Twilight Sparkle's Very Bad Night
Twilight Sparkle was a pony, and she lived inside a tree, in the town of Ponyville.
She didn't live there by herself! She also had a little dragon friend, who was also her assistant and her younger brother. He was named Spike, because he had a frill on his head (kind of like a pony's mane, but narrower) and the frill had pointy bits.
The tree had a lot of bookshelves and books inside, which Twilight liked, because she loved to read. Sometimes the tree also had other ponies inside it, because the tree was the town library!
Twilight lived in a smaller room above the ground floor, which was good because it let her be alone sometimes. Her little brother slept in a basket at the foot of her bed, but she was used to him so that was ok.
Twilight hadn't always lived in the town of Ponyville. Until recently, she'd lived in a tower room in the city of Canterlot, capital of Equestria. The tower room was in a building at the edge of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Twilight had moved in partway through her studies at the school, and she'd never wanted to move out.
Even after Twilight passed all the classes she needed to get a Magic Degree, she'd told her teachers and school counselors, "No, I don't need to graduate. What I need is to learn everything about magic. Canterlot has the best libraries in the world, and the School has a lot of good professors and elective classes and special labs, so this is the place I should stay."
Twilight was very smart, and very powerful at magic. Maybe the professors and counselors found her intimidating. Maybe they remembered how, when Twilight had been only six years old and taking her entrance exam for the School, she'd accidentally turned two ponies into plants, and blown holes in the exam hall's wall and roof by turning a dragon egg into a huge grown up dragon, big as a house and twice as dangerous! (Equestrian houses could be very, very dangerous, but that comes later in this story, or perhaps in a different story completely.)
But turning ponies into pot plants and blowing holes in the roof and so on had turned out ok, because the exam was interrupted when Equestria's top noble, Princess Celestia, had noticed the giant dragon making a mess of her capital. Celestia had flown to the exam, magically turned the giant dragon into a little baby dragon, and changed the pot plants back into dragons. I mean, ponies. She did change the plants into dragons for a minute, but soon she noticed her mistake and turned them back into the ponies they'd been.
Celestia had also magically repaired the holes in the roof and walls. Years later, Twilight would remember how the holes were fixed in a flash of magic, and she'd wonder about it. Did Celestia enjoy repairing holes in things, or was it just a tiresome duty?
From the way Celestia smiled as she filled the holes in, Twilight suspected Celestia really liked doing it. Did Celestia have a grudge against holes in walls and roofs for some reason? Did Celestia enjoy destroying them?
But that isn't part of this story, or at least it isn't part of this story right now.
Maybe one reason (another reason?) Twilight had been allowed to remain at the School for so long (even after she'd fulfilled the graduation requirements at least twice over, and probably qualified for at least three Magical Doctorates) was quite straightforward. When Twilight had been only six years old, the school's professors had seen Twilight and Celestia make friends with each other (so far as a six year old foal and a large alicorn pony thousands of years old can make friends, at least.) In any case, ponies who worked at the school had seen Celestia pet and fuss over the little foal. When Celestia started specially tutoring the foal in magic, that had only done even more to convince the professors that Twilight was very, very special, whether they wanted her to be or not.
Late one night, when Twilight was sleeping, she had an unpleasant dream.
She was in her tower room, surrounded by some of her many books, and there seemed to be an earthquake!
Something was shaking the little pony from side to side, and up and down. She was tipped right out of her bed.
Then she woke up. She was on the floor, and five guard ponies were in her room, along with Princess Celestia herself!
Twilight looked up at Princess Celestia. "Could you get these other ponies out of my room?" Twilight said. "They're bothering me."
Celestia said, "Are they bothering you? They're here to help you."
"I don't want any help. I want to sleep."
Celestia explained, "These ponies are here to help you pack up a few things and move out. You can take as much as will fit into the chariot parked on the balcony. But don't try to take too much, because if you do, it will just fall out of the chariot, over the sides."
"I don't want to move. Go away."
"I didn't say you had a choice, Twilight." The guards picked up whatever happened to be closest, and threw those things into the chariot. Of all the things they tossed in, one of the last things was Twilight herself.
Twilight screamed. "Don't leave my brother here! I'm the only pony who knows how to take care of a baby dragon! And don't forget his basket, either! A little dragon needs a cozy place to sleep!"
The guards picked up the little basket with the baby dragon still inside, and put it into the chariot. To make room, they threw several books out over the edge.
Moments later, Twilight was looking out of the chariot, down at mostly sleeping Canterlot, while pegasus guards pulled the chariot over Canterlot, and away over the countryside.
If she wasn't being thrown out of the only place she'd lived since she was a little foal, it would have been a beautiful sight, the stars twinkling in the sky, and the lights of Canterlot glittering underneath.
But Twilight was having to leave the place that, to her, felt like her true and only home. She couldn't appreciate the view at all.
She hugged her baby dragon for a little warmth, wrapping his blanket around him and herself both, and shivered.
She told herself her eyes were only watering because of the harsh wind in her eyes. She was too old and too clever to cry. She was smarter than any of her professors! She would find a way to fix this problem, and make everypony sorry, all the guards and even Princess Celestia!
Sometime very soon, starting tomorrow morning!
An hour later, the pegasi landed the chariot in front of an enormous tree. A pegasus used his mouth to give Twilight a key, and told her to unlock the front door.
After Twilight opened the door, the pegasi picked up the chariot's contents in their mouths, and carried everything upstairs. Once everything was dumped on the bedroom floor, the chief pegasus guard said, "Sorry we had to move you so suddenly, miss. But it's our job to obey the princess and do as we're told." He led the other pegasi downstairs and out the front door, where they hitched themselves to the chariot and flew away.
Twilight curled up on the floor. She said, "Princess Celestia, I hate you so much." She cried herself to sleep.
And that's the story of how Twilight came to live in Ponyville!
Author's Note
As you can see, Twilight Sparkle is one of my favorite ponies and I love to write about her!
