Twilight Sparkle
‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,’
Twilight Sparkle’s hoof caressed the the thick, yellowed parchment of the page. It wasn’t a first edition, but it was a second edition, which made it over a hundred years old - and she might well be the only pony to have read it. Poe had been a miserable unicorn who’d lived during what, in retrospect, had been Equestria’s golden age. The zenith of Celestia’s rule. At the time, nopony had welcomed the heartfelt outpouring of his misery, much understood it.
Filly Twilight Sparkle hadn’t, when she’d turned that first page, a mere decade ago.
How a pony’s life could change, in a decade.
A pony’s life, she knew, could change in the frozen moment between one heartbeat and the next. Hers had.
Because I was weak, she thought. If I’d been stronger, more equal to the test, then I could’ve saved Equestria. I could’ve saved them.
Adult Twilight Sparkle, grown up too soon and always too tired, knew Poe had just been ahead of his time. If he’d lived my days, Twilight thought, he’d have seen his nightmare worlds of imagination made real. He’d have seen a platinum blonde bombshell named Trixie lay waste to Celestia’s Equestria.
All Twilight’s midnights were dreary, now. I never realised how much of the night’s beauty derived from Luna’s flair. She’d had to give up astronomy, and it had not missed her. Half-a-hundred ponies had taken her place, in the rebuilt Royal Canterlot Observatory; and half-a-thousand more behind ‘amateur’ telescopes that surpassed the official one that still sat on her library’s balcony. I probably ought to sell it, she thought, but then, it probably isn’t worth much anymore. The world had swept onwards, past Celestia’s gifts.
Past Celestia herself.
The new breed of astronomer ponies called their studies scientific, and proudly so, denigrating the work that’d gone before - her work - to the status of artistic critiques of Luna’s whimsy.
That hadn’t been why she’d retired.
I couldn’t face her, night after night and for every night to come: The Nightmare in the Moon, staring Luna’s accusation down at her. There was no defence. She’d been the focus. The responsibility had been hers, and so too the blame.
I wasn’t worthy of wielding the Elements of Harmony.
How had Celestia borne this burden for a thousand years? Twilight wondered. She couldn’t imagine it. “Eighty eight years, four months, seven days left,” she whispered to herself. She knew it was silly. The standard deviation from the actuarial tables was significant, to say the least.
And my life expectancy could fall precipitously, she thought, depending on whether or not some ponies - one Trixie pony in particular - were holding a grudge. Frankly, she thought it very likely. She seemed the type.
Twilight sighed. It was exhausting to read, but worse, far worse, not to. Somepony could read to her - but Rarity had Sweetie and Fluttershy her critters. Applejack had the farm and Pinkie Sugarcube Corner, and the ponies that depended upon the bits those businesses provided: Applebloom and Granny Smith; Pound and Pumpkin Cake.
Rainbow Dash, of course, would be willing - but Rainbow Dash was the physical embodiment of Twilight’s failure, followed by the betrayal of everything she’d ever believed in.
So, exhausted, she found somehow the strength to drown her own morbid thoughts in Poe’s:
‘While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.’
Then came the rap of a pony’s hoof upon her library’s door.
Twilight Sparkle startled, and the book tumbled to the floor.
Of course, she told herself, it’s just a pony. Rainbow Dash, perhaps, offering to read to me. Or some other creature bound to peace by Equestrian law. Except it might be the agents of that law, come to disappear her into the night. If a unicorn screams in the night, and nopony hears - if nopony will admit to hearing - then did she still make a sound?
Still, it probably wasn’t. It was probably one of her friends seeking to share a quiet pre-festival whine over wine, or Mayor Mare demanding some-last minute arrangement, or... the inevitability of her disappearance hung over every innocuous visit, be they far more likely than the knock that would - could - only come once.
Louder, more insistent, the rap sounded again.
