An Off Day

by Dream Seeker

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1833

Twilight Sparkle stays home today. It's not a good day.

Some days are good days, and some days are bad days. Nothing is wrong in particular that Twilight can put her hoof on, but today is decidedly not one of the good ones.

Published 2024-10-03 15:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-10-03 15:00:00 UTC

My Home Is My Castle

Twilight could immediately tell that today was not going to be a good day. Faint moonlight slipped through the cracks of her window, informing her that she'd awoken before her alarm, and all was still and quiet. She lay in bed, unblinking, wishing that she was tired, but it was obvious that sleep would not reclaim her and mercifully shorten the day for her. With a soft sigh, she rolled out of bed to seek out a distraction from the creeping sensation of today's inherent badness. For a moment, she considered visiting a friend, but the moonlight's glint off of the mirror reminded her that it was far too early to even consider it. With a groan, she slowly trotted downstairs, taking a deep breath as she gazed at the books in the library around her. With a soft smile, the pressure relaxed just a touch at the perfect organization. Everything was exactly as she had ordered it. Her home was her castle, and inside, she was safe, no matter what the sensations told her. She knew, rationally, that this was true, but the physical reminder of order somehow helped beyond what pure logic could do for her. With another deep breath, she could almost believe that today didn't have to be a bad day.

Breakfast was not helping. The slight peace she'd managed to reclaim earlier was already gone like dust in the wind, and she sat staring at the cold oatmeal in front of her. She grimaced as she levitated another spoonful into her mouth, swallowing effortfully as the already cold food failed to provide her with any meaningful appreciation for life. This should taste good. Eating should be pleasant, she knew, but today, it simply wasn't. Every bite was a chore, but if she didn't eat, she would starve. On average, ponies needed to consume a certain amount of energy in order to maintain optimal physical and mental performance. Twilight knew this, and this fact was the only reason she could convince herself to stomach another bite. If she did not eat enough today, she would regret it tomorrow, if tomorrow was a good day. She hoped that tomorrow would be a good day. The silence was eerie as she stared down at her food. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry- She was starving, actually. She simply didn't feel like eating. Twilight managed to take one final bite before pushing the bowl to the side, resolving to clean it later. Trotting back to her room, she pulled the most recent book she'd been reading from the shelf and curled up under the covers. The bed was soft and warm, she knew, and that could help.

Some days, reading could transform a bad day into something special. Today was not one of those days. Twilight frowned as her gaze ran over the same page for the tenth time, only realizing at the end of the page that she had no recollection of the meaning of the words she had only just read, and started over again. On her best days, she was an incredible reader who could read a half-dozen books before lunch with near-perfect recall. This was the image she presented to her friends, her parents, to Princess Celestia, and everypony around her. Spike was the only one who had seen her like this, unable to process a single page no matter how many times she read it, no matter how slowly or quickly or deliberately, even reading aloud in a desperate attempt to maintain a hold on the precious words. Twilight wished he was here, but he wasn't, not today. This weekend, he was having a sleepover with the Crusaders, and she would never dream of pulling him away for her own selfish wants, even though he would have gladly come to sit with her. Gazing outside, the sun had risen, bringing a soft smile to her face at the reminder of the passage of time. No matter how terrible today was, this was a reminder that time passes, and with the passage of time, she knew that there would be other days, and that some of those days would be better than today. Some of those days, she would smile, and laugh, and experience the joys of life, and those days made life worth living.

The rising of the sun brought with it the options of going on an excursion. Twilight didn't feel like leaving her home, not at all. Her home was her castle, after all, and in it, she was safe, no matter how she felt. That thought again brought with it a wave of comfort. But logically, she also knew that leaving and spending time with friends, or even just going somewhere and doing something had a chance of drawing her out of the bad day, so it had to be at least considered.

She considered her friends, first. She could visit Pinkie Pie, who was always cheerful, infectiously so, and with luck, Pinkie could infect her with that cheer and bring a smile to a day like today. On the other hoof, however, Twilight knew that Pinkie hid troubles of her own, and she was deathly afraid of instead allowing her own nameless, factually illogical anxieties and miseries to instead infect Pinkie. Pinkie Pie didn't deserve that, and so, Twilight moved on.

