Post by Luna on Aug 31, 2012 22:19:06 GMT -5
OF COURSE Twilight Sparkle is allowed, neigh, ushered even into the private sanctums (sancti?) of the Princesses. Doors are opened with enthusiasm by guards and servants, and no room or corridor is barred! That just leaves one problem. When the door to Luna's bedroom opens, it unleashes a violent thunderstorm of snoring. Luna saws logs like an entire lumbermill, and her awkward position on her back with arms, legs, and wings strewn across each other would look awkward even in a bed. Since she's sleeping on the ceiling, it looks a bit like an accident with phosphorescent blue goo.
Twilight_Sparkle's mane and tail are blown back by the blasts, as they come, washing over her body. She *does* have the courtesy not to wake up a sleeping princess, at least not for more important reasons than she has today. She decides to wait Luna out, and take a moment to peruse the dark princess's personal bookshelves. She opens a book, and manages to read about a sentence before the next snore blows the book to a completely different page. She sighs, but after a moment begins to make a game of it for herself, taking the time in between snores to find a sentence on each random
The books on Luna's shelves right now come in two varieties. First, history books. The theme of those seems rather clear, focusing on recent history, and nothing more than a thousand years ago. The second are books on magical theory. Not basic stuff. Not even nice stuff. There's a slim grimoire with a lock on it about necromancy and healing magic and the differences between them, and a much larger book filled with bookmarks about binding spells and seals used to trap powerfully magic beings. Meanwhile, Luna snores. Thunderously. Cacophanously. Lungs of an elephant, this princess. It doesn't take long for her to wake up. The faint puff of noise as a book closes seems to do the trick, because the snoring stops instantly, and Luna falls off the ceiling onto the floor with a thump like a fiercely beaten carpet. She gathers her legs underneath her and looks up without any sign of pain or irritability, greeting, "Ah, Twilight Sparkle. It is both a pleasure and an honor. We beg pardon for the circumstances. Once thou teach thyself to cast a spell in thy sleep, it is difficult to stop."
Twilight_Sparkle eyerolls. "I know, right?" she says. "What I hate is when I *dream* I'm casting a spell, and I actually do cast it in real life. I've asked other unicorns, and most of them don't cast spells in their sleep, but...you know." She shrugs. "We're a breed apart. Runs in the family, right?" She hesitates a moment, then says, "By the way, I've developed an anti-snoring spell that can keep a DRAGON fron snoring. A baby dragon, anyhow. It's why the library isn't a smoldering pile of ash. If you're ever in need of something like that..."
Luna assures you blithely, "We cannot imagine we would need such a spell. Neither Firefly nor our sister snore noticeably. Still, thy offer is more than generous. It speaks volumes of thee that at thy tender age thou are deliberately crafting new magics." As she talks she rises from the floor, sliding upwards gracefully and tucking her wings tightly at her side. A faint smile curls her mouth as she adds, "As thou say, it runs in the family. Runs so strongly that our blood has come to the fore in thee, though nearly two millenia come between us."
Twilight_Sparkle smiles, cheeks pinkening a little. "I can't even tell you how honored I am, when either you or your sister says something like that. Which reminds me...I...well. I have a lot of questions I want to ask, about the past. And if you don't want to answer, please don't be offended by my having asked? I couldn't bear to offend you, but there's so much I just have to know. I feel you've put me on the verge of understanding something very important."
Luna frowns. The sleek royal brow is not prone to furrowing, but her eyebrows press