Things that happen

I can’t sleep.

You’d think that after a whole month of these… things on my back, I should be accustomed to the idea of lying on my stomach to sleep.

I can’t sleep.

This is ridiculous, I can’t keep on going like this. I can’t keep popping sleeping pills like they’re candies and I can’t fucking sleep on my belly. I hate these things.

Godlike magic. Eternal youth...Wings.

All good thinks when you think about it. At least the first two of course. You don’t really care about flying when you can teleport wherever you want in a second and walk on clouds. You need to understand how steering works, the proper way to use the currents, hope you don’t kill yourself when landing down… and she knew about the last one particularly well. I understand why Celestia always uses her chariot for royal duties. Alicorn wings were merely vestigial, just something to show everyone else that you had the power of a god. The only point of them was sporting them, as the only reason a king holds a sword is to flourish it and never really use it. It’s just how things work.

So why can’t I just take them off? I have the power. I will be growing in these years and the horn should prove well enough that my magic is far greater than anyone else. Why do I need these stupid things? They’re impossible to clean, too. I can’t get anyone to do it for me and I have to preen every damn feather until it’s sparkly clean, plus all the ones that have died.
She rolled again on her side, trying to fall into unconsciousness again like every night.

No relief. Can’t sleep on your belly, can’t sleep on your side have to pop pills. Pills. Pills. Happy bright coloured pills to make her sleep. One to make me sleep until, two to make me sleep until tomorrow, a bottle to make you sleep until my very flesh kisses the ground

She blinked.

It’s easy, you know. Just a little bit more. You don’t have to worry about those pesky wings when they’re not attached to a beating heart. No more restless nights no more problems no more immortality no more

Twilight slapped her face as hard as she could, breaking the webs of her thoughts.

No. Alicorn is a thing but schizophrenia is another. I just need to calm down. I just need to find a good position to sleep, it’s not hard. I’m just very tired and everything is happening too quickly. I just need some time.

After all you’ll have all eternity to find a good position to sleep…

She slapped herself again. Out of the door the night watch guard raised an eyebrow and adjusted his posture. It wasn’t new of the new princess to make sudden noises at that hour of the night. She had already ordered him not to enter after the second time.

I love my life. I love being an Alicorn. I am a princess. I will do whatever I can to protect my people just like Celestia and Luna. I will love every second of it. I am a princess.

She got up and walked to the balcony. Judging by the position of the moon, it must have been already 2 am. She laid down to sleep four hours ago. The waiting was driving her mad but maybe she could watch the stars and wait for complete drowsiness to overtake her. She didn’t want to take another pill again or chew blessed valerian root like Luna has suggested, she just wanted to fall asleep like she did every night.

She started to focus the telescope with a drowsy hoof. Canis Major. Orion’s belt. Beetlejuse. Spica. She needed to work on something to focus her attention on a task at hand. That usually did the job for her when she couldn’t sleep.

The moon rose further as she watched the stars and reached its peak. 3 am. 3.30 at best.

She had fallen two times on her back. Two times her wings had screamed, outraged by their master’s clumsy behaviour and sent a deep and hateful message to her brain.

Can’t sleep. Must watch the stars. Can’t sleep. Floor’s cold. Floor’s inviting. I just need to lay down my head. I can do it.

Just lie down and sleep forever

“No! Shut up!” she quickly covered her mouth and darted her eyes from left to right. She was losing it, but she didn’t want to take another stupid pill. Not again. She’d fall to exhaustion and feel terrible the morning after but she wouldn’t touch one ever again.

Work. I can’t fall on my back on a chair. I can fall on my face at worst. That’s good.

How do you feel a dip pen feels when it goes through your eye?

She shook her head and slumped towards the desk. Important affairs. Economy. Politics. She couldn’t work on those. She lit up a candle, got out a bottle of ink and searched for a quill in her drawer. None of them felt right for the task. What she needed now was something more…personal. Carefully, she took out one of her own wings. It stung a bit, but they were just secondary fathers, nothing important. Besides, the wings themselves weren’t important. She could make a habit of using her own wings.