She sighed and trotted to the door. The book remained where it had fallen. Open, which presaged her return to close it - leaving it that way would damage the spine - but even incarcerated, she could finish the poem, for she knew ‘the Raven’ by heart. The door and its minor mystery beckoned.
On no test had Twilight Sparkle ever left a question unanswered.
She opened it.
Trixie stood in the flickering lamplight outside her chamber door, and it threw her shadow down along the floor.
A fey calmness settled over her, that, finally, the worst had happened.
“Of all the possible Trixies wandering the countryside,” Twilight said, “all save one seek to draw assassination down upon themselves,” she sniffed, “the better to identify traitors to the crown. Or so they say. I think Trixie just likes the personal projection of power. Therefore,” Twilight continued, “Bayesian statistics predicts that you are a changeling. Have you come to take me away?”
Trixie thought about this.
“I’m real, Twilight,” Trixie said.
Twilight thought about that.
“That being true,” she said slowly, “what’s to stop me killing you where you stand? I ought to - and you, knowing that, certainly would not come.”
“You’re a very talented mage, Twilight,” said Trixie, “but I am not afraid. You were allowed unprecedented privileges with the Canterlot Archives, in Celestia’s time. Even the Princess’s personal library. But I don’t ask for permission to access those collections now - I grant it.”
True, thought Twilight, to what was left of them.
Not that that mattered. A lifetime could’ve been lost, or profitably spent, in Celestia’s libraries, private and public. Even the remnants were a powerful accumulation of lore.
“I’ve fought a war,” Trixie continued, “and won it, facing opponents far more deadly than you. Including you - and neither my teacher nor I have been idle this past year.” Trixie sniffed. “Whilst you minuted meetings, wrote reports and read them.”
Meetings you put me in, Twilight Sparkle thought.
“Meetings you put me in,” Twilight Sparkle said.
“Yes,” Trixie replied. “Please may I come in?”
“The real ‘Great and Powerful’ Trixie would never say ‘please’,” Twilight said, with the air of a mare sealing an irrefutable case.
Trixie sighed.
“When I first came to Ponyville, I performed a magic show, during which I embarrassed your friends Rainbow Dash-” Twilight thought she kept the grimace of pain from her face “-Applejack, and turned Rarity’s mane into a bird’s nest. I claimed to have subdued an Ursa Major. Later, two impressionable foals roused an Ursa Minor from the Everfree, that they might witness my defeating it. I failed, ignominiously - a twist of rope, a minute thunderhead,” Trixie chuckled. “I was pathetic. Your magic and your wisdom returned it, settled and soothed, to its dam.”
As she spoke, Twilight’s eyes widened to the size of dinnerplates. “I can believe you’d brief your enforcers on the event,” she said, “but you’d never tell them you were pitiful.” In truth, and in retrospect, Twilight didn’t think Trixie had been. Who, after all, was the braver mare - the one who’d faced an Ursa, foals behind her, with no idea what she was doing, or the one who’d found the matter a trivial piece of baby-skybear-sitting? Then what had followed... Twilight had faced Nightmare Moon because she had to. Trixie had faced her out of choice, and then Celestia herself... Trixie had done an incredible thing. A terrible, unbelievable thing that should not have been done, but still... Brave didn’t begin to cover it.
“Should I tell Spike to forward my mail to Canterlot’s dungeons?” Twilight asked.
“No,” said Trixie. “If you’ll recall, I requested entrance. Do you have tea?”
“Do I have tea?” Twilight muttered, as she backed from the door in wordless invitation. She might have acquiesce to Trixie’s presence, but she didn’t have to like it. “Of course I have tea.” The very question was insulting. Naturally she had Princess Celestia’s favourite tea. How could she not.
On the other hand, she did kind of hate the stuff.
At least making it provided a distraction from Trixie’s presence.
“Trixie,” Twilight said. “Why are you here?”
“Why, I wanted to thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Trixie said. “I’ve been quite remiss. If you hadn’t sealed Nightmare Moon when you did, I almost certainly would’ve been killed.”