She could visit Fluttershy, for a quieter but no less lovely day. Between the eerie silence that still clung to her ears between the sounds of Ponyville's daily routine and mental images of sitting in awkward silence with Fluttershy, both having difficulty speaking today, however, that idea too was dismissed.

Visiting Rarity promised a much more talkative speaking partner who wouldn't even notice her quiet days, she knew from experience. Or, if she did notice, she politely refrained from mentioning it, and easily carried the conversation. On the other hoof, outings with Rarity could also be very mentally taxing, as she struggled to try to match Rarity's polite energy and keep up with the conversation. On even a normal bad day, that would be fine, but today, she just couldn't stomach the energy for that.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were chaperoning the Crusaders and Spike, and as such weren't even an option today, though in her heart Twilight could tell that if they were, she'd be able to construct some reason why visiting them wouldn't be any better than the others. With a sigh, Twilight put her head down in her pillow and closed her eyes, realizing that today wasn't a day where she would escape to her friends. In fact, at this point, she could tell that leaving the house wasn't on the table at all. She knew she should at least consider other options for excursions, but she could feel the truth in her bones, stronger than any logical argument she could form.

With books and friendship failing her, Twilight was alone with her thoughts, so she rolled onto her back and drifted into confronting them instead. It was likely a futile endeavor, but perhaps today, she would find a new argument, a new philosophy, a new weapon to fight back with. With that in mind, she asked the all-important question: Why was today a bad day? What was wrong?

Thoughts drifted through her mind, each one picked up, analyzed, and set aside in her quest for the answer. Past mistakes didn't fit. There was no task she had been forgetting or anticipating. There were no signs of a physical illness. Eating and drinking had not helped, so it wasn't an imbalance caused by hunger. Her future was secure. She was loved. There was no unmet need in her life. Yet still, the sensation would not abate. Without an answer to this question- Without a reason for today being a bad day- How could she possibly address it, and make the day better?

With the attempt at identifying the problem still unresolved, Twilight moved on to answer the second question. Even without a fundamental cause for the bad day, she could potentially resolve it empirically by looking at past bad days, and how they had been improved. Obviously, she had already tried the solutions that worked most commonly, but perhaps her memories could hold more clues for relief. Drifting through her memories, a few other ideas floated to her mind. She hadn't yet tried re-organizing and scheduling, two nice, easy, orderly activities that gave her a sense of progress and reminded her of the order of her life. Her home was her castle, after all, and organizing it drove that point home.

A frown crossed her muzzle as she reconsidered a thought she had almost allowed to slip by unexamined. Re-organizing gave her a sense of progress. That was an interesting way to phrase it in her head, as it implied that she was currently lacking a sense of progress, that re-organizing would temporarily fix, and additionally, that lacking this sense of progress was tied to her sensation of today's bad day. Focusing on that thought confirmed it, and she filed that away in her mind as at least a partial cause of her present state.

Progress. What was she progressing towards? That question brought up another realization. When she had been examining what was missing, she had been unable to find any answer. Ironically, that may itself have been the answer. She had everything she wanted, right now, which meant there was no goal to reach towards, therefore no purpose that she could make progress towards. This, therefore, needed to be addressed.

Brightening, Twilight rolled back out of her bed, levitating her book to the nightstand as she trotted back downstairs, and then further down, to the basement laboratory. If she needed a goal to make progress towards, science provided an obvious clear direction to make progress, so she examined the materials she had that she could consider as a next research subject. Already, she could feel herself energizing, the day improving dramatically as the thought of meeting a new challenge and accomplishing something spoke to her core. Her gaze drifted to a potion, and she considered that a foray into potions would do her good. In fact, considering it, she actually felt good enough to step outside and take a trot through the Everfree to visit Zecora and ask her for advice about setting up equipment for potionmaking in her own basement. With a plan in place, Twilight's smile widened slightly, and she trotted back upstairs to prepare. Gazing out the window, the sun indicated that it was past noon, but there was still enough time in the day to go outside. With a deep breath, saddlebags on, mane finally combed, and having stuffed a bit more food into her stomach, Twilight opened the door and stepped into the sunlight.

Today may have not been a good day, but perhaps it didn't have to be such a bad day, either.