Learning the Ropes

Chapters

Urgent Matters
Advantages
Paradox
Magic
Discordance

Urgent Matters

Twilight Sparkle yawned widely, plodding thankfully for her bed. The coronation was done, she was now the Princess of Friendship, all her friends were back to normal, and she could finally get some r-"Come Twilight Sparkle, there are urgent matters we must discuss."

Luna stood in the doorway, wearing a no-nonsense expression and holding a cup of something that smelled too strong to rightfully be considered coffee. Twilight blinked, "Now? Can't we just... rest for the day? We've been celebrating all night-"

"You are at your most vulnerable when you are resting or celebrating and I did say these matters were urgent so... no."

"No need to be snippy, it's just been a long day."

Luna sighed, rubbing her temple tiredly, "Indeed. I apologize Twilight, it has been an even longer day for me. And some of what I am about to tell you is very... personal for me. And now that you have ascended, very personal for you." She continued somewhat bitterly, "As usual, sister took on the glamorous role, empowering you with the power of an Alicorn while reminiscing over an aesthetically pleasing slideshow. It falls to me to explain some of the more... inconvenient realities you are now faced with."

Twilight's newfound feathers stood up slightly in apprehension, "Like what?"

"Like..." She sighed and blurted out the next sentence as though that might make it more palatable, "Alicorns are not allowed to eat."

Silence reigned between the two pony's for several long moments before Twilight chuckled, "I can't believe you actually had me there for a second."

"I am not trying to 'have you', I am telling the truth! Tia and I agreed, long ago, that we would not allow ourselves to consume food. Or drink, if that needed to be clarified."

"Ok... so what's with the coffee?"

"Prop." Luna turned the mug upside down, the cup filled with 'coffee' yielding nothing but a small cascade of steam.

"Huh." Twilight shook her head, "But every living thing needs to eat food to fuel itself and drink to keep itself... hydrated."

"Every mortal thing needs to eat food and drink water. We do not. We can of course, but we suffer no consequences for abstaining."

"Ok, but Princess Celestia loves cake. Like, LOVES cake."

Luna gave her a patronizing look, "She appears to love cake because it's her favorite illusion to project when she's doing something she's not supposed to be doing. Did you never consider how single minded she was when there was a 'cake' in the room? Half the time she isn't even in the room in question. Tis my understanding that, when I was gone and she was taking double duty, she often napped during her meals."

Twilight pondered all the times she'd informed Celestia of critical information while she had been eating cake. Including when she'd explained her theory over the circumstances of Luna's return. A small continent's worth of perceived guilt suddenly shifted from her mentor's shoulders to hers.

Luna didn't take notice of her appalled expression, "Anyway: No food whatsoever. We learned that the hard way. Several times."

Twilight's ears perked up, half at the promise of ancient historical insight and half because she needed the distraction, "Somepony tried to poison you?"

"No. Well, yes, but that was less of a learning experience and more of an amusing diversion. Pony's would try every few hundred years and either Tia or myself would be treated to glorious hallucinations while the other got to enjoy watching us converse with said hallucinations."

Twilight gawked.

"Oh don't be dense Twilight. We're immortal. Poison, no matter how thoroughly vile the effects, is but a momentary distraction. No, the day we stopped eating or drinking was the day some madpony realized that being an immortal goddess does not inherently make one immune to mind affecting substances. Just... very, very resistant. On the outside. When something tries to mind-control us from the inside... (sigh)... Well, you remember the first time we met."

"You mean, when you were Nightmare Moon? So this is a recent rule? Relatively, I mean."

"Not really. We made the rule of no eating thousands of years before our banishment, when sister had consumed the potion in question. Fortunately, the art of potion making was much more of a guessing game back then and Tia was simply frustratingly belligerent rather than outright evil. We were able to... contain her while the guards found and beat the would-be controller till he spilled his guts. Naturally, it was absolute hay getting any information out of him then so it took nearly six months to brew a remedy that worked and another two weeks to convince Tia to drink it."

Luna shook off the thousand yard stare she'd worn while recounting the memory, "No, the circumstances of 'Nightmare Moon' were somewhat different and they bring me to my next point: Breathing is on a strictly need-to-speak basis."

There was a pause as she allowed Twilight a moment to wrap her head around that.

"-until you learn how to adequately use telepathy that is."

"What?!"

"Breathing is a critical weakness that your lessers will exploit. Don't do it."

"But I have to breath, I mean, come on!"

"Nope."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"You're messing with me again, aren't you."

"I never messed with you to begin with but I wish that I were. I very much miss the scent of flowers."

"...but we're talking right now!"

"You are talking. I am miming. And projecting my thoughts into your head. Celestia visits your old room when she feels lonely." The last sentence sounded exactly the same but Luna's lips had stopped moving.

Twilight's jaw fell open.

...

"...does she really?"

"Oh for Sister's sake Twilight, that's not the point."

"Ugh, fine, but we're talking about that later." She filed it away in her Questions for Luna folder, behind the questions she was about to ask and in front of 'what did you do on the moon for a thousand years?'. She'd never gotten up the courage to ask the latter. Based on the truth-bombs she was getting in this conversation, she probably couldn't handle the answer.

"You project your thoughts out all the time? How can you filter them? And why even bother moving your mouth at all? And you're seriously trying to tell me that you haven't taken a breath in 1,000 years?"

"Yes. I don't. It's disconcerting. And sort of." Luna answered, in order, without opening her mouth. Twilight shivered. She was right: it was disconcerting.

Luna elaborated on the last bit, "Obviously, I didn't breath on the moon, but I have not taken a breath since you freed me with the Elements and my sister brought me up to speed in the aftermath."

"Horseapples."

"You watch your mouth in this castle Ms. Sparkle. If you're so convinced, why don't you prove me wrong?"

"What? By holding my breath till I pass out?"

"You are now an Alicorn. You have all the abilities thereof. You physically cannot asphyxiate."

"Fine! I will."

They stood there for almost an hour before Twilight was forced to concede defeat.

"Ok. Maybe I don't need to breath. But I still think this whole thing is ridiculous."

"You shall think it less ridiculous when you are banished to the moon for ten centuries."

"...don't you mean, if?"

"Thou art immortal Twilight, tis a very long time indeed. I do not doubt your dedication but none of us manage to be perfect forever."

Twilight blinked.

"If it makes you feel any better, I once sent Tia to the sun for a year when she was getting overly despotic. Fear not-" she quickly added upon seeing Twilight's expression, "We do not do that anymore. It is... most unpleasant. When you are imprisoned, it will be no worse a place than the moon. It really becomes more of a vacation after a while, you almost meditate the centuries away-"

Twilight rubbed her forehead tiredly with a hoof, "Can we please move on to the next lesson. And can you please start moving your lips again?"

Luna smirked, "The last time we heard that was under very different circumstances."

Twilight shuddered, "Ugh. No wonder you always seem so awkward. You really don't censor any of your thoughts?"

"Apparently we are not the only one." Luna's mouth resumed its movement, "Yes and no. We leave out the non-verbal thoughts. Putting it all together would be overwhelming for you and embarrassing for me."

A look of dawning comprehension crossed Twilight's face, "Is that what the 'royal canterlot voice' really was?"

