twilight it was the last stage of research for her biggest project yet. It had all began a few days earlier. Practicing with Spike she had just managed to master yet another spell.
Laying a few cut flowers onto a piece of parchment, she focused her magic in the manner prescribed in her grimoire. The delicately constructed tendrils of magic wove their way through the leaves and petals of the flowers before passing through them into the fiber of the page beneath. As she completed the spell she released the energy. The woven filaments looked like the threads of an especially fluffy sweater. As the last of her control faded they snapped to the page, taking the flowers with them. A perfect watercolor of the flowers was left on the page before her. Squeaking with excitement, she reached another finger of magic out to the page. Gently she pulled at the remnants of the spell just enough to pull a single petal free from the picture to float above the page.
“I did it Spike!” she shouted triumphantly.
“Yeah, that’s grea…zzz,” he mumbled from where he sat dozing against the flowerpot.
“Oh, I guess it is getting late,” she sighed, “Let’s get you to bed.”
Gently levitating her charge she eased him into his bed and went about getting ready herself. Going back to look at her picture one last time she was struck by an odd thought. How did the magic pull the flowers into the page? She had mastered dozens of spells and completed advanced magical theory courses. She knew exactly how magic interacted with all of the natural elements and how different magical workings interacted with each other. She had even managed to create a few original spells to do things that the ones she already knew couldn’t
As she laid her head on her pillow the question wouldn’t leave her mind. Scientifically, she had no idea why magic worked. She felt like a baker that knows how to operate a stove, but not what makes the stove work. Trying to push it aside she resolved to look it up in the morning. Surely one of her books had the answers she sought.
That had been three nearly sleepless days ago. The controlled chaos before her showed a distinct pattern to the practiced eye. One stack, near the stairs, held such august tomes as “Starswirl’s Guide to Evocations,” and “Goldmane’s Advanced Incantations.” Another, by the globe, was comprised of books such as “The Mechanics of Conjuration,” and “Elementary Magical Theory.” Each stack, carefully divided by discipline and arranged by complexity, told her the exact same thing about what she sought. Nothing.
“This doesn’t make sense!” she screamed in frustration.
“What doesn’t? That you’re tearing apart the library looking for the answer to a question you already know the answer to?” Spike asked peevishly. He had no doubts about who was going to have to pick all of these books up and put them back in order.
“No! You don’t understand. Scientifically speaking, magic doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yes it does,” Spike argued, “You’ve read me explanations from half of these books.” Grabbing one at random he read from the page, “’For the conjuration to be successful the unicorn must balance the energy used precisely with the mass of the object to be conjured.’ See, that explains it.”
“No it doesn’t,” Twilight growled, stomping for emphasis. “All of these books, each and every one, tell you how to use magic. None of them tell how magic works! How does Fibroni’s Weave turn wool to silk?”
“It’s magic?” Spike answered hopefully.
“Aaahhhh!!!” Twilight screamed in reply.
Focusing her power she triggered one of her most powerful, and most commonly used spells. With a loud pop and bright flash of violet light she disappeared. For a moment Spike was afraid she had gotten so angry that she had simply exploded. The familiar pop behind him put that notion to rest as he turned to see a recently teleported Twilight looking exceptionally smug.
“See. That proves it,” she smiled gleefully.
“That what proves what?” he asked, confused.
“Teleportation isn’t scientifically possible! I don’t know why I never saw it before. It violates all the laws of thermodynamics and energy conservation.” Her continued explanation left Spike more and more confused. By the time she pulled the physics book off of one of the piles to show him a formula on mass acceleration he was completely lost.
“But isn’t it because it uses so much energy to move to places why you use magic?” he pleaded, clinging to the words he did understand from her diatribe.
“That’s just it, Spike, The faster you move a certain mass the more energy it takes. To move a pony of my size across the room instantaneously would take an enormous amount of energy. If you do the math, and don’t think I haven’t done the math, it’s incredible. It would take almost as much energy as is put off by the sun! And that’s another thing. I did the math on how much energy the sun puts out. To put out that much energy it would have to be huge! And Princess Celestia raises it every morning and makes it set every night. How can a pony, even Her, move something so huge!”
