The Princess and the...that
It was a booooringly bright, sunny day. Yep, not even thirty words in, and this story is already looking to be a snore-fest.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, a lavender alicorn, found herself zipping through the air toward her home, the Castle of Friendship. Twilight's violet eyes were already eyeing her glistening crystal tree-castle, which grew bigger and bigger as she approached it. The tree-castle's "tree" section was dark-purple toward its trunk and the rest was light-blue, but the castle itself was a lighter shade of purple.
What's going on?
Twilight had been searching for a new book at Ponyville’s bookshop when she heard reports of Queen Chrysalis near her castle. Starlight Glimmer, her former student, was supposed to be resting in said castle.
She knew Chrysalis harboured a grudge against Starlight for (In Chrysalis's words) stealing her hive. Could this be part of a revenge plot to capture or even kill the reformed violet unicorn? No, Twilight couldn’t let that happen. Starlight had not only grown into a close friend, but into something of a little sister to Twilight. She cared far too much for Starlight to allow any harm to befall her.
Plus, Starlight still owed Twilight one-hundred bits. The former lost a cook-off that the two ponies had three weeks ago.
What kind of friendship speech would Twilight preach to reform Chrysalis? Let's listen to her thoughts and find out.
Queen Chrysalis, if you harm a single hair on Starlight, you will face a tornado of spells and books! You will wish to be banished to the moon before I’m done!
Oh. So, THIS Twilight Sparkle is in her season four finale form, where she'd skip the speeches and just try to blow the villain's head off. Okay, this story is now shaping up to be a FUN one to narrate! Twilight's not super-charged this time, like she was when she fought Lord Tirek in an epic battle, but I will still put fifty bits on her! Let's go!
More thoughts of Chrysalis possibly subjecting Starlight to immense agony implored the future champion to flap her wings harder, grunting from the effort. She had to reach her castle NOW.
Alas, as is common during crises, but is far rarer during peaceful times, the fact that she had mastered teleportation slipped Twilight’s mind. Maybe she'll finally stop forgetting she can teleport in season nine.
Once near the castle's grand, two-leaved gold doors, Twilight swooped toward the ground to land. Hooves on the ground, she flew open the castle's doors in magenta magic and dashed into the castle’s lobby, yelling Starlight’s name. Yet other than the greets from her own voice’s echo bouncing off the walls and blue/purple stalagmites, there was no response.
Did she arrive too late? Was the friendly, kite-liking Starlight Glimmer just a memory now? No, it couldn’t be.
Twilight galloped through the lobby and into the hallways, lined with numerous tall light-green double doors. Her hooves smacking onto the hard crystal floor with each step, she opened one door after another, yelling Starlight’s name each time she opened a door to a room. Nothing.
Before long, Twilight had checked 92.61% of the castle, but found no signs of life. If Starlight were hurt, even severely, the sounds of her desperate cries for help would have been heard by now, unless she was only a memory now. No. Not her little sister.
Standing in one of its hallways, the internal panic Twilight fought to keep in check erupted to the surface. Her breaths grew deep and rapid, but a faint, short-lived voice broke the castle's eerie silence, quickly snapping Twilight out of her panic attack. The tone of the voice seemed feminine.
Could it have been Starlight? The moment made Twilight remember that she failed to check Starlight’s bedroom. It was an obvious place to go, but immense fear and panic can make you lose even the most basic of common sense, no matter how high your IQ is. Incidentally, Twilight is rumored to possess an IQ of 210, but she also believes that she was cheated during her last IQ test.
A surprising idea suddenly emerged in Twilight's mind, making her gasp and “facehoof”. In a potentially out-of-character moment for this situation, she thought to not run or fly, but to use her teleportation. In a flash of a magenta light and with a “poof” that accompanies teleportation, she teleported to Starlight’s closed bedroom door.
In contrast to many of the castle rooms having tall, shiny, light-green double doors, Starlight’s bedroom had a smaller, plainer, brown single door. But enough about doors: Twilight’s horn brightly lit magenta in preparation for the upcoming battle. She swung open the door, wearing an intense scowl. Her teeth were gritted. She was ready to perform her first-ever solo-kill if need be.
However, even after the door was open, no immense magical blast shot from Twilight's glowing horn. In fact, the horn's luminescence, as well as her scowl, vanished. Her pupils shrank to a fifth their normal size. Her mouth widened. She pointed a hoof at an...odd sight, then froze.
The room itself wasn’t anything to freeze in place about. Warm light shone through a single window and onto a wooden chair near it. Kites either hung on strings on the ceiling or lay on the floor; a red kite lay against Starlight’s bed. The bed itself was covered with a lavender blanket and had two large open white boxes lying on it. Ember, the current Dragon Lord, better not mistake that blanket for Twilight or Starlight if she ever sees it.
And the part you would actually care about and was why Twilight froze in place: Starlight Glimmer and a changeling with a blue mane, Queen Chrysalis, stood in the center of the room. They were balanced on one of their hind legs, with their other hind leg kicked backward in the air in a pose. The two also wore pink tutus around their midsections.