"Oh, goodness no. The royal canterlot voice is my normal thought level. This is whisper-thoughts."

"Whisper. Thoughts."

"Quite."

"...how can a thought have volume?"

"LIKE THIS."

Twilight reeled back, the voice so loud she'd swear it would shake dust from the ceiling, "Ok, ok! I get that you can do it, I just don't understand... how?"

"It has to do with how much attention you divert to who you're speaking with. And, of course, with the fact that we are divine beings many millennia old. " She snorted, leaning in conspiratorially, "I once made a changeling's head explode by giving it my undivided attention while saying hello."

"First of all, gross. Second of all, doesn't that mean you're basically ignoring me right now?"

"Ooh butterflies!" Luna cantered through an archway into the gardens.

Twilight pressed her lips together and took a deep breath through her nose, "I already regret knowing this."

She followed.

Advantages

Luna remained absolutely still as a butterfly gradually drifted downward, eventually settling on her outstretched hoof and earning a bright smile from the Princess of the Moon. Twilight looked on bemusedly, contemplating how to best test the likelihood that she was already asleep and this was all a dream constructed by Luna. Probabilistically, it seemed a no brainer: of course she was dreaming. And she would wake up and Luna would laugh at her.

Unfortunately, based on how tired she was and the very real-feeling pain of a rose thorn in her side, she was most likely awake. Unless Luna's magic could emulate pain and exhaustion in a dream state, which was a terrifying thought, she had to face reality. Luna sighed, or appeared to sigh, as the butterfly took off and she returned to the "lesson" at hand.

"There are advantages to speaking with telepathy you know."

Twilight's eyebrow rose, "Well, yes. I can imagine. It just seems-"

"Many you might not expect. For example: you can make any creature understand whether you are using a colon, comma, or semicolon; which can be done without them noticing yet leave no doubt in their minds as to which you used."

Twilight thought that over for several moments too long as she realized that, while she could hear Luna speaking to her normally, the information being transferred was somehow more than the sum of its parts. She knew she'd thought of it too long because she was suddenly overcome with a terrible migraine.

"Ooh... sorry Twilight. It's been a long time since I've been able to be this unguarded with anyone but Tia. I drop semicolons every so often just to annoy her. I forget it can be a bit of a mindbuck for normal... or, well, unsuspecting pony's."

The pain was slow to recede but Luna stayed with her as the sun rose high above, commenting on whatever happened to be crossing her mind, because apparently that was- Owowowow... nevermind, not thinking about it.

"What. Other. Rules." She managed through clenched teeth, hoping to get her mind off of telepathic grammar.

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"Need. Distraction."

"Ah. Fortunately, that is something we have become very good at. Does a straw have one or two holes?"

Twilight blinked. Her brow furrowed. And then her entire head swiveled as she gave a massive eye roll, "Are you kidding me? That was your distraction? And it WORKED?"

Luna giggled merrily, "Oh Twilight Sparkle, you are a delight. I felt so cheated when I found out Tia got to give Cadance "The Talk" but I must say I think I prefer-"

"You mean you've been looking forward to telling me I can't eat, drink, or breath ever again?"

"..."

"Come Twilight! Perhaps we can catch Tia during her mid-morning nap, I'm sure you'll want to verify the veracity of my claims."

"Mhm."

Twilight intended to remain stonily silent the entire way to her mentors chambers but, predictably, her curiosity won out over her stubbornness, "Wait a second, how are you supposed to not breath in your sleep?"

"Practice. It comes naturally when one willfully cultivates a mindset of total apnea."

"I really don't understand how that can be considered a 'mindset' but I'd rather you answer this question instead: why sleep at all? Is that not something else Alicorn's can do without? Shouldn't that be when you are most vulnerable?"

Luna's smile went from surprised, to smug, to downright evil in the span of a step, "A sound idea that many a foe has fallen prey to. We do require sleep, but not in the way that normal ponies do. Ponies must sleep to let their body and mind recuperate from the stresses of living; we sleep-"

"Argh, Luna! Semicolon!"

"Sorry dear, force of habit. Let's see... The more you take, the more you leave behind. What is it?"

She let Twilight puzzle through her words for a moment and lose her pained expression before continuing with her explanation, "We sleep to release ourselves from the physical plane and 'stretch our wings' in the astral plane, so to speak. Our physical bodies technically remain vulnerable but that's not where we really 'are' anyway."

"...but you do need to sleep. Like, you do still get tired."

Luna looked thoroughly put out as they arrived at Celestia's bedchambers, "Yes Twilight, we do still 'get tired'. Way to take all the majesty out of it. Sister!"

A muffled scuffle was all the response she got from the room, "Don't you take that tone with me! You're just bored and want to escape into the astral plane!"

The door did not move and Twilight continued hearing half the conversation as Luna argued with nothing.

"It is not a stupid name for dreaming, that's exactly what you're doing! You're leaving your body to enter into a- Just- Agh, you-"

"Um, Luna?"

"-always do this! Oh, sorry Twilight. Sister! Thine protege is here as well."

Immediately, Celestia's voice became perfectly audible through the door, "Luna, why did you not start with that? Please Twilight, come in."

Luna followed Twilight through the door with a raised eyebrow, "Am I invited as well sister?"

Celestia telekinetically threw a pillow at her from the bed, which she easily caught and tossed back. Twilight snatched it out of the air before things could escalate, "So it's true: you both just always use telepathy." Her eyes widened as a thought occurred to her, "Wait... so I've never heard your voice princess?"

Celestia outstretched an enormous wing and half dragged, half swept Twilight across the room into an enveloping hug, "Oh Twilight, you're so adorable when you're puzzling through existential problems. The best advice I can give you is to not think about it, the answers either come to you one day or you stop caring. Not worth laying in bed at night worrying about it."

Luna frictionlessly slid into Twilight's limited field of view not filled with alabaster feathers, "Not when you could be soaring through the astral plane!"

Twilight felt Celestia's groan reverberate around her, "Ugh, sister, please stop with this 'astral plane' bandwagon you've built yourself."

Luna quirked her head, "Bandwagon?"

Twilight's head popped out of Celestia's plumage, "These days it's called a 'hype train' Princess."

Celestia rubbed her temple woefully, "Ugh, would they stop changing my language without my permission? How am I expected to stay current?"

"Imagine how I feel." Luna commented dryly, peering after the purple eyes slowly receding back into her sisters feathers, "Twilight? Twilight. You cannot escape The Talk, not even in my sisters voluminous bulk."

She didn't even try to dodge Celestia's wing as it swatted her from the edge of the bed, gracefully falling onto the discarded pillow, "But as I was saying: sleep is not your weakest state of being. If your body is 'slain'-" Twilight flinched from within her downy burrow as she felt the weight of Luna's air quotes in a way that should never be, "-your mind will simply reconstitute itself elsewhere into an appropriate form." She snorted, "Tia, do you remember that time you were stuck in the body of that poor swan for a whole month?"

Celestia offered a thin-lipped smile that didn't reach her eyes, "Yes. Just as I remember if every other time you bring it up."

