Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, was finally stepping down. Like her predecessor, she had ruled for a thousand years. She had left Equestria a prosperous country, united with those around it. Looking back on it, she knew that if given the chance, she wouldn’t do a single thing differently.
But she needed a break. A long one. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t have a plan. No immediate appointments, no upcoming deadlines, no overarching goals for where to take Equestria. She had officially stepped down, and now had nothing to do. The feeling filled her with unease and panic, which then immediately subsided to calmness and curiosity. Maybe she’d do what Celestia and Luna did all those years ago and have herself a little adventure, exploring the things she’d wanted to do but never had the time. Or maybe she’d sit in her room and read. Maybe both, or neither. She certainly had the time to decide.
The only thing she really wanted to do now was to walk down the halls of the castle one last time before she headed off. Twilight memorized the entire layout of the castle in her first week as Princess, and a thousand years of rule certainly helped in that regard.
The first things she passed were the many windows which featured the many heroes of Equestria. The more recent ones were first, with Jasper holding back the ferocious blizzard that struck the north just last year, and the defeat of the Army from Limbo eleven years ago. As Twilight walked further, she saw events that occurred from long ago. The discovery of pixies 74 years ago (and wasn’t that a catastrophe), the literal fall of Cloudsdale, and it’s reconstruction, 112 years ago, on and on and on…
Twilight found herself standing still. In front of her was the start of her journey. The defeat of Nightmare Moon. She was in the center, and she smiled when she noticed that she was just a unicorn in these panes. Surrounding her were her first five real friends.
She glanced behind her, and saw their legacy. Everything she had walked through was based on this one event, which seemed so trivial at the time. She had thought Celestia so careless for not taking her seriously, and was determined to save Equestria not because it was the right thing to do, though it was, but because she needed to show her that she could. That, among all of the tests and pop-quizzes she had passed with flying colors, this was not beyond her ability.
How naive she was back then. Everything centered around herself. Didn’t have her wings, or a castle, or an empire. Didn’t even have any fr-
Twilight found herself holding her breath. How long has it been since the Princess of Friendship had any friends of her own? Sure, she sent mail to Celestia and Luna, but that's been getting more and more infrequent with their adventures.
She smiled as she turned away from her framed beginning. She now knew exactly what she was going to do with her time.
Author's Note
Prompt: Framed. Initial timeframe of 33 minutes to write, 8 to edit.
This remains largely unchanged from what was submitted for the Panic. Despite its issues, I still rather like how this turned out. Could I have done it better? Certainly. Will I spend the time to rewrite it? No.
Once upon a time, before Celestia, Equestria was suffering terrible hardship. Raising the sun every morning was so hard, it took five great sorcerers plus Star Swirl the Bearded to do it. And every day, the unicorns helping Star Swirl would use so much magic, they lost their powers forever. Things looked bleak. Soon, Equestria would lose all its magic users! Then, the land would be covered in darkness for eternity!
Because of this looming threat, Star Swirl picked his battles. There just weren’t enough unicorns to complete the ritual even once every few hundred hours. The days grew longer, the land became hotter, and disaster was around the corner.
Celestia and her sister, Luna, had just finished their magic lessons with Star Swirl the Bearded, and on top of being exhausted, it was the hottest day either of them had ever experienced. The sun had been up for almost 750 hours. Star Swirl, the genius that he was, could recite exactly how long it had been up, and how much longer it should stay up, at any given moment. The goal this time around was to make it to 800.
Following the sun setting would be the coldest winter ever, as the moon took its place in the sky for another 800 hours. After that… Nopony knew what would happen. Would it be best to stick to the same time, or should it be extended even further? With how hot it was already, Celestia wasn’t looking forward to the latter option, though she was smart enough to know that such measures were necessary for survival.
Though, as the sisters walked through the streets of Canterlot, a small country village that they called their home, she realized that there wasn’t a lot of survival happening even now. Nopony could do anything too physically taxing, or stay outside for an extended period of time. The crops were failing, as they often did these days, leaving less and less food to those who so desperately needed it. Distrust was once again spreading through ponies.
