Tea and tears in spacetime
“Twilight!” Sunset galloped through the Castle of Friendship, approaching the princess. “I came as soon as I could. You said something about a Hearth’s Warming emergency?”
Twilight looked at her guest, out of breath from across the portal, and giggled with a faint blush. “Morning, Sunset.”
Sunset caught her breath. “You seem calm.”
Biting down on her smile, Twilight replied. “Emergency might have been a slight exaggeration of the circumstances.”
“Alright, spill.”
“If you choose to accept it, I have a special Hearth’s Warming surprise for you,” Twilight explained. “I know you always wanted to be a princess whereas I never did, yet destiny saw fit for me to become one while you never did. I would like to rectify fate.”
Sunset blinked, fumbling for words, eventually settling on saying, “You really want me to become a princess?”
“Only for the day,” Twilight said. “My present to you.”
“I…” Sunset’s gaze hit the floor. “I don’t know what to say.”
Twilight poked Sunset’s shoulder with her wing, sporting a playful grin. “You could try always ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”
“Please and thank you, then.” Sunset allowed herself a chuckle.
Twilight nodded curtly, and her smile dropped. Her eyes pierced the unicorn’s. In a deep timbre, she asked, “Sunset Shimmer, can you promise you will do everything in your power to protect Equestria in my absence?”
Sunset giggled. “It’s Hearth’s Warming. I don’t think there will be much to protect.”
Twilight’s gaze stiffened.
“Right.” Sunset bit her lip, then sighed. “You have my word.”
“Perfect!” Twilight’s smile bounced back with just enough tension for Sunset to flinch. Nevertheless, Twilight conjured up a spell, a glow of magic encasing her horn, and as the glow grew, her eyes were forced shut. At once, the escalation of magic crossed a threshold. Twilight’s eyes flung open, pupils replaced with white orbs. The stream of magic threw itself at Sunset, racing in like an all-too-familiar rainbow blast, and as it struck her, Sunset trembled, feeling her own world go black.
Twilight’s magic simmered down, the glow from her horn flickering away and her eyes returning to normal. She waited patiently, staring sympathetically at the tired body of Sunset in front of her, now accented by a pair of wings. Eventually Sunset peaked open her eyes, met by Twilight’s smile.
“Ponyville is yours, Princess Sunset Shimmer,” she said, and silently walked away.
Pacing around her study, not-a-princess Twilight Sparkle triple-checked her list for the day, mumbling to herself, “Fulfill a friend’s childhood fantasy, check. Abdicate my post in a time of crisis, check. Ignore Ponyville monster attack, pending. Enjoy hot cocoa with parents– good, everything’s still on schedule.”
Twilight’s ears perked up, tilting in the direction of the castle entrance as she heard a series of bangs. She gasped.
“No, no, no, the monster attack is supposed to come before my parents’ afternoon train from Canterlot. But if Mom and Dad are here now, I don’t have the tea brewed, and I…” She wheezed, finally cutting herself off with a stern breath. “No, Twilight, let’s not jump to irrational conclusions.”
Alternating between a calm trot and an anxious sprint, she made her way to the castle door. She peaked through the peephole, and exhaled in relief. “See, Twilight? Nothing to worry about, just a few monsters that hit the castle door. No reason to panic.” She nodded curtly to herself, and retrieved a book to occupy herself for the hour before her parents’ scheduled arrival.
Three slight knocks, and in a tinted glow, the door swung open. “Mom! Dad!” Twilight beamed, with a tranquility forgotten since last year this time.
Such tranquility was not reflected by her guests. Twilight Velvet stood to one side, wheezing, and Night Light stood on the other, with the eyes of somepony who just caught a glimpse at an alien. (He did.) “Af– aftertoon, dear,” Twilight Velvet stammered out.
“Hi…” Night Light added blandly, voice trailing off.
If Twilight Sparkle caught onto the tension in the room, she did not show it. She beckoned her hoof towards them. “Come on in, I’ve been expecting you. I hope the train from Canterlot wasn’t too terrible? I know not many ponies travel on Hearth’s Warming Day, but even so, you never know about crowds these days.”
Night Light blinked, following his daughter inside the castle. “Not… not at all. The train was fine. But Ponyville is–”
Twilight waved her hoof, cutting him off. “I’m glad to hear it! I hope it’s alright that I made hot cocoa for the two of us, plus Mom’s favourite herbal tea. I’ve been so busy with work, what with looking over a country and all, that I’ve been looking forward to this calm relaxation for ages.” She led them to the dining room where, true to her word, three hot beverages were placed only minutes ago, steam still swirling above them.