“Okay, you did the math, but have you slept lately?” Spike asked, hoping to change the subject.
“This is too important to sleep, Spike!” she shrieked, a hysterical edge to her voice.
“Why don’t you ask the Princess?” he suggested, at this point just hoping she would stop.
“That’s a good idea, Spike. I think I will. Take a letter, please.” Once Spike was ready with his quill in hand she began, "Dear Princess Celestia, A matter of utmost urgency has come to my attention. The root of this could shake the very foundations of Equestria. I will set out for Canterlot tomorrow, as I need to see you at the first possible moment. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike sent the letter off in a circle of green tinted smoke and ash. As the last of it disappeared into the air he looked over and was unnerved to see Twilight watching him with a frighteningly hawkish look on her face.
“What?” he asked nervously.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she replied a little too calmly.
The next afternoon found Twilight prancing into Celestia’s audience chamber. The Princess rose, her pearlescent coat shining in the afternoon sun. Twilight approached confidently, all of the previous evening’s mania apparently gone.
“Good afternoon, Princess. Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” she said cheerfully.
“Well considering the tone of your letter and your recent knack for spotting trouble before anypony else, I don’t see how I could do otherwise,” Celestia replied. “What is this urgent matter that ‘could shake the very foundations of Equestria’?” she asked.
Twilight paused before her teacher. For just the briefest of moments her heart held a shred of doubt. But even with a night’s rest she thought over the evidence she had compiled and couldn’t see any other answer. Bringing herself to her full height looked Celestia in the eye.
“There is something wrong with our world. Magic can’t exist and yet it does,” she stated confidently.
Celestia’s bright clear laugh echoed through the chamber. Twilight’s confidence wilted at her mentor’s mirth.
“Twilight, you know better than most that magic is real. You are one of the most accomplished unicorns of your time.” Celestia’s response didn’t hold a hint of mocking or rebuke, but there was something there. Twilight was sure of it. Watching Celestia closer it became clearer to her by the second.
“You’re scared,” she accused, “I’ve done the math, I’ve studied the theory. I know I’m right, and so do you!”
Celestia was taken aback by the onslaught. For a moment Twilight was afraid she had overstepped, or been wrong after all. The fear vanished from Celestia’s face as the words hit home. Slowly sadness seeped into her expression. Twilight paused, her joy in her certainty replaced by concern for her beloved teacher. The possibility that she had ruined her relationship with Celestia sat heavy on her while she waited for the Princess to respond.
“Oh dear,” she said simply.
“’Oh dear,’ what, Princess?” Twilight asked mildly.
“My dear, dear Twilight, I hoped that you would never realize this,” Celestia moaned.
Fear gripped Twilight as Celestia stepped down from the dais to stand nose to nose with her. Tears moistened Celestia’s eyes and for a moment Twilight had a flashback to the eve of Shinning Armor’s wedding. Fear gripped her as she wondered if Celestia was going to try and do away with her for her discovery as Queen Chrysalis had.
“You are right, of course,” Celestia finally continued, “There is a terrible secret about our beautiful Equestria. I could show you but if I do you will never be able to forget what you see. Once you know you will always know.”
The princess waited patiently for her student to weight her words. The struggle was clear on Twilight's face as she tried to come to a decision. It was clear that the truth wasn’t going to be something she would be happy with, but would she be any more able to live her life with the question hanging over her. She already knew that something of her life was a lie. Would an unpleasant truth be better than a happy lie?
“I have to know the truth,” she said at last. Her words were no longer joyful, but she was still confident in her answer.
“Then come with me.” Celestia led her to the top of the highest tower in the castle. Their entire journey was silent other than their hoof falls. It seemed strange to Twilight that they never saw another pony as they walked through the castle grounds. At this time of the afternoon there were always a lot of ponies bustling about the capital doing hundreds of important tasks.