Earth ponies were being blamed for their crops failing. Pegasi were being blamed for not blocking out the sun with their clouds. Unicorns were being blamed for not being strong enough to pull the sun below the horizon. The winter was already going to be brutal, but Celestia knew that if they also had to contend with Windigos, there might not be anypony left to bring the light of day.
She stopped in the middle of the street, and looked directly above her, at the sun. She had been advised by her teacher, Star Swirl, to never attempt to move the sun. They had shown great promise in his lessons, and didn’t want to lose them, as he had so many other unicorns. Was it favoritism? Yes. But there was no questioning the wisest pony in history. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what he was doing was always for the best of everypony.
But as she stared directly into the massive star in the sky, Celestia began to recite his teachings in her mind. About how many thought that magic is a gift to the unicorns. How it is a force of will for them to exact on whatever or whomever they please. But this is not so. Every living thing has magic, from the beetles on the ground to the dragons in the air. Magic imbues us all with life and energy. And when it is used, it is not a force of will, or power, but merely a suggestion. It is a push for plants to grow swiftly, a nudge of a cloud to give rain. Even for the large, complicated spells that unicorns are known to use are merely communing with the universe to convince it to make something happen.
All one had to do was ask the right question.
Celestia closed her eyes, lit up her horn, and asked.
Luna stopped her walking, and looked back to her sister. “Tia, what art thou doing?” She turned and walked back to her. “Star Swirl instructed us to use magic no more until our next meeting. And what, pray tell, are you using it on?” Luna looked around them both, but saw nothing that was wrapped in that familiar yellow glow. Despite her questioning, Celestia held her stance, with her head pointed to the sky.
Luna followed her sister’s gaze and saw the now overly-familiar sun glaring down at them. She thought for a moment that Celestia was using her magic on it, but scoffed at herself. Why would she ever do something so ridicu-
The sun was definitely moving. But that couldn’t be right. Star Swirl himself said that there were still dozens of hours until the next lowering of the sun. He wouldn’t dare change his schedule, especially so quickly after talking to the two of them about it. If it wasn’t Star Swirl, then it had to be somepony else. But… No, it couldn’t be. They were already drained from their lesson not but a few minutes passed. She couldn’t be moving the sun all on her own, could she?
Could she?
“Tia, whatever thou art doing, it needs to be stopped. Thou art drained already, lowering the sun will leave you powerless!” She got no response, and the sun seemed to only be speeding up its descent, as if it were accelerating to crash into the land below. Though with how inexperienced her sister was with such a procedure, that may very well be the case.
As the display went on, Luna couldn’t hold onto her propriety as she started shaking Celestia, as if to knock some sense into her. “Stop this instant! You cannot keep this going, sister! You won’t ever do magic again!”
But she did not stop, no matter how Luna shook, pushed, or yelled. The sun set, the heat gone with it, and darkness overtook the land. The only light in the streets was the faint glow from Celestia’s horn, fading until it popped out of existence. Celestia finally collapsed, and Luna came down with her, crying at the loss of something her sister loved so much.
Abruptly, a bright white light burst forth from Celestia, hurting Luna’s eyes, even though they were closed. And, when the light finally subsided a moment later, Luna saw that she was no longer laying by the side of her sister, but at the feet of… well it still looked like her sister, but she usually didn’t have wings, so this couldn’t have been her.
But then the alicorn looked down at her and smiled, and she knew that it had to be her. Tia held out her hoof to her, and helped her up. Once she was up, she hurriedly cleaned her face of tears, and saw that once again, her sister was looking to the sky. There was no moon, and the stars were dim, barely there. Apparently, only half of the ritual had been completed.
“All you have to do is ask, dear sister,” Celestia broke the silence, and gently nudged Luna.
The younger sister looked between her older sibling and the barren sky. Her, control the heavens above? She couldn’t do so even in her wildest dreams, what made Tia think that she could do so now? And what of the consequences if she failed, when she failed?
The wise Star Swirl had directly instructed them never to attempt such a feat, and that such an attempt would result in the loss of their magic and, worst of all, the end of their apprenticeship under his tutelage. She couldn’t go against the advice of one who had proven himself more knowledgeable than she could ever be.