"There was this one fox that just would not leave her alone, she would come flailing into rooms locked in mortal combat with this scrappy little vermin with a dozen royal guards trying to break up the struggle." Luna's giggles were slow to subside but eventually she sighed airily, "Haaa-anyway, Twilight I'm sorry but yes, I have been looking forward to this. If only to have another-"

"Wait. You're laughing."

Luna froze for an instant before giving her an innocent look, "Yes. There's no rule against that."

"Laughing deeply. Which is basically just breathing with- Oh for the love of- you've been leading me on all day."

Celestia guffawed, "Yes! YES!" She raised her wings in a mighty "V" of victory as Luna's expression soured, "The mighty, unmatched, STUPENDOUS mind of Twilight Sparkle wins again!"

Twilight gawked at her mentor's outburst, reddening slightly at the praise in spite of herself, "Princess, I... were you two betting on if I would figure it out?" She glared at Luna, who was sulking on her pillow, "You mean you kept me up all this time just to play a prank on me?"

Luna's mouth quirked to the side but it was Celestia who answered, "To be fair Twilight, it was never a question of whether you would figure it out, just a question of when. I expected you to fall for it no longer than a few hours at most, Luna was betting she could lead you on for at least the rest of the day. And neither of us expected to have much success if you were fully awake and aware when we broke the news, hence keeping you awake."

"Ok... so none of that was true? This whole morning has just been one long mindbuck?"

Celestia smiled apologetically, "Well, the breathing thing is a fun little prank I played on Cadance when I was bringing her up to speed but most of the rest of what Luna told you is more or less true. No eating or drinking, except on special occasions. It's one of those things that can be drastically helpful as a half-measure but provide diminishing returns after a certain point of abstinence."

Luna flopped wearily back on her pillow, "Indeed. If we cut out all earthly pleasures it would be much harder to get up each day. We shall find you a royal taster for formal events, otherwise eat as sparingly and as... sporadically as you can. Most mind-altering potions that would work properly on any of us are quite expensive to brew. If you're clever, you can bankrupt the would-be poisoners by wasting their ingredients."

Celestia brought her wing around Twilight again to whisper to her conspiratorially, "Luna is a master at this, she used to go months without touching a drop and then go on country-spanning benders."

The pillow exploded into feathers as it struck Celestia's face, the elegantly crafted cushion thoroughly impaled on her horn. She tipped the bottom up, much as Applejack might with her stetson, continuing unphased by Twilight's stifled giggling, "Other than that you are, as far as we know, completely immortal one way or the other. You really only have to worry about foreign magic getting into your system. It's really not that bad, whatever Luna has said to you so far."

Twilight took a deep breath and sobered, narrowing her eyes, flicking her gaze between the sisters, "...do you still like cake?"

Celestia sighed, eyes rolling to the ceiling as Luna cackled from her place on the floor, fully recovered from her momentary doldrums, "HAHAHA, oh I can't believe I actually made you doubt it!"

Author's Note

I realized that any kind of hearty laughing kind of defeated the purpose of the "no breathing" rule at the same time as Twilight. I'm still debating whether the prank angle was the best choice but I felt it was a funny way to address the above problem so I rolled with it.

I'll probably keep writing a couple more chapters at least, immortal pranksters are just too fun.

Paradox

Rarity beamed at her reflection, the long hours of preparing herself for the day showing obvious results. She trotted through the hall and down the stairs, magically cleansing imperceptible (to all but her) specs of dust as she went, taking her time reaching the front of her store. Feeling abnormally beatific in lite of nothing going obviously wrong, and the assurance that later it absolutely would and that she could scratch her drama itch when it did, she flipped her sign from 'Closed' to 'Open'.

BOOM.

Well that was fast, said her subconscious as Rarity shrieked and leapt backwards, a pegasus blasting through her window with improbable force and crashing amid the dresses of a display. Rarity took a calming breath and got to her feet, rather upset with herself for having somehow failed to summon her fainting couch. She composed herself for a moment, re-affirming her coif, before taking an enormous breath and letting it loose with a vengeance, "RAINBOW DASH, YOU ABSOLUTE-"

She was still deciding what exactly she could get away with calling Rainbow when the pegasus' head popped out of the wreckage of the display and her outrage petered out in the face of the genuinely unexpected, "Fluttershy? What-? Why-?"

She turned back to the window, whose shutters hung limply from rattled hinges, "...How?"

The yellow pegasus staggered to her feet, panting in exertion and clearly not adjusted to Rainbow's level of bodily-inflicted property damage, "Rarity... You've got... you've gotta..." She stumbled forward against Rarity, face planting into her barrel, "You've got a reeeally soft coat."

The white unicorn squinted at her dazed friend nuzzling her coat, the context of the situation leaving her uncharacteristically at a loss for words, "Um... thank you?"

Fluttershy shook herself, frantically seizing Rarity by the shoulders, "You've gotta come quick! Twilight and Pinkie got into an argument about who between them holds the record for longest single breath and it got reallyheatedandTwilightsaidshewouldcastavacuumspelloverthemandtheywouldbothwaitinsideitandthefirstonetopassoutwouldbetheloserandIthinkshemightactuallydoitandyou'vegottacomequicksoyoucantalkthemoutofit!"

Rarity blinked, resting a calming hoof on the shoulder of the hyperventilating pegasus, "Calm down darling, verbose one-breath explanations don't suite you. What's this about Pinkie and Twilight?"

Rarity burst into the Castle, Fluttershy in tow, ready to talk some sense into Pinkie and Twilight.

However, it appeared that she was not the first pony Fluttershy had reached out to. In fact, if her headcount at a glance was correct, she may very well be the last ponyvillian to arrive in the great hall. The enormous space was PACKED with town ponies. The Crusaders, Raindrops, Big Mac, Cherilee, Snips and Snails... even Mayor Mare was peering over the crowds.

Rarity gawked at the spectacle, "Fluttershy what...?"

The pink-maned pegasus scuffed a hoof and blushed, "I, um, may have been a little frantic and got anyone I could find."

"So you really just got whomever and I happened to be one of them?" Rarity deadpanned into the distance, all heroic momentum lost.

"W-w-w-w-well..."

"Fluttershy! Rare!" Rarity turned to see a stetson waving near the front of the gathered town ponies.

Grumbling, Rarity began to shoulder her way through the crowd, eventually stumbling free of the mass and into Applejack, "There ya are, thought you weren't comin'."

Rarity's disgruntled reply died on her lips as she got her first look at the spectacle before them. Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle sat, unmoving, eyes locked with one another, inside a faintly shimmering barrier at the base of the steps leading to the throne.

Taking in the scene for a moment, Rarity swallowed, "Are they...?"

"Hard vacuum." She glanced down to find Spike, reclining in a fold out chair and munching on popcorn.

"Isn't that...?"

"Totally lethal? Sure is."

"And how long...?"

Rainbow Dash buzzed them, ruffling Rarity's hair, "We're coming up on the 20 minute mark! I mean, I'm used to Pinkie's craziness but this is on a whole other level, even for her! And Twilight!?" She deflated a little bit, "Well. She's probably got some magic hold breath spell or something."

"Nope." Spike held up a metal rod inscribed with runes, "She's clean, she had me check both of them before she put the shield up."