Yes, that is correct. Those two were in TUTUS!
Okay, that lazy writer must have written and/or read one too many Twilight Sparkle & Starlight Glimmer stories. He’s going semi-insane, just like they can be, if he conceived of THIS! I got my hopes up for nothing! I wanted a fight!
But moving on. Starlight slowly turned her head to the frozen Twilight. Her ears drooped, her cheeks glowed bright-red, and she showed her pearly whites in a huge grin.
Chrysalis also turned her head to Twilight, though her face simply wore an embarrassed smile. “Well, this is awkward.” She turned her head to Starlight and scowled, her smile becoming an annoyed frown. “So, she'd lose the common sense to come in here, huh? I knew you were an idiot.”
“T-Twilight? I can explain,” Starlight said.
Pure willpower granted Twilight the strength to break her paralysis and enlarge her pupils to their normal size. She shook her head -- her lips audibly flapped as she did -- wiped her eyes with the hoof still pointed at the unexpected ballerinas, then set the hoof back to the floor. “Uh, I don’t think you can.”
“I hate to admit it, but I doubt you can either. This looks bad,” Chrysalis admitted.
“Maybe it will help if you two...stand normal again?” Twilight guessed.
Starlight and Chrysalis returned to standing on all fours, making this scene only slightly less bizarre. Starlight's ears also straightened to their normal position.
Chrysalis rubbed her back, moaning from the relief of the self-massage. “Oh, my back isn’t meant to pose like that for so long. I’m not the young nymph I used to be.”
Twilight wiped her eyes. “Well, my eyes aren’t meant to see things like what I’m seeing RIGHT NOW for so long.”
Starlight stretched her hind legs as she muttered, "Ugh, I'm never balancing on one leg again. What was I thinking?" When her stretching was finished, Starlight faced Twilight. “Okay, here’s what happened. Four months ago--”
“Wait, hold on. I’ll be right back.” Twilight teleported away in a magenta light and “poof”.
Starlight and Chrysalis stared at each other. Three seconds later, Twilight reappeared in another poof and burst of light, levitating a camera in her magic. A flash of white light from the camera immediately followed, forcing both Starlight and Chrysalis to raise a foreleg at the flash to shield their eyes.
Starlight uncovered her face and pointed at Twilight’s camera. ”Uh, what was that about?”
“If I tell our friends about this without any proof, they will think I have seriously gone crazy." Twilight moved the camera from in front of her to her left side. "Anyway, please, continue telling me why you two are here and doing...that.”
“Okay...as I was saying, four months ago, when I was flying kites, Chrysalis jumped out and tried to kill me. We fought to a standstill while trading insults.”
Twilight nodded her head. “Okay, now that part seems normal because she hates you.”
Chrysalis chuckled. “Oh, so much! Most of the time anyway.”
Twilight rubbed her mane. “Uh, what do you--"
“And before you ask what she meant, Twilight, I'm getting to that. When I was running circles around Chrysalis during our fight, I bragged that I could dance circles around her too.”
Chrysalis pointed at herself. “And I claimed to be taking it easy on her, and if I really wanted to, I could dance circles around her.”
"I...see."
Starlight gave the hind leg she stood on during her "pose" a quick rub. “So, after we traded more insults, we tried to prove it by literally dancing, but it always ended in a tie.”
Despite the surrealness of the current situation, Twilight giggled to herself, thinking of how Starlight “danced” after she had overdone it on the cider at a party. Though, Twilight Sparkle is the VERY last pony who should ever laugh at another pony’s dancing. She's not much better when dancing in her human form either, though it is adorkably hilarious. Whether in pony or human form, she should dance more often. Much more often.
Chrysalis scoffed. “Laugh if you want, but our dancing was...fun. So, after our dance, Starlight and I agreed to pick one day of each month where we form a truce and have a friendly-ish dance-off. This month, she wanted to try ballet for the first time and...here we are.” Chrysalis delivered another short rub to her back with a moan. “Knew I should have warmed up first."
Twilight blinked twice. While their story made semi-sense, this was ridiculous. The only reason Twilight's brain didn't short-circuit was because she had observed many ridiculous events since moving to Ponyville, though 95% of them came solely from Pinkie Pie, a pink earth pony. However, while Pinkie possesses the nigh-omnipotence to shatter the laws of physics, there are limits: she can only do it when she feels like it.
Starlight asked, "So...can we get back to our ballet?"
“Uh...well...I…” Twilight stared at random objects in Starlight’s bedroom, such as the kites, window, and the pink tutu still wrapped around Starlight's midsection. The protective teacher/big sister in her yearned to break up this friendship(?) since she didn’t approve of it. Unfortunately, the last time Twilight attempted something like that, it went so bad, a manticore nearly had a narcissistic but highly charismatic blue unicorn as a great and powerful dinner. Afterward, she promised to never attempt to break up a friendship again.
In addition, it is counterintuitive to Twilight's princess title of "Princess of Friendship", a title she held with great pride. Princess Twilight is supposed to spread and promote friendships, not make them crash and burn. She had even recently founded a friendship school when inspiration triggered her to further step up her game.
Thus, Twilight let out a deep sigh, spun around, and left Starlight and Chrysalis to do their dancing. Besides, she needed to go to her bedroom anyway, which is where she chose to trot.
I’m getting too old for this, Twilight thought, despite the mare being quite young. Especially for an alicorn.
A short trot later, Twilight reached her bedroom. Its door was shut tight. She opened the door with her magic, walked inside, and closed the door behind her.
On her bed, a dark-purple blanket covered all but two fluffy pillows of a lighter shade of purple. A ten-book-tall stack of books lay on the bed. Above a brown dresser, on one of the bedroom's walls, hung a picture of Twilight and her seven closest friends, with Twilight in the center and with a wing wrapped around Rainbow Dash. A blue window sheet covered the room’s lone window, though sunlight successfully peeked past the sheet's edges.
Oh, and Lord Tirek, an elderly centaur with a white beard, sat in a wooden chair in front of Twilight’s bed. He held an open book in his hands. Two stacks of ten books were on the floor, beside his chair.
Okay, I do not get paid enough for this *beep*.
But whatever. Tirek laid his book on the chair's arm rest and lifted his head to Twilight. “It's about time you stopped yelling 'Starlight!' and came back.” He leaned his head toward Twilight and frowned. “I take it that bookshop didn't have the book you told me about?”
"No." Twilight walked halfway across the room to her bed and hopped on. She moved the camera she still held in her magic to her room's dresser. “But while I was gone, did you see Chrysalis in Starlight’s room?”
“How could I? You said to remain in your room so I wouldn’t be seen, remember?”
Twilight facehoofed, shaking her head with her face still buried in her hoof. “Oh, right.”
“But why was Queen Bug even in the castle? Was she trying to kill Starlight again?” Tirek’s lips curled into a grin. “And if so, did you see anything good?”
Twilight shook her head with her eyes closed in the process. She had no idea what Tirek meant by “good”, but was certain he didn’t mean something like the pair wearing tutus. “No, they are not fighting this time. They are just practicing their dancing, like...friends.”
Tirek gasped. “WHAT?! Those two?! Friends?! I thought they hated each other!”
Twilight threw her hooves in the air. “I know! Chrysalis isn't even reformed! As the Princess of Friendship, I should be happy, but I’ve never heard of a weirder friendship! Not even Fluttershy's friendship with Discord is so improbable!”
“Neither have I. At least our secret monthly friendship makes sense.”
Twilight levitated a blue book, from the top of her bed's book stack, toward her. “Well, I can't try to break them up if they want to be...friends, so let's just get back to our reading session. There is only one hour left before I have to sneak you back to--”
The bedroom door swung open. A young purple dragon, Spike, shouted, “Twilight, you--”
At the sight of Lord Tirek in Twilight Sparkle’s bedroom, Spike’s pupils shrank. His jaw dropped and his typically spread wings sagged. After which, his whole body became motionless. He has lived with Twilight almost his whole life, so it figures he would react to things in a similar manner she does.
Twilight dropped the book she held in magic beside her. The alicorn's cheeks glowed red and her ears slumped. Much like how Starlight did it, Twilight revealed her gorgeous white teeth with an embarrassed grin. Like teacher, like student.
Tirek chuckled nervously and waved a hand at Spike. “Uh...hey. You remember me, right? I stole all the mag--”
Spike reset his jaw, his pupils re-grew, and his wings straightened themselves. He wiped his eyes, looked back and forth at Twilight and Tirek, wiped his eyes again, then simply stared at Twilight. A smile formed on his lips.
Twilight's grin oozing embarrassment flipped into a concerned frown. Spike's smile was peaceful, but something about it wasn't right. "Uh, Spike? I know this may look strange, but--"
Spike flew to Twilight’s bed, picked up the stack of books on it, set the stack on the dresser, then repeated the motion with the book Twilight had dropped beside her. All the while, he emitted an aura of calmness.
Twilight kept her eyes on Spike as she asked, “Spike? Are you okay?”
Without saying a word, Spike flew out of the room. Twilight and Tirek stared at each other; Tirek shrugged his shoulders to the questions he sensed Twilight was thinking. They didn't know what to say next, so the two remained quiet.
A minute later, Spike returned holding an ice pack and dragging a green blanket behind him. He flew to and gently pushed Twilight backward so she was lying on her back, her head against one of her bed pillows. Spike set the ice pack on the top of Twilight’s head, careful to avoid her horn.
“S-Spike--”
"Shhhh." Spike covered Twilight’s mouth with a claw, before slightly backing away so he could cover all but her head with the blanket he brought. His big sister/mother figure now covered, Spike flew close to Twilight's head again to tenderly stroke her soft dark-blue, pink-streaked mane. With a big, baffled frown, she stared at the dragon as he assured in a comforting voice, “It’s okay, Twi. You just rest. I will take care of you and Starlight until you two are back to normal. In the meantime, the girls will run the school in your place.”
Author's Note
Don't ask what I was smoking when I wrote this. I don't remember either.