“She murdered fifty-” Twilight cut herself off. “It wasn’t for you.”
“But it did save me,” Trixie shot back, “and not coincidentally handed me the Crown of Equestria. On the whole, I’ve nothing to complain about. So to show my gratitude, I’ve brought you a present.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Twilight said resolutely. There was a pause. “It isn’t a book, is it?”
“Well...” Trixie replied, “not exactly. In any case if that reasoning makes you uncomfortable, then let’s say instead that it’s a reward for your work on the War Crimes Commission, which was exemplary.”
“Ponies who should be chained in collars trotted free because of my work on the War Crimes Commission!” Twilight snapped. “You should know - you were the one who hoofstamped the bill into law!”
“Which I could not have done without the tireless reportage of somepony indubitably in Celestia’s camp.” Trixie examined her hoof, ostentatiously. “If you didn’t want me to implement the doctrine of Love and Toleration, why did you recommend it?”
Dangling above the fireplace, the teakettle screamed.
Because you’d have killed Rainbow Dash.
Twilight’s magic drew the pot from the flames, as her mind withdrew from the painful heat of the thought.
That was an answer. It wasn’t, strictly, true. But there was enough evidence to put her behind bars for a decade. What would that have done to her..? The best flying years of a pegasus’s life, shut in an eight-by-five-by-five cell, with fifteen daily minutes in a ten-thousand-cubic-foot pen. It sounded a lot, but it was only a hundred feet on a side. It would’ve been kinder to execute her and have done.
Yet... how easy it was for Twilight to forgive, and forget the nameless faceless ponies who’d been Dash’s victims. Because it had been war? Because it had been done at the Princess’s command? Because Rainbow was her friend?
Wherein lay justice?
In tea, perhaps, Twilight thought, as she poured water she knew to be too hot over the tea leaves. Blended with the delicate essence of jasmine flowers, they would now scald, leaving the flavour bruised.
A minor act of rebellion.
I ought to brew this with hemlock - and share it with her.
Certainly nopony would survive assassinating the Great and Powerful Trixie, and Queen Chrysalis would ensure their death was excruciating.
Besides, Twilight Sparkle’s kitchen was woefully understocked with hemlock.
Maybe I should have Zecora pick me some, in case Trixie drops by for tea again?
Would that be justice, either?
Where did it lie?
Not in hemlock tea. Nor, Twilight knew, had she found it in herself. So, as Trixie must’ve known she would, she’d pushed and prodded and poked the War Crimes Commission into its recommendation: Love and Toleration.
Clemency for all, not because of her strength but because of her weakness.
It wasn’t because she hated Rainbow Dash that Twilight couldn’t face her - it was because she hated herself.
Now Trixie proposed to reward her for it.
“Your gift’s, ah, outside,” Trixie said, as Twilight poured the bruised tea from fine china pot to fine china cups. “If you’ll follow me?”
Teacups suspended in a loose telekinetic grip, Twilight followed her.
When Trixie stepped aside, Twilight nearly dropped them.
“It’s Trixie’s dream-caravan,” Trixie said, “but since Trixie has no time to use it, she decided to give it to you.”
It was definitely the wagon Twilight remembered. She’d spent the night the Ursa Minor came to Ponyville picking through its wreckage, salvaging what little she could, in case Trixie ever wanted to come back for it.
Trixie never had.
“But... I already have a home,” Twilight replied. “I live here, in Pony- I mean,” she stammered, “in Trixieville library. I don’t need a wagon.”
“It’s not a wagon, it’s a caravan,” Trixie said, her muzzle tilting up slightly, “and everypony should have a caravan. You never know when you might need one. It pays to be prepared.” Twilight sipped her tea. It was vile, as always, made worse by the fact that she’d made it wrong. “Anyway, you don’t own the library-tree. It’s the publicly owned property of the Township of Trixieville.” The tea, however, was still moderately less vile than Trixie.