Rainbow squeed with excitement, "This has gotta be a world record!" She frowned at Rarity, "You really took your time getting-"

"I KNOW." She glared at Fluttershy, who, having finally nudged and apologized her way through the crowd, caught her eye and immediately tried to nudge and apologize her way back in. Rarity huffed, turning back to the standoff, "I assure you, it wasn't my fault."

Rainbow circled back, hovering above them as was her wont, "Ah, cut Shy some slack, she's not a trained speedster. I'd have gotten you myself but, hay, I wasn't gonna miss out on this!"

Just-barely-metaphorical steam escaped Rarity's ears as AJ patted her on the back, "Don't worry 'bout it Rare, yer here now. Ah was here 'fore they even started, Twi explained the whole thing ta me. Either of them passes out, the spell drops, and the air goes back in."

"That hardly seems to-" Rarity interrupted herself, sputtering, "Wait, you LET them do this!?"

AJ groaned, "Well Ah tried ta talk 'em out of it but you know how Twi gets when she thinks she can, or should, win a competition. And of course Pinkie-"

Rarity threw up her hoof, "Nevermind, I get it, but could someone please explain to me how this is possible? Doesn't vacuum make you explode or something?"

"Well actually," Spike began, "based on Twilight's experiments, you wouldn't so much explode as you would dehydrate, since there's no air pressure to stop the water from boiling away. So it would probably just make you bleed from every..." He trailed off, scratching his chin, "...Huh. How are they doing that?"

"Well, Twilight Sparkle is an Alicorn-" Rarity's eyes widened as Princess Luna spoke up, rising from where she'd been examining the magical glyphs surrounding the bubble, "-and as such, she is able to-"

"Hold her breath for a very long time. Isn't that right? Luna." Celestia (Celestia!?), gave her sister a hard look as she enunciated her words.

Luna scoffed, "Oh come now sister, they know I was on the moon, tis' not a secret there was no air."

"Would you keep your voice down Luna?" She hissed in response, "I don't want to have yet more of my freedoms curtailed because you can't resist handing out our secrets like candy every time anyone asks."

"Oh come on, you can't blame me for everything ms. 'I'm sure nobody would poison my morning tea, nobody's that evil'."

The sisters continued to bicker but Rarity paid them little heed, as reclining next to them on what was unmistakably HER fainting couch was-

"DISCORD!? Are you KIDDING ME!? FLUTTERSHY!"

Fluttershy had wisely retreated back into the congregated ponies, invisible save for the occasional glimpse of pink through the legs of the crowd. Discord peered at Rarity over his sunglasses, unimpressed by her outburst, "Hey, it's pretty impressive she was able to get all these ponies here in just 20 minutes, don't you think? Count yourself lucky she got you at all, you're not exactly known for 'solving the drama'." His air quotes were so heavy that Rarity swore she could almost feel them in her head, but of course that was ridiculous.

"YOU GIVE THAT BACK!" She snatched the fainting couch from under the draconequus in an unprecedented display of strength, inadvertently swatting Rainbow out of the air with the magical furniture. Discord remained unmoved by her outburst, continuing to float midair as if his support hadn't vanished, blinking his drink and glasses out of existence with a snap of his fingers.

"Anyway, we've all been having a grand old time asking each other 'how is this possible?' but I think what we should really be doing is..." He vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing amid the crowd, wearing a green visor and leaning out of a booth with a giant neon, "$$$" sign, "PLLLLLACE YOUR BETS LADIES AND GENTLECOLTS, PLACE YOUR BETS! No telling how much longer the NEWBORN ALICORN will last against the APRICOT PARRRRRRADOX!"

The crowd gasped and pony's began flocking to the booth as Rarity, fuming, tucked the couch safely back into hammerspace where it belonged, "She's. Not. Even. Apricot!"

"Still-" RD was airborne and out of earshot before Rarity could hear the rest of what she said, slipping into the rapidly forming line with a sack of bits in hoof.

The former diarchs eyed the stand with expressions of tolerant amusement, Celestia speaking quietly to her sister in an offhand tone, "It does seem rather gauche to bet on such a trivial thing..."

Luna turned to regard her sister, eyebrows raised as she waited for her to continue, "But...?"

"Hypothetically, if we were to-"

Luna rolled her eyes in exasperation, "No, sister, we are not putting money on your student winning a bet that she, Literally. Can't. Lose."

"Oh fine." The solar princess turned back to the contest, face bearing the most regal of pouts, "I suppose it would be unsporting."

"I don't know, my money's on Pinkie!" said Pinkie, handing Spike a fresh box of popcorn while munching on her own.

Rarity turned to face her flamboyant friend.

Luna peered over her head.

Celestia frowned over Luna's horn.

Spike stopped mid-munch, swiveling in his chair to regard the pink earth pony with the others.

Rarity cleared her throat, "Pinkie?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you here?"

"To watch the show of course! Duh!"

"Yes, yes, but: why are you out here? You're supposed to be facing off against Twilight in the bubble. You ARE facing off against Twilight in the bubble."

"Oh yeah..." Pinkie raised a hoof to tap her chin, "shoot, I knew I forgot something."

The crowd started to notice that there were two pinkies in attendance, and the excited bustle soon gave way to confused murmurings. Discord discreetly pocketed the bitpurse Rainbow had just handed him and vanished in a puff of smoke. Twilight glanced away from the still intently glaring Pinkie across from her, the sudden stillness no doubt drawing her attention. Silence reigned the hall for a long moment.

Celestia brought a hoof to her mouth, chuckling, "Well. That explains that."

Luna squinted between the two pink ponies, "Does it though? Why did she have a perfect replica of herself ready for this? How did we not notice her until just now? And how did she trick us all into believing it was... Sister?"

Celestia's smile had faded and she was staring at the shimmering bubble containing the befuddled Twilight and Pinkie's facsimile, "Applejack?"

The farmer perked up, "Yer highness?"

"What did you say were the exact conditions Twilight set to lower the spell?"

AJ scuffed her hoof, "Uh... Well, Twi said a lot a magic science stuff about blood oxygen levels and physol- phsiolo... point being, she said when either her or Pinkie started to pass out in the bubble, the spell would drop." She finished.

Rarity frowned, "But if Pinkie is out here... and Twilight can't... Oh dear."

Magic

"Oh for the love of me, Twilight, why don't you ever include escape clauses in your enchantments!?"

Celestia glared at the little alicorn, resignedly sulking and still trapped in the bubble of her own creation. They'd managed to get it out of the throne room floor via Twilights own penchant for teleportation but had achieved exactly zero success in disarming the spell. Phasing Twilight's magical aura simply caused the shield to match it, though curiously only the inside of the bubble. Both Luna and Celestia's attempts to phase through were met with similarly mirrored frequencies, stopping them as surely as solid stone even when all three attempted it at once. In the end, unable to move any matter into or out of the bubble, they'd settled on simply rotating the ground and the "pinkie-doll" to the back of the bubble and making them invisible. Admittedly, a serious problem. Still, Celestia had been confident that she could scheme or, if necessary, blast their way out of it.

That had been just over a month ago.

Celestia dragged a hoof across her features, inadvertently getting an unwanted assessment of just how wrinkled her face had become. 'Beauty sleep' was much less metaphorical for Alicorns. Whether it was simply the wear and tear of their own power or something inherent to their biology, consecutive days without rest led to the onset of rapid aging.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Celestia felt her age.