Carefully, she unrolled a clean sheet of paper and started to write. She didn’t really know what to say in such an occasion. Was she supposed to write a diary? A report on insomnia? The infinitesimal movement of the stars she had just seen? Nevertheless, she started to write.

She felt as if a terrible gloom had been lifted from her shoulders.

Writing was easy. Writing was simple. You put a letter in front of another to make words, which can be arranged into sentences by even a small minded individual. There is no need to be geniuses to write sentences. The apple is incredibly red. Drums are fun. I hate being a princess. The lazy worm climbed up a tree.

It’s simple. It’s clean. It’s almost magic.

She kept writing. The candle extinguished. She lit it up again. Her quill broke. She plucked another one. It hurt a bit. It didn’t matter. She finished the ink. She took out another bottle and kept writing. It made her mind so much clear but at the same time number her so much she thought she was sleeping. Another quill.

I like this.

***

Princess Celestia knocked on Twilight’s door. “Twilight, my most faithful student, it’s well past 8 am! Wake up, the ambassador of Saddle Arabia is waiting!” she said in a sing-song voice. It was good to find her oversleeping after her problem with her wings. She would deal with the ambassador until she was awake and ready.

The door gave her no answer after a full minute of waiting. She could hear some faint scratching, as if someone was raking something on a piece of wood.

“Twilight? Are you alright?”

Again no answer. There was something odd about this. It wasn’t usual of her oversleeping, even if it would be completely understandable for every other pony. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t surely an ordinary pony though and she knew very well how she reacted in cases of stress she couldn’t handle. She knocked a bit harder on the door and looked at the guard.

“Did she leave her room?”

The guard saluted and shook his head. “No my princess. She went to the balcony at 2am and came inside again at 3 am, ma’am. She’s been writing ever since.”

“Writing?” she shot a pleased look at the door and smiled. Her little Twilight. Never taking a minute off her reports and work. She would grow up to be a perfect leader. “Thank you for your efficiency, Arboretum. Go get some sleep, you’ve earned it.”
The guard saluted again and smiled too. It was hard not to see Celestia as somewhat of a motherly figure to everyone in the palace. Some of the rookies had even been caught calling her mommy distractedly. He walked off towards the bedrooms as the Princess opened Twilight’s door. He really needed to hit the hay, guard duty was boring and an unrewarding but at least there was almost never trouble.

He heard the scream a couple steps later and ran back to his position, ready to protect his princesses.

“TWILIGHT!”

“Oh hello Princess!” said twilight happily, not leaving her eyes off the paper “I’m sorry, I think I stayed up too much, what time is it? I know only that it’s past dawn because I didn’t need to light up another candle, which is a relief, I have used up all the best ones and” Twilight’s quill broke in her hoof. “Silly me. I keep breaking these things. Just a minute, let me finish this last line and I will follow you…” She reached towards her back with a hoof and tried blindly to grab a feather. She furrowed her brow. Nothing. She felt just some sort of sticky warm liquid oozing from her back. “Well this is strange, I…”
“Twilight… your wings!” Celestia stood in horror at her once faithful student, the bloody remains of her wings stripped bare of her feathers, trying to pluck one out again.

“My what? Oh here is one!” she giggled and ripped a small one from what used to be a functioning and beautiful pair of purple wings.

“T-Twilight? What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?” She walked over to the mare, her height giving her a full view of what she had been writing for the past few hours.

The words scratched and screamed, imprisoned in a tiny cage of paper that was now unrecognizable, a full blotch of black ink and what seemed to be hints of dried blood. There was one word repeated obsessively on the page, ad nauseam. When there was no more space, Twilight had written in the spaces between them. When that wasn’t enough, she wrote on the words. She wrote it backwards, from left to right up and down. It was practically impossible to read but you could see where she had opened a wound into the paper itself and, probably etched the sentence in the wood below.

“I hate being a princess.”