“That isn’t going to be a law, is it?” Twilight asked. “Since I doubt everypony could afford a-” it wasn’t worth antagonising a mare as powerful as Trixie over “-caravan like this.”
Nor would anypony with good taste want one.
“Hah!” Trixie said. “Not one like this, no. The curtains are finest Neighponese silks,” in Twilight-mane purple, which I suppose is a kinder touch than Trixie-coat blue; “the roof is finished in finely ground rubies,” which will attract dragons; “the siding is twenty-four carat gold, though I’m afraid the wheels, drawbar and chassis are only nine carats. They simply wouldn’t have been hardy enough otherwise.”
“Trixie!” Twilight blurted. “That’s a fortune. Where did you even get it.”
Trixie smiled. “Technically, it’s part of the Royal Equestrian Treasury Reserve,” she said, breaking into a grin as she did so. “Don’t sell it.”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
Trixie blinked. “I can do whatever I want,” she said, and sipped her tea.
After all, who’s to stop you, thought Twilight. At one time, the answer to that question would’ve been Princess Celestia. At one point, it would’ve been Twilight Sparkle.
At least my failure’s in good company, she thought. Still, she had to say something. “Isn’t that a bit, well,” Twilight said, knowing it was a bad idea and yet, somehow unable to stop the word popping from her lips: “Irresponsible?”
“I don’t see why,” Trixie replied. “It’s probably safer in your keeping than locked up in the Royal Reserve.” She paused. “You can be trusted, can’t you?”
“Of course,” Twilight blurted. It was just who she was. Being trusted was, after all, just another kind of test. “But... isn’t it impractically soft and really heavy for a working vehicle?”
“I thought you lived permanently in Ponyville? What do you care? Besides,” Trixie said, and Twilight could feel Trixie’s eyes tracing her flanks. It was... kind of tingly. “Been hitting the books a little hard recently, have we Twi? Looks like you could do with the workout once in awhile.” Tingly and unpleasant, Twilight thought.
Who told you you could call me ‘Twi’? Only my friends call me Twi.
The friends you’ve been pushing away?
“Coffee to keep you up and chocolate to light your horn?” Trixie continued.
That, unfortunately, was true. The problem was that magical drain wore you out, made you want to eat... but it didn’t tone your muscles or pull the flab off your flanks.
“Not that they’re not lovely flanks,” Trixie continued, and Twi blinked. She didn’t think Trixie was a mind-reader, but she hadn’t thought Trixie could conquer Equestria, either - and who knew what kind of tricks Chrysalis was teaching Trixie. “Could just do with being a bit less of them. You wouldn’t want your cutiemark to get stretched out of shape, now would you?”
A droplet of rain splashed into Twilight’s cup. Jasmine scented tea scattered from its impact, one drop splattered to her nose, which wrinkled and-
“Atchoo,” went Twilight Sparkle.
“A perfect time for me to show you the interior,” Trixie said, “since you’re obviously nursing a cold, and I don’t want to get my mane wet.”
Twilight followed Trixie’s rump up the steps into the wagon.
Inside, it was just as ostentatious as she’d feared, though there wasn’t remotely enough room for sufficient books on the tiny shelf provided for them - although in fairness, filling two such wagons cubic volume solidly with books would not have met Twilight’s criteria for ‘sufficient’. “Why are there six beds?” Twilight asked. Although, really, they hardly deserved the word. There wasn’t a single bed, but rather two sets of three-deep stacks, with neither sufficient width nor headroom. Ironically, a single bed would’ve been plenty wide enough for one in comfort, or - Twilight blushed - two, if they didn’t mind snuggling.
She didn’t have a special somepony in her life.
You don’t deserve to have a special somepony in your life, she thought.
“Well, I thought you might want to go camping with your Element of Harmony friends,” Trixie said.