Well. Maybe not quite that old, but she still felt archaic.

She felt the gentle nudge of her sisters power, wresting control of the heavens from her for the night, and irritably dropped the sun behind the horizon. The moon rose much more stately, overshooting its position slightly as it seemed to peer concernedly after the sun, before taking its usual place in the sky. Moments later, Luna arrived in the flesh, looking abnormally coherent for this time of night as she gracefully descended onto the balcony holding two steaming cups. Celestia ground her teeth at the sight.

"WAGH!" Luna recoiled, wings springing open to take flight, nearly dropping the drinks before she got a hold of herself, "Sister, you look dreadful!"

"And you're blue." She muttered grumpily, tossing a book haphazardly onto the table and making Twilight wince.

Luna rolled her eyes, daintily picking her way through the mess of papers and books strewn across the room, "The day court is growing anxious sister, you've been at this for weeks. Twilight can stand to be in a bubble until we come upon a reasonable solution, why do you insist on-"

"BECAUSE I SAID I WOULD NOT REST UNTIL SHE WAS OUT OF THE BUBBLE SO I'M NOT GOING TO." The Royal Canterlot voice shook the foundations of the castle and Luna winced. Twilight, of course, couldn't hear it.

Luna flicked her ears, no doubt to rid them of the ringing, and turned her attention to Twilight's failure to do so, "How is her telepathy coming along?"

"Ask her yourself." Celestia keeled over onto the couch, baggy eyes fixed on the ceiling as she tried to think of something she hadn't tried yet.

"I&m still working on the basics^ it&s hard to focus when there&s so much going on. I feel like someone&s always watching me."

She glanced furtively at Celestia before looking intently at Luna, "Luna listen^ I&m worried about Celestia^ could you... I don't know^ like knock her out or something?”

"You're still broadcasting Twilight." Celestia deadpanned, raising a withered hoof and glaring at it like it was the source of all her problems.

Luna peered in at Twilight, "Your volume could use some work as well. Not to mention your apostrophes are coming across as ampersands and your commas are... whatever ^ is." Luna scrutinized the bubble, as she had each evening for weeks, "Resisting the efforts of three alicorns for an entire month, including the one who cast it... Sister, we really must learn how Twilight managed such a feat. This spell could be invaluable for containing the next apocalypse."

Celestia grunted, turning over and lethargically dragging a book on metaphysical anchoring to her side. She had been concerned when she'd realized the resolve-case of Twilight's spell but she hadn't expected it to take this long to get her out. Celestia was old. VERY old. She knew secrets of the universe that physically could not be learned anymore because the universe itself had changed in the time since. She knew how to levitate cities into the sky, destroy truly immortal beings, even step beyond existence itself into the realms of infinite possibilities.

And she couldn't pop a bucking bubble.

True, they had yet to try any genuinely "percussive" solutions beyond physically hitting the bubble out of irritation but in Celestia's experience, building magic up in a tiny space until the container ruptured was... risky at best. Genocidal at worst. Not to mention the preciousness of the bubble's contents. Other solutions, like temporarily removing Twilight from reality or destroying her body so that she could reincarnate elsewhere, remained a last resort for the inherent risks. If it had been her in the sphere she wouldn't have hesitated: teleport to the other side of the moon, channel a coronal mass ejection into it, and float around in the aether for a day before reincarnating. She and Luna had both come back from far worse. But Twilight...

Letting out an aggravated sigh, Celestia set the book down, "I very much doubt that the spells resilience is its own doing. Rather, I believe that the fact the caster was Twilight Sparkle, the physical avatar for the magic of friendship, is the reason for its abnormalities."

Twilight tilted her head, "???"

Accepting one of the steaming cups from Luna, she regarded her perplexed student, "Well, as you know, our working theory was that you accidentally 'turbocharged' the spell with your recently increased magical potential." She reviewed, coining a term Twilight had used, "However, I believe it goes farther than that. I suspect that you somehow tied the spell to your domain of influence as an Alicorn princess." Taking a slow breath, Celestia gulped down the cup and made a face that Luna scoffed at, "Blegh! Sister, this is wretched, how do you manage?"

"Tis an acquired taste. Besides, you brought it on yourself. If you simply slept-"

"No."

Luna gave a long-suffering sigh, gracefully reclining next to her, their various contrasts serving to highlight how very youthful she was and how very old Celestia felt. She tried unsuccessfully not to dwell on it, her resolve wavering for just a moment as she both stifled a yawn and winced as a pang of arthritis struck her foreleg. After a moment of silence the two of them realized Twilight was speaking, or at least trying to.

"How the buck am I supposed to know what my domain even is?"

Feeling ever-more crotchety, and despite the fact that they were using telepathy, Celestia perked her ears and leaned forward, "Say again Twilight? Try to focus your thoughts, we can't hear you."

"I said: but I don&t even know what my Alicorn domain is!"

"You are the princess of friendship!" Luna stated in a tone that a lesser pony might have followed with, 'duh'.

Twilight huffed, or at least made the motion, for it would be quite a feat with no air to breath, "Well^ ok^ but how does that work exactly? Do I have some greater power like you do over the moon? For all the pranking I&ve been through^ I feel like I haven&t gotten much in the way of helpful explanations."

Luna looked rather hurt but Celestia chuckled, the sound dry and a little too grandmotherly for her liking, "An understandable grievance. The truth is Twilight, we don't really know. When you metamorphosed we were relatively certain that you shared some of our combined qualities, most of which relate to being generally unkillable, but even those we had to test under controlled circumstances. Hence the pranking. At least partially."

She shared a look with Luna, whose mouth quirked into a small smile that she hid behind her cup, "Unfortunately, we know about as much as you do in regards to the actual specific qualities that make you a princess of friendship. Is that more closely linked to the magical qualities of friendship and therefore making you a princess of magic as well? Or is it more about the actual personal bonds themselves and you holding sway over their large scale formation? We think we can say, with some certainty, that we should not expect the arrival of any other celestial bodies, but a new force under your guidance? A kind of rising and setting of magic itself on Equestria? Who knows."

The implications seemed to awe Twilight for a moment and Celestia felt a mentorly twinge of satisfaction, tempered by the realization that she was getting off topic, "In any case, you have a bright future ahead of you. We just need to get you out of that bubble." Having somewhat calmed her earlier frustration, she levitated all the books within sight and began sorting them into piles according to expected usefulness and helpfulness thus far, "Magic is about connections, a give and take of people and forces, bonds that tie the world together. You now have a very strong claim on being the most magically-connected entity in existence. Magic has thus far held you to its rules and regulations but you might be able to make that bond work both ways. If you've somehow managed to insert a note on how this particular spell will not, and in fact cannot fade unless a very particular set of conditions are met..."

She sighed heavily, setting the last of the books in place, "Then I'm afraid none of the classical counterspells or nullifiers will work."

Twilight balked at her, mouth hanging open, "I rewrote the laws of magic!?"

"Maybe." Luna amended, "And if you did, then logic dictates that you should be able to do so again. Fear not, Twilight Sparkle, you shall be free. But in the meantime-" THWACK.

Twilight held a hoof to her mouth as Celestia slumped back on the couch, unconscious. Luna delicately set aside the weighty book, Top 50 Near-Apocalypses of the Last Century, and gave her sister a cursory examination.

Gently laying her sisters head down on a pillow, Luna shook her head at Twilight, "Trust me, she'll be fine. At this point staying awake any longer would do her far more harm than even a book as dense as this could ever do." She sighed, "Sometimes she just gets so stubborn."

"Will the coffee wake her up?"

"Oh no." She took an overly long, self-satisfied sip, "I gave her decaf."

Discordance

Twilight tapped her hooves together, anxious in the silence, watching the clock as the second hand ticked over another minute.

"He's late."

Celestia glanced up from her place on the sofa, the dozen levitating books closing and stacking themselves as she rose, "Did you really expect him to be on time? If Luna were here I'd bet that he wouldn't show up at all. Not today at any rate."

Twilight gave her a hopeful look, "Are you sure Luna couldn't be here? Between the two of you we have basically all conventional magic covered."

Celestia shook her head, "I'm afraid not. Her banishment lasts till the end of this month. Just a few more days."

"Don't you think that banishment was a little..." Twilight searched for the word under the princess' stern gaze, "...excessive?"

Celestia pursed her lips, "I recognize that she felt she was acting in everyone's best interest." Her eyes narrowed, "But she tricked me into drinking coffee, decaf no less, for no good reason. She must pay."

Twilight looked back to the clock, sighing resignedly. Not touching that.

Just as the clock ticked to the 34th second, there was a pop and Discord spiralled into existence above them, wearing a long white robe with his arms raised as light shone down upon him and a choir sang in the background, "Fear not, for I have come."

Celestia frowned, "Took you long enough." His cloven hoof was engulfed in a shimmering gold aura and the robe vanished as he was yanked down to their level, "We need your help disarming this shield."

Twilight winced as Discord gave the white alicorn a reproachful glare, hoping this wouldn't devolve into more immortals arguing with one another, but he shrugged off the princess' no-nonsense tone and peered closer, "Oh my, you have gotten yourself in a nasty little contradiction haven't you? How long have you two been in there?" He whistled, tapping inquisitively on the bubble like a fish tank.

"Two? Oh." She glanced over her shoulder at the spot she knew the invisible Pinkie Doll sat, its expression set in a perpetually focussed frown, "Uh, two months?"

Celestia rolled her eyes, "You were there mere minutes after it happened, you know."

He waved a paw dismissively, "I really wasn't paying attention, I just came because I wanted to show off Rarity's couch. And Fluttershy asked me to."

As with Celestia and Luna, Discord's telepathy was unnoticeable till it was noticed. At which point it became nearly intolerable. Unlike Luna, whose "voice" was pleasantly cool like a night breeze and tasted faintly of chocolate, or Celestia, whose telepathic subtext resonated like a bell and had the vague scent of particularly heady wine, Discord's telepathy... was complex. The meaning was typically clear, yes, but there was always a faint wrongness about it. Like all the furniture of a room being clustered in a corner or a cupcake with uneven frosting. No wonder Discord rubbed pony's the wrong way.

Fortunately, she'd been able to adjust when Fluttershy had dragged him along to translate for her during a visit, most of which she'd spent trying to read Fluttershy's lips rather than listen to the maddening asymmetries of chaos. Now she could put it out of her mind and concentrate on the problem at hand. Mostly.

Discord peered over his steepled fingers, drumming them against one another as he slowly rotated around Twilight's bubble in an unstable and gradually decaying orbit, "Hm... quite a doozy, this one... could be a better way... nononono... more fun..."

He hemmed and hawed for a few more minutes, making Twilight increasingly uncomfortable under his scrutiny. But, she had given Luna and Celestia a full month to come up with their own solutions, Discord deserved... well, certainly not a month, but at least an hour. His face smeared past across the face of the bubble, pressed flat like a colt peering through a window, somehow leaving a dirty smudge on the magic. Maybe 45 minutes.

He reared back, stroking his goatee for a long moment, "Got it."

"Seriously!?" Twilight's spirits soared.

"Hold on." Celestia placed a calming hoof on the bubble, narrowing her eyes at the innocently hovering draconequus, "How?"

He shrugged, "Same way I break out of anything, or in fact, do anything: throw a little chaos at it and see what happens." He bobbed his head in concession, "Well, a LOT of chaos, as the case may be."

Twilight balked, "Wait what!? That's your big solution?"

He sniffed, raising a paw to his chest, "Not sure what you were expecting, I rather thought that was why you wanted to bring in my expertise."

"You're planning on just snapping your fingers and seeing what happens?" Celestia raised an eyebrow, "I think it's going to be a little harder than you expect it to be."

"Oh not at all! We'll do this your way: controlled conditions, safety measures," He paused, swallowing hard, "p-pr-" He took a deep breath, forcing the word out, "-protocol. Blegh."

Both alicorns eyed him dubiously, "Really? And how are you going to manage that?"

Looking a little green, Discord made his way into the kitchen as he explained, "Alright, I'll try and explain but I warn you: I have a severe logic intolerance, this might get messy." He cleared his throat and took a steadying breath, "You know how to get rid of unbreakable spells just as well as any other immortal who's been under one: just stop existing for a while. I know-" He raised his talon at Celestia's look, "I know, you think she's a little too young to get a good look at infinity. But so was I and look how I turned out!"

He spread his arms wide, glitter seeming to cascade off of him for a moment as the choir returned.

He opened one eye to find both alicorns gaping up at him; Celestia's lip curled in revulsion, Twilight's mouth wide in horror. He sulked, "Way to make a guy feel welcome, Princess of Friendship, Ha!" he shook his head, brightening after a moment, "Not to fear, I was just using that as a prelude to what my actual idea is anyway: if we can't take Twilight out of reality, let's take the reality out of Twilight!"

Twilight glanced at the princess, who frowned at Discord but said nothing. Grinning excitedly, he drew a pointer from thin air as a chalk board poofed into existence beside him, along with a cap and gown on his body, "You see Twilight, 'reality' is by definition a set of rules that tells everything how to behave. Gravity, magnets, birds, bees, magic, and yes, even friendship are all (cough) roughly (cough) based on the rules that underlie reality."

He drew, or rather, several sets of floating chalk drew out pictograms of each thing floating on an ordered grid, "However, reality isn't the end of the story! There's a certain... conscience in every speck of space, not an intelligence mind you, but a kind of willingness to obey the rules set down by reality." The objects animated and the bee hastily fled as the bird chased it across the board, the magnet and abstract star of friendship falling inertly on the drawn grid.

"And that is where I come in!" He tapped the board, sending ripples through the grid as the bee grew to several times its former size and turned to chase the bird while the magnet and magic star rose off the grid and engaged in mortal combat, "I... rile up the crowd, so to speak. You know, open the universe to new options that don't rely on realities little rulebook. And if I rile it up enough, maybe we can get it to forget about that pesky little bubble you've stuck yourself in."

The cap and gown vanished, along with the chalkboard and its inhabitants, as he squeed excitedly, "Ooooh I've always wanted to see what happens when we reach infinite chaos!"

"Infinite. Chaos." Celestia deadpanned, her flat expression at odds with the majesty of her billowing mane.

"Figure of speech, more like 'push out all the order in a space.' Obviously you can't truly achieve infinite cha-aooh..." The green tinge in Discord's face, which had been growing in intensity throughout his explanation, had reached the shade of spring leaves, "Whooo boy that was a lot of exposition, if you'll excuse me for a moment-" He sat down rather hard against the kitchen counter, fanning himself and taking slow breaths.

Twilight trotted in place, a habit she'd developed since noting the bubble's near frictionless surface, "Princess? Was that all...?"

"Mostly accurate, from a draconequus' perspective anyway." She sighed, slumping down next to Twilight, the lingering shadow of her aged self visible for just a moment, "I don't like this Twilight. From your own experience, have you ever seen a plan involving Discord go... well, according to plan?" Twilight shook her head glumly and Celestia nodded, "Precisely. What Discord says is true... but solving a rule by breaking it rarely does anything but escalate the original problem."

Pausing in her one-directional pacing, Twilight considered, turning to the serpentine avatar of chaos, "Are you sure this will work Discord?"

Discord, who had been vigorously scrubbing his tongue with soap, spat into the sink, "As I ever am." He turned and placed his paw over his heart, "In all honesty, I just want to help."

Celestia didn't look the least bit convinced but Twilight wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when the alternative was literal immolation, "Alright. I... trust you and I'm happy to have you here."

He smiled warmly but quickly had to bend back over the sink, "Ooh dear -urp! All this order-talk is making me queasy. Ahem, Twilight, we're going to need another Pinkie on the outside of this thing." He wrapped the bubble with his knuckles, "Chaos thing, don't ask. Cae Cae-"

"Don't call me that."

"-set up a... Oh, in pony magic I think it's called a... class five containment spell? You know what I mean: Make a big ward somewhere, I get the feeling this is going to get... exciting." His smirk was dishearteningly malevolent for a moment before he spun and vomited rainbows into the sink, "Urp! Too much planning! Gotta go!" He vanished in a puff of illogic, space distorting uncomfortably for a moment before settling down.

"This is not going to go well."

Twilight sighed disparagingly, flopping down on her rump, "I know... but what other choice do I have? You said everything else was too dangerous."

Her mentor groaned, "Ugh, I know. But this isn't much better. He's essentially going to boil the reality off you and hope it takes the bubble with it."

"...I can survive that right?"

Celestia tilted her head in a less than encouraging manner, "I've no doubt I could. And of course Discord is like that all the time." She closed her eyes, letting out a weary breath through her nose, "It all comes back to-"

"Me being too young, I know." Impressively, she made it a full two seconds before apologizing, "I'm sorry Princess, I'm just so sick of this! Of being a burden on you and the tetrarchy!"

"It's alright Twilight. We've all had our moments," Her eyes flicked to a spot on the ground where, after a moment, Twilight realized the moon was located behind, "-and we need to stay together during tough times so we'll make it through the better for it. Now then," She got to her hooves, bending down to look Twilight in the eye, "Are you ready for this?"

Taking a deep non-breath, Twilight nodded determinedly.

She was not ready for this.

Luna, who had returned from her momentary banishment, and Celestia were tracing out the lines of a truly enormous glyph around her, the likes of which she'd only ever heard discussed in hypotheticals. Supposedly it had been used in millenia past to contain magical meltdowns, the sort that come from a powerful artifact self-destructing or an eldritch being reality warping its way out of a prison. In short, to contain Discord.

The draconequus himself sat just beyond the glyph, holding Pinkie in his claws. "Going to need a bit of a boost for this one." he'd explained when she questioned, not deigning to say more on the matter. It seemed rather silly to Twilight... at first. Pinkie was random, sure, and she had her impossible moments, but Discord was the self-proclaimed "Lord of Chaos." And he had enough insane power to back it up. Pinkie was just... Pinkie.

Or so Twilight had thought.

Discord had been slowly growing for the past hour, now well over three stories in height, and he seemed to jitter uncontrollably. Not like a pony, more like a tuning fork that had no stable resonance. He himself was actually sitting cross-legged with a look of intense concentration set into his face. Pinkie sat in his huge paw/claw, her usual bubbly attitude dampened somewhat. Twilight quirked her lips sadly: better than she was before but by Pinkie standards she still looked glum. They'd had a heart-to-heart about guilt and the unexpected consequences of pranks and dares last week. She'd tried to reassure Pinkie that she didn't blame her for the whole bubble fiasco but she got the feeling it wouldn't stick till she got out of this thing.

In the meantime though, "Pinkie?"

The pink mare perked up, smiling at her expectantly.

"Why are you here?"

She made a Weeeeelllllll... gesture and set off on a complicated sign-language explanation that was, for the most part, unintelligible. Twilight sighed. Naturally.

Resigned to her fate, Twilight waited as the Princesses completed the glyph. Glancing up behind her, she frowned at the Pinkie doll, still frozen in its determined glare. Luna had dispelled the invisibility, explaining that she wanted to be certain that it wouldn't interfere with the procedure. Considering the "procedure" involved detonating what amounted to a chaos bomb in an enclosed space, Twilight couldn't help but feel it was unnecessary. She couldn't wait to get out of this bubble. Pinkie or not, the doll kind of creeped her out.

Discord stepped inside the edge of the outer circle as they finished and onto a clear circle of his own. Oddly enough, he set Pinkie into a smaller circle next to his. Now a little concerned, Twilight spoke up, "Um, Princess? Why is Pinkie inside the-"

Twilight felt her telepathic link snap as the Princesses took their positions on either end of the ritual. The glyph lit up, the enormous containment field powered by two alicorns, and Discord, still several times his usual size, lifted his talon to the sky... and snapped.

The feeling of "reality boiling off" was... not what Twilight had expected.

For her unicorn instincts it was utterly terrifying. She hadn't felt the touch of air in two months but she'd still been connected to the world through magic. She hadn't really thought about it, didn't know what it would feel like to be without it, but her magic had been with her the whole time. And now it sputtered and left, droplets falling away from her like being lifted from the sea. For the first time, ever, she felt... nothing.

Her alicorn self was a little more at ease, her own magic seeming to withdraw into her like some kind of diving reflex. For a moment she wasn't even sure if her eyes were open or closed. Then her mind adjusted to her surroundings and she realized the question itself was flawed.

Her eyes weren't open or closed. In fact, she was fairly sure she didn't even have eyes at the moment.

Despite this, she was able to "look" down at herself and study her new form. Nebulus energy shaped, for whatever meaning that word really had in a place like this, vaguely like Twilight Sparkle. She was bright, painfully so if she'd had eyes to hurt, and somehow... more. She'd never felt this conscious of her entire being before. She could see every part of herself, every idea, every memory, every strand of magic and life. There was so much of it...

Aware of the suddenly looming threat of solipsism, she shifted her perceptions away from herself.

Oh. She thought. So that's what reality looks like from the outside.

It surrounded her yet fell away from her on all sides, and some part of her knew this state of being was extremely unnatural. The image was distorted and blurred, like looking through water, only she could see what she could see before as well as what was really there.