Night Light muttered something to Twilight Velvet, who muttered something back. The two shared a curt nod, and Twilight Velvet cleared her throat. “Twilight, darling, we have also been looking forward to this. But there are… there are monsters outside. You need to do something!”
Twilight shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”
Night Light’s jaw dropped. “You know? How can you be so calm?”
“It’s Hearth’s Warming.” Twilight shrugged again, and sat down in the chair in front of one of the hot cocoas. “Now come on, less worrying about Ponyville politics and more enjoying family. That’s what the holiday’s all about, right?”
“Right.” Night Light replied hesitantly. He shared another glance with his wife, and cautiously, the two sat down in front of their respective drinks. “Do you know if Shining Armor is coming?”
Twilight sighed. “The Crystal Empire doesn’t have quite the same Hearth’s Warming traditions as we do, but he’s still needed with Princess Cadence. Duty calls.”
“I don’t think that’s what he means.” Twilight Velvet took a tentative sip from her tea. “Oh, this is good.”
“Thanks,” Twilight said with an automatic smile.
Twilight Velvet pressed on. “I know our little Shining is Captain of the Royal Guard. I would have thought he would be called to help with a…”
“A monster attack?” Twilight Sparkle frowned, explaining matter-of-factly, “Nah, he only gets called in for serious matters. Like last Tuesday.”
This explanation did not seem to assuage the cold fear painted on her parents’ faces.
A fear that intensified as a boom was heard outside. In the castle window, her parents could make out the sight of a tear in space-time, with more eldritch creatures crawling out of the void and into Ponyville, the latest reinforcements from the aether larger and more menacing. Of course, an observer would be forgiven for assuming the former princess herself was completely oblivious, considering the sight didn’t faze in the slightest.
“Tw– Twilight. What are those… those things?”
Twilight Sparkle glanced to the corner of eye. “Hmm, if everything is going according to schedule, those are timeworms.”
“Time worms?”
“No, timeworms, it’s all one word.” Twilight laughed. What a rookie mistake. “You know, bugs that can fly faster than light. Anyway, so you’ll never believe what happened when I was at the spa with Rarity last week, we–”
“Wait, those things can time travel?”
Twilight grumbled, her story interrupted. “Yeah, but so can I, remember? It’s not that unusual.”
“I think time travel is quite unusual, thank you very much,” Twilight Velvet wheezed.
“If you can time travel, can’t you do something about this?”
Before getting the chance to respond, a feminine voice invaded the conversation from outside, projected over a megaphone.
Citizens of Ponyville. This is Mayor Mare speaking. Habeas corpus is hereby suspended throughout the municipality of Ponyville. The Royal Guard is en route to enforce martial law until the posed threat is resolved. Stay inside and do not open the door for anypony. Thank you for understanding. Oh! And happy Hearth’s Warming, everypony!
Twilight grimaced at the announcement, and for a moment, her parents concluded their daughter still had a glimmer of sanity.
Said hopes were dashed when she hmphed. “That megaphone was at least fifteen decibels above local noise pollution regulations. I should not have to hear such announcements on my day off.”
Whatever he was about to respond, Night Light choked on his words.
Twilight Velvet bit her lip, softening her words. “Twilight Sparkle, honey, we know you’re very busy, and we know it is Hearth’s Warming, but don’t you think you could do a little more for Ponyville?” She blushed. “Not that we don’t want to see you, of course – we do – but we want to make sure everypony is safe.”
Night Light added on in a whining plea, “What about your friends?”
“What about them?” Twilight cocked her head. “They aren’t going to fight on Hearth’s Warming, either. Elements of Harmony deserve a break too.”
“Aren’t you worried about keeping them safe too?”
“Nah,” Twilight rolled her eyes, ever a teenage daughter in the presence of her mother, despite years of accumulated titles. “Applejack and Rainbow Dash are at Sweet Apple Acres, which should be outside the portal radius centered downtown. Last I heard, Fluttershy was spending the holiday with Discord in his realm, so I don’t even think she’s in the universe right now. Rarity is visiting her sister at university in Manehattan, and Pinkie Pie… I don’t think we need to worry about Pinkie Pie. She can handle herself.”
On cue, a pink blur soared up and down across the window, leaving a black void behind her, ripping the fabric of space-time with every bounce. Through the castle walls, a faint high-pitched squee could be made out. “Wee!”
Twilight took a sip of her cocoa, smiling. “See? I told you there’s nothing to worry about. It’s all under control.”