Twilight’s brain hiccuped at the thought of Rarity, camping. Pinkie Pie or Applejack might get a kick out of it, but they couldn’t leave their businesses. Fluttershy would want to bring her menagerie, which would surely end with an infested wagon, and Rainbow Dash... even if she weren’t too painful to face and too awesome for any such thing, there was no way she’d sleep on anything less comfy than a cloudbed.
“Sparkle?” Trixie said, noticing Twilight’s woolgathering, and turning to face her. “Trixie knows she’s got a great ass, but-”
In the tight confines of the caravan, their horns brushed together.
Lightning sparked between them.
Trixie gasped first, but only because her mouth was open.
Twilight’s teacup dropped to shatter, unheeded, on the floor.
Sparking was a very clear biological message which spoke to a very deep sexual compatibility. Nature’s way of saying: ‘Marry this unicorn, and make lots and lots of powerful unicorn ponies together.’ Twilight had sparked all three alicorns, but never another unicorn. Princess Celestia had been... quite insistent on the acceptable boundaries of a student-teacher relationship, then she’d gone to Ponyville and they’d shifted into mentor-protege, which had given her hope that one day-
-but Celestia’s reign had ended before that day had ever come. It’s mere prospect; however, had been enough to scupper any more intimate relationship with Luna. Luna who was, yes, tall with an incredible length of horn, but not quite tall nor long enough for Twilight, and anyway hair and coat both were a dozen shades too dark. Twilight hadn’t wanted to settle, and Luna would’ve known she was doing so anyway. Luna, who had once upturned the world in bitterness at being second-loved to her sister.
Then had come those madcap grief-ravaged days, when they might’ve but-hadn’t seized the moment, then it had been too late for Luna, too.
Cadance... her spark with Cadance had been in the crystal caverns beneath the Canterhorn. On the morning of Cadance’s marriage to her brother. The alternate possibility had been lost, years lost, by then.
“You have to believe that’s never happened to me before!” Twilight Sparkle blurted. “Not with any other unicorn,” she continued, taking a half-hoofstep forward. She was abruptly aware that this was a bedroom.
Trixie took a half-hoofstep back. “Accidents happen,” she acknowledged carefully.
“Yes...” Twilight said, “they do... but when somepony gives a pony an extravagant, deeply personal gift... and gives it to that pony in a bedroom... then their horns ‘accidentally’ brush, and they spark,” Twilight stepped towards Trixie, “a pony might think that that somepony meant for an ‘accident’ to occur.”
Broken fine china crunched beneath Twilight’s horseshoes.
“Ow!” Twilight shrieked. “Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!”
Thick pony blood swirled into the tea pooled on the caravan’s floor.
“Lie on the bed,” Trixie snapped, as her magic swept the remaining shards away, “take the weight off it.”
The medical kit she pulled from the caravan’s back wall was more suited to a battlefield trauma centre. In fact, Twilight noticed, by its labelling it was from a battlefield trauma centre.
Trixie’s magic guided her hoof to Trixie’s face. “It’s not deep,” Trixie said, “but the shard’s still in there. It’s going to get bloody when I pull it out. You need to press this,” she floated a compress into Twilight’s grasp, “against the frog of your hoof when I do so. Hard.”
Twilight blinked. She’d known Trixie’s long grinding war had been quite different than her own conflicts against Discord and Nightmare Moon and Trixie herself, which had been characterised by their brief brutality and notable lack of survivable injuries.
“Now,” Trixie said, and slid the shard free so smoothly Twilight felt only heat.
Blood spurted.
“Press!” Trixie shouted. “Harder!”
Right, thought Twilight, and did so.
The blood-flow slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether, entirely absorbed by the pad.
“Okay,” said Trixie. “I’m going to bandage it in place, which will hold you for now. You’d better pay attention, because its going to need changing in a few hours, and I’m not going to be here to do it.”
“You’re not?” Twilight asked, and she could hear the tremble in her own voice - surely, just a consequence of the shock.
Trixie grinned. “I do have a nation to run, you know.”
“No- I mean- with the spark, and... everything,” Twilight trailed off.