But as she gazed further into the dull abyss, she felt a need stir within her. A need to do better, to make the sky beautiful, filled with life.
With her sister by her side, Luna focused entirely on the sky above her, closed her eyes, and imagined that the stars were splashes of paint across the black canvas, with the moon front-and-center, providing a guiding light to the lost souls of the night, promising safety in it’s pale glow.
When she opened her eyes, her dream of the starry night sky had become a reality.
Author's Note
Prompt: Chilly Summer or Sweltering Autumn + Starry Night Sky. Initial timeframe of 1 hour to write, 15 minutes to edit.
This was my first actual contest, and it went about as well as I expected it to. That is to say that I had to end it super abruptly, which meant that there was a huge section on Celestia, and a tiny section on Luna. I've fixed that slightly. I'd like to give Luna the same introspection that Celestia had, but can't seem to do so in a way that makes it sound different enough from what was already said to make it interesting for the reader, so I'm leaving it here.
“What do you mean?” asked a confused changeling.
“I mean, you’ve got huge fangs, right? What do you use them for?” the dragon asked his new friend.
“Oh. Well, I dunno. We just have them. I think they might’ve been used for eating, but we’re a little different than how we used to be.”
“So why do you still have them?”
“No clue. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what the holes are for. They must’ve been there for a reason at some point, but we don’t exactly use them anymore.”
This got the baby dragon thinking. “What if its use hasn’t been lost, but the knowledge of it has? What if they’re for a lost art of kung fu! Thorax, you could be a descendant of a ninja!”
Thorax blushed, but then thought of something. “Actually, lots of changeling infiltrators could be considered ninjas. But I still don’t think they use the holes for anything. Or the fangs. Sorry Spike.”
Spike was again lost in thought, his mind wandering to places where only young minds do. “I’m sure Twilight must have a book on something like that. Something old and written in a language nopony, or uh, nochangeling speaks in anymore.”
“I would hope that she doesn’t. Changelings have always had pride in their secrecy, so I doubt there’s much about us in any history book.” Thorax cringed, “Well, not until recently, anyways.”
Spike noticed this change and went to comfort his friend. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up about that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Thorax took a moment to soak up his friend’s empathy, in both respects, and smiled as he replied, “Thanks Spike. It feels good to have a friend.”
Spike smiled back. “Well, once we get to the Empire, you’ll get a lot more.”
Author's Note
Rob's PANIC! where we only had 18 minutes to write about teeth, with a max word count of 303. Obviously, I just had to write about changelings.
Trixie walked through Ponyville, as she usually does, to go pick up some assorted fruits from the market. She had just eaten the last of her apples, and figured that she should restock. Maybe even get a few of the more expensive, imported fruits. They always cost a few too many bits, but they were worth it every time.
But, however awesome they may be, the walk to get them is never so pleasant.
She swore that she could feel them staring at her, glaring into her soul, judging her for her past mistakes. Everypony remembered her tricks nearly a decade ago, and how horrible she had acted back then. Everypony remembered the grudge that was so strong that she had tampered with powerful dark magic to try and get back. Everypony remembered who she used to be.
Nopony cared that she was helping her friends out with a surprise birthday party for a pet rock. Nopony cared that she was working as a counselor, helping students at the first Friendship School. Nopony cared about any of the thousand little, great and powerful things she did every day, and had been doing for years.
The only thing they saw was the monster that she was.
As Trixie passed by the Friendship Castle, she caught a glance at her friend, Starlight Glimmer. Her first real friend in Equestria. The first pony to care about her. The first to understand what she was going through.
Starlight caught her glance and smiled at her. Trixie smiled back as she realized something she should have known a long time ago.
Not everypony.
.
.
.
Now, time to get some of those juicy Kiwis...
Author's Note
A Panic by Red, with a total of 30 minutes to write about Sins. My mind immediately went to Starlight and Trixie, but Starlight is so overdone, so she only got a cameo.
This actually got 2nd place, which was my first placement on a Panic.