At first too stunned to respond, eventually Twilight Velvet narrowed her eyes. “I would not say that your friends tearing holes in space-time is under control, young lady.” Her daughter opened her mouth, but she cut her off and continued. “And before you tell me that’s no way to speak to the Princess of Equestria, I’ll tell you that no matter how old you get, that’s no way to speak to your mother.”
“Ugh.” Twilight Sparkle grumbled, rolling her head around her neck. “Actually, I was about to say I’m not the Princess of Equestria.”
Twilight Velvet recoiled. “You’re not?”
“Nope,” Twilight said with a kooky grin. “My friend Sunset Shimmer’s filling in for me today, so we can focus on enjoying Hearth’s Warming together. Spaceworms are officially not my problem.”
“Hmmph.” Twilight Velvet took an irritated sip of herbal tea, and her daughter mirrored with a sip of cocoa.
“Wait, spaceworms?” Night Light squinted. “I thought you said Ponyville was under attack from timeworms?”
“Did I?” Twilight blushed, delving off into lecture mode. “In lay man’s terms, spaceworms are were-timeworms, essentially. They are physiologically distinct, posing dramatically different threats, although they occupy the same body. When they are in transit across space-time, they are unified, but when they reenter the time stream, their phenotypic expression is determined by the local time.” She downed the rest of her cocoa. “Look, we’re under no real threat until midnight.”
“That’s reassuring,” Night Light responded with a voice implying anything but.
A quick nod. “If that’s settled, I’ve been really looking forward to this visit. So could we please not talk about the monster du jour? I’m getting a bit bored of the grind at work. I’m feeling a bit burnt out, you know?”
“Even with all the excitement?” Night Light raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know. All the monsters we deal with nowadays look pretty much the same. Sure, their species are different, but the overall monotony of the process is really grating after a while. You ever deal with that at work?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Night Light admitted. “I just thought your job had the potential to be a bit more exciting than staring at stars all day.”
“And I didn’t think writer’s block could apply to leadership,” Twilight Velvet added. “Oh, that reminds me! I was hoping you could look over the rough draft of my new novel. My editor thinks it’s going to my best selling work yet, but that just means the pressure’s all the higher.”
“Of course,” Twilight beamed, relieved the subject of impending doom could finally be changed for more interesting, trivial matters. With a smile, she watched as her mother opened up her saddle bag and produced a set of scrolls corresponding to each chapter of her new tale, which she accepted eagerly in her magic.
“Just don’t spill any cocoa on it,” her mother teased.
“Mom!” Twilight giggled. “That only happened once.”
“What can I say? I have a long memory.”
Twilight shook her head warmly, settling down for a relaxing evening with loved ones and text.
Relaxing for her, anyway. Her parents were ever alternating their gaze between their daughter and the evolving sequence of events projected on the castle window.
The ticking of the clock creeping towards midnight was punctuated by a series of deafening screams outside, a level of holiday “excitement” of which even Twilight took notice.
“Wh– what was that?” Twilight Velvet shuddered.
“It’s midnight.” Twilight Sparkle deadpanned. “They’re transforming.”
Night Light shivered. “Can’t you do something?”
Twilight Velvet tagged on with strain, “Please.”
A deep sigh. “Fine,” she relented. “I might be out there a while, though. I love you guys.”
“Love you too,” her parents replied in unison.
With a nod, Twilight spread her wings and departed the castle in a teleporting pop.
On the other side of the teleport, Twilight was greeted by the dark midnight air, finding herself surrounded by a mixture of spaceworms and timeworms, with transformations in progress. She panned her eyes around the dreary downtown scene, and found Princess Sunset Shimmer casting defense spells across Ponyville, sweat dirtying her mane and exhaustion weighing down her eyes.
“Time’s up,” Twilight announced in an annoyed monotone. “I’d be happy to let you continue this for a little while, but Mom and Dad say I need to deal with this. So I guess I can take my alicorn magic back.”
Sunset rolled her head back, sighing deeply. “I thought you’d never ask.” With a breath, she repeated the alicorn magic transfer process, intuitively aware of the procedure, having inherited the magic in the first place, and in a routine shaking up of the forces of Equestria, Sunset was restored to her role as a civilian and Twilight to hers as the ruler of the land.
A bit disoriented, Sunset made her way to Twilight and nestled her in a hug. “I guess I learned my lesson: be careful what I wish for.”
Twilight returned the hug. “Indeed. Hey, is Rainbow Dash here? I know she was excited for this.”
Sunset shook her head, and Twilight cast a paging spell.