“I’m not-” Trixie cut herself off. “You... don’t think I’m trying to seduce you, do you Twilight?” Trixie said. “You do recall that Trixie’s married, don’t you. There was quite a ceremony - celebrations all across Equestria.”
When two unicorns sparked, one of them being married to somepony else didn’t usually make much moment.
“To the Queen of the Changelings,” Twilight chucked, “if you didn’t have an open relationship you’d be dead.” Or maybe its only open on Chrysalis’s side, Twilight thought.
“Plenty of ponies adore the new regime, and its leaders,” Trixie said, “but, yes, our bed is open, though strictly by mutual agreement, and, um,” Trixie blushed. “I’m afraid Chrysalis doesn’t like you very much.”
But you do? Twilight wondered, then wondered how Trixie knew Chrysalis didn’t like her. And you asked?
“Trixie... really needs to go now,” Trixie said, packing away the medical supplies. You’re nervous, Twilight thought. Your illeism is showing. “Your hoof will be fine. By tomorrow, you’ll be able to pull this wagon ten miles on it.”
“Wouldn’t that hurt?” Twilight replied, having no intention of doing any such thing.
“Sure,” Trixie said, turning from the wagon’s doorway, “but it won’t lame you.”
Then she was gone, and Twilight whispered:
‘Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’
When she finished, the wagon shook with the fury of her voice, and hot bitter tears poured down her cheeks. She staggered back, collapsing into sleep upon one of the wagon’s narrow bunks, too drained and wounded even to return to her own bed.
The night passed painfully, and disturbed, filled with half-forgotten dreams of beautiful blue unicorns with cascading platinum hair, alternately hurting and caring for her.
The rapping of a hoof upon the wagon’s door woke her, somehow less frightening in the bright light of day.
It was Mayor Mare.
“Twilight,” she said, “I’ve afraid I’ve received some bad news. Your position as librarian was funded by a grant from the Royal Treasury, and just last night we received word that it’s been discontinued.” She shuffled her hooves. “Now, the good news is we’re going to use some of the EqD” - Equality and Diversity, Twilight translated, the thirty bits of silver for which you changed the name from ‘pony’ ville, because it was speciesist. Buttering up our glorious leader by sticking her name on the township was merely icing on the cake - “funding to maintain the position of Trixieville Librarian, so your good work won’t go to waste. But you’ll have to reapply for the your job, and with our new equal opportunities policy... well, there’s quite a lot of unicorns in government positions, so we really do have to favour a candidate from a more diverse background.”
Mayor Mare smiled, as Twilight felt her world drop out from under her. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. “Besides,” the Mayor continued, “you’re rather overqualified for a small-town librarian. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding another role. We... were going to let you stay till the end of the week, but our insurance doesn’t cover private citizens sleeping over at the library unaccompanied, and since you’ve already sleeping in these sumptuous alternative accommodations, I don’t see that you can’t leave right away.” The mayor smiled. “Please have your... conveyance off public land by the end of the day - our insurance doesn’t cover campers.”
Twilight’s gaze drew back, horrified, to the gaudy, heavy, cramped, inconvenient wagon Trixie had given her.
She knew. She knew. She probably set it up - and she let me think... maybe she can read minds.
The message of the six bunkbeds was now quite clear - if you go to your friends, they’ll join you in this purgatory. I’ll see to it. It was probably better not even to park her wagon on their property. Trixieville township’s public lands extended ten miles - the ten excruciatingly painful miles that nevertheless wouldn’t cripple her - from the center of town, marked by the founding tree. The tree of knowledge. Her library tree... except, it wasn’t hers anymore.
It’d been taken from her.
At least I’m not going to have to struggle deciding which books to take, Twilight realised. I hardly own any.
The wagon’s tiny fitted bookshelf would be plenty.
My home’s tiny fitted bookshelf...
Friendless and alone, Twilight Sparkle began to cry:
‘And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!’