Once they reached the balcony Celestia turned to her.
“Are you sure you want to know,” she demanded soberly. Twilight merely nodded in reply.
Celestia’s horn shimmered brightly. The light grew until it outshone the sun. Brighter and brighter it grew until it hurt Twilight’s eyes, even with them closed. Then it was gone. Blinking, she opened her eyes to a dark and ruined world. The sky burned red and thick heavy clouds of ash filled the air. Buildings sat engulfed in flames and carriages trailed smoke and debris behind them as they tumbled along. But the entire scene was frozen. Not a spot of ash or flame so much as flickered as she watched it.
“What is this?” she asked, stunned by the vision before her.
“This is our world. This is the reality outside of the dream,” Celestia answered.
“I don’t understand,” Twilight cried, turning to her mentor to explain, to somehow make it all make sense.
“We were a magical race to begin with, but it was a small magic. Nothing that would ‘break the rules’ so to speak. But our world was finite and so were the gifts it had to offer. We tried to find ways to get more from the world to sustain us, and we were very good at it. But there were always more of us, and not any more world, you see. And energy was always a problem. So one very bright pony decided that she would find a way to break free all of that potential energy held within things we couldn’t use. We focused the best magic minds of our time and found that key she sought.”
Celestia paused, tears running down her face as she spoke. She looked at Twilight longingly and took a deep breath. Grieved at seeing Celestia like this, Twilight placed a hoof on Celestia’s cheek and tried to look reassuring.
“Please don’t hate me,” Celestia begged.
“I could never hate you!” Twilight cried.
“Don’t say that yet,” she replied bitterly. Clearing her throat she resumed her story. “I was that pony. We did it, you see. We unlocked the magical potential of the entire world. All of it. It was all free in one bright flash.”
Twilight caught something out of the corner of her eye. Turning she saw that the ash mote she first spotted had moved. It was a very slight movement but it was there. Looking closer she saw that the flames and everything else had shifted just the tiniest bit.
“What?” she breathed, confusion clouding out everything else.
“I tried to stop it you see,” Celestia continued, “But it was too much to control. All I could do was slow it down. I sat there with all of the magic in the world under my control and I couldn’t stop it.”
Tears ran down here face as she stopped, struggling to talk through her sobs. Understanding dawned on Twilight as she realized what was happening, what had happened.
“But why?” she asked, knowing Celestia would understand.
“If I couldn’t save them the least I could do is let them live a good life,” she sighed. “I couldn’t save our world so I made a new one. There were billions of ponies. I gather them in, as many as I can, and bring them into Equestria so they can live. That’s why I have to control the day, why Luna controls the night. We make time pass here so that everypony can live.”
“But what happens at the end?”
Celestia paused at the question. It was one she had spent a great deal of time thinking about.
“I don’t know if I can get everypony. I will hold it off as long as I can, try to save as many as I can. If I do manage to collect everypony. If I do beat it, I will wait and lay the last one to rest, giving them as good a life as I can, and then I will stop. I will let it go. That’s all I can do.”
Twilight reached out and held Celestia close. She tried to wrap her mind around the burden the Princess carried and just couldn’t do it. She knew that the Princess felt guilty at destroying the world, but Twilight felt awe at the world she had been given in return.
“Thank you Princess,” she whispered in Celestia’s ear.
“Thank you?” Celestia sobbed, “I killed an entire world and you are thanking me?”
“You didn’t mean to,” Twilight reassured her, “You were trying to give everypony a better world. And you did. I will go to bed tonight knowing that from the moment of my world’s creation to its last second that somepony who cares and loves us all is taking care of everything. I have friends, and family and a Goddess that cries for me. So thank you.”
Celestia stared at her student in wonder. Others had found the truth as well. Some had raged against her and gone into the world bitter and disillusioned. Others had expressed understanding, but gone on to live hollow, saddened lives. And Twilight met the news with love and wonder. She felt as though her heart would burst as she held her friend.
And for that moment time stood still.