A rainbow blur flew its way downtown from Sweet Apple Acres in ten seconds flat, and didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt for invoking a worn-out cliché given the absurdity of the situation.
“I’m here, I’m here,” Rainbow screeched to a halt next to the princess.
“About time.” Twilight groaned.
Rainbow recoiled. “Geez, Twi, what gives?”
Twilight threw a dirty glare at Sunset, who blushed awkwardly and with a quick cough said, “I think that might be my fault. See, I sort of underestimated how difficult alicorn magic would be to use after having hands for so long.”
Twilight shook her head. “You had one job.”
Rainbow cleared her throat, pointing her head at a massive segmented invader slithering in and out of the time stream, creating visible cracks in its path.
“Go ahead.” Twilight sighed, cueing Rainbow to grin as she charged at the worm from behind, grabbing it in a wing lock and smashing it with her hoof until it was unable to sustain itself, as it dropped to the ground with finality.
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you could be a bit less violent about it?”
“You had your chance,” Twilight replied. “But if you were wondering what you were supposed to do with all of that magic I entrusted with you…” She eyed a trio of worms in the distance, and squinting slightly to lock eyes, she ejected a blinding white stream of magic from her horn, diverging threefold to hit each simultaneously, disintegrating them immediately upon contact. With a hint of amusement, she said, “That’s how it’s done.”
“Hey, Sunset?” Rainbow stuck her tongue out. “Who looks cooler fighting, me or Twilight?”
Sunset stepped back. “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”
“You’re just afraid of hurting Twilight’s feelings.” Rainbow chuckled.
Ignoring the dialogue, Twilight disintegrated four more worms with the same stroke of magic.
Rainbow, for her part, flew off and beat up five until they past the point of no return.
Neither of them noticed when Sunset bit her lip and retreated inside.
After several iterations of destroying progressively more creatures, the relentless battle of one-upmanship paused to observe pink streaks jumping in from the horizon. Behind their oscillating tails, rips in space-time zipped back up, complete with the comic crunch sound effects of a metal zipper. With each bounce, the pink grew a bit bigger, until finally passing Princess Twilight with a high-pitch crunch under the influence of the Doppler effect, once again receding into the distance.
Although Twilight registered no shock at the occurrence, Rainbow Dash dropped her jaw. “What was that?” she shouted.
“Convergent bounces.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow.
“A Pie family secret. The mechanism is unknown to experts in thaumaturgy and physicists alike, but you can’t doubt the results.” She lowered her voice. “So, just Pinkie being Pinkie.”
Rainbow nodded.
Hesitatingly, Twilight added with a whisper, “Of course, none of this would have happened without divergent bounces, but it was Hearth’s Warming for Pinkie too. Nopony is hurt, and everypony wins.” She looked around the ghost of Ponyville in the dead of night, most of the visible occupants soldiers keeping the peace. “Well, most everypony.”
Rainbow rounded her lips. “Have your cake and eat it too?”
Twilight flopped back her ears. “Something like that.”
Despite the hour, a megaphone boomed as the pink blurs slowed down and the final rips in the aether were repaired.
Citizens of Ponyville! It is with great pleasure I hereby declare Ponyville safe and sound! All crisis provisions are hereby nullified. Any follow-up questions may be addressed in my office on Monday. Please remember that under the Edict of Sparkle, the day after a monster attack is a statutory holiday. Thank you, and happy holidays to all!
Twilight smiled at the pronouncement. Although the worms were not entirely banished, the disaster was averted. Indeed, at the proclamation, the visiting members of the Royal Guard assembled in formation to return to Canterlot.
Finally, the parents of the resident princess emerged bleary-eyed but with strained, faint smiles from the Castle of Friendship.
“You did it,” Night Light declared as a mere statement of fact, devoid of doubt or pride.
“I just don’t understand what took so long,” Twilight Velvet added, assuredly under the influence of lack of a sleep and perhaps a private stash of eggnog. “I nagged you to deal with this hours ago.”
Twilight Sparkle averted her eyes. “You could have nagged earlier?”
“It’s always the mother’s fault,” Twilight Velvet scoffed with a smile.
Twilight returned the smile sheepishly. “Anyway, different day, different holiday,” she explained nonchalantly, pausing to shoot a laser at a remaining worm. “Yesterday was Hearth’s Warming.”
Rainbow Dash dived from above, punching and kicking some oversize worms in her path as she descended down to Twilight at ground level. Pausing to catch her breath, she smirked as she completed Twilight’s sentence.
“And today’s Boxing Day.”