There was Luna, intent and serious but also auric like herself and ringed with an eldritch glow. Opposite but also joined to her was Celestia, regal and concerned but overlayed by a form that was too blinding to properly examine, even in this state it was like looking into the sun.

Discord was a fair bit different, as expected. His "normal" shape was superimposed over something that was nothing so unlike some kind of crystal where every molecule was aligned at just a slightly different angle than any other. Waves of restructuring swept across it mesmerizingly, an infinitude of arrangements held within a finite form.

And then there was Pinkie. Pinkies. One by Discord. One by her.

The "normal" images looked like Pinkie.

The thing stretching behind both of them did not.

Twilight sucked in a panicked breath of air, sitting bolt upright, eyes frantically rolling.

Something was very wrong, but she couldn't figure out what it was! Coming to terms with the blur of colors and shapes, she thrashed about, choking and writhing in the sudden deluge of sensation.

The world slowly stopped spinning and the panic receded as her brain (thank goodness it was back, she'd missed it dearly) made sense of the familiar patterns around her. She was lying in a field, both Princesses peering down at her concernedly. Behind them, Discord lay splayed out on the grass, panting in exhaustion as Pinkie fanned him with an oversized leaf.

I know the feeling. Oh wait.

"YYYYYEEEESSS!"

Both Princesses stepped back as Twilight leapt to her hooves, rejoicing in the sound of her own voice. After nearly 8 weeks of absolute silence, it was unpleasantly loud. And, at the moment, she really didn't care.

"YES! YES! YES!" Twilight spun and kicked and scrabbled and fell down a few times, but who cares! She was free!

Falling once more, she fondly rubbed a hoof across the dirt, enjoying the coarse texture, "Ohhh ground. I missed you."

"I'm sure the ground has missed you as well." Celestia's beaming expression turned to one of surprise as Twilight body-tackled her mentor with a hug.

"OHMICELESTIA you're so soooooft!"

"Twilight! Twilight, I'm glad you're out as well but..." Celestia blushed as Twilight nuzzled her neck, hooves wrapped around her leg, while Luna looked on, smirking.

"Oh, let her have her snuggles Sister. You are quite soft."

Celestia swatted her with a wing, the two sisters patiently watching as Twilight moved through quite a list of tactile, aural, and fragrant delights that she'd missed in her time imprisoned. By the time she'd calmed down enough to have a coherent conversation, Celestia was lowering the sun.

"Thank you. All three of you, for working so hard on getting me out of there."

Discord looked uncomfortable, scratching his neck while muttering under his breath, and both princesses bowed their heads welcomingly, "We would be poor rulers if we left you in your prison."

"And poorer friends." Celestia glanced around at the clearing, the center of which looked, appropriately, like a bomb had been detonated in it, not to mention the half a ton of castle stone and the Pinkie doll lying on its side, "We have some cleaning up to do Twilight, you should get back home while there's still light. I'm sure there are many pony's eager to see you."

Twilight blinked, "Oh, of course... but Princess, could we-?"

Celestia bowed her head, "We can discuss everything in greater detail later, go enjoy yourself for now. There's no rush."

Twilight nodded, smiling and struggling not to bombard her mentor with questions. A shock of pink caught her eye and she peered through the legs of the gathered demigods to Pinkie Pie, scuffing her hoof on the grass and avoiding her gaze. For a brief moment, something else resolved around her, but the pink blur was gone before Twilight could properly register it. She trotted over to her friend, a warm smile on her face.

"I'm really happy you're not stuck in the bubble anymore, can you ever forgive-"

Twilight embraced her friend, who returned the gesture with gusto, hair bouncing back to full poof in an instant, "And I missed you and the rest of my friends most of all, Pinkie. Of course I forgive you."

The pink mare sniffled, "They'll be so happy to see you! I have a whole party set up for you back in town!"

Twilight remembered what had been bothering her before Discord had snapped, "Why were you the only one here? Why were you here at all? Wasn't it dangerous?"

Pinkie released her, the two falling into step along the path back to ponyville, "Well, you see: Celestia said that it was important to have another element bearer around to keep you grounded, just in case, and the others wanted to come too but Luna said that having all of us would be too strong an anchor and stop Discords magic from-"

Celestia smiled after the retreating pair of friends, Discord cracking his back loudly as he hobbled up to her, "Whew, I haven't pulled something like that in a millenium. Think it worked? Princess of Friendship: untraumatized? Crisis averted?"

She lifted a feather to his mouth to silence him, waiting for the voices of Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle to fade into the woods before turning to the Pinkie doll, "Ok, you can move now."

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASP! Whew! Wow, I thought I was gonna crack there at the end!" Pinkie Pie's outburst caused Luna to yelp in surprise, skittering backwards in an unregal way as the pink mare threw up her hooves in victory, "Woohoo! Equestria breath-holding champion!" She bounced up from the rubble, immediately collapsing back into it, "Oooh... stiff.... oww......"

Luna gawked at the supine Pinkie, glancing between her and her sisters amused expression, "...Sister?"

Celestia opened her mouth, then closed it, then tried again, "There are some things Twilight... still isn't ready for. That one of her closest friends is a hyperdimensional starspawn from beyond time and space, for example."

Pinkie nodded fervently, "I was kinda worried there when the bubble wouldn't let me leave either, and I got really worried when she saw my real shape. Part of it anyway. Normal pony's... don't like it very much. Which is why Mr. Discord's idea was super great! We pull Twilight out of reality but not outside of reality."

Celestia nodded after her student, "Is she believing the explanation?"

Pinkie tilted her head in a so-so gesture, "As much as Twilight can without affirmation from multiple peer-reviewed sources. She'll buy it for now I think. Good thing nobody but you three knows anything about how the Elements actually work."

Luna gave her sister an incredulous glare, "You didn't think to tell me this, once, in the past 3 years?"

Celestia shifted uncomfortably, "I'll... fill you in on the way back to the castle."

Grumbling under her breath and keeping a wary eye on the brightly smiling pink "mare," Luna followed her sister as she took flight, the two dwindling to nothing in the night's sky. Discord sidled up next to Pinkie, who was rapidly recovering her improbable flexibility as she arched backwards into a bridge, "So... thanks. For the boost."

"Oh don't sweat it, Mr. Discord! It's hard getting that much entropy into a closed system without a direct window to the outside, even for you!"

Eyes narrowed, the master of chaos raised his talon and snapped, vanishing with a faint ripple of space and a final gripe, "Yeow! Cramp! Cramp!"

Pinkie shook her head sadly, "Should've stretched first."

Then she popped out of existence so she could focus on being with Twilight.

Author's Note

Well, that was fun. I do enjoy some "Pinkie is a hyper-dimensional being" mixed in with my Alicorn godhood.

Let me know what you thought!

I edited some things in the previous chapters to make it a more interesting story, namely that the Pinkie "doll" couldn't be removed from the bubble either. Thus, even if Twilight could survive the "blow it up" plan unharmed, Pinkie (whatever fraction of her that was trapped within the bubble) might not have, making it a last resort in Celestia's eyes even if Twilight was more experienced.

Also, Pinkie did technically win the contest, not that Twilight will know that anytime soon.

Thank you all so much for reading, your comments have helped me a lot when writing/fixing the plot. I hope you enjoyed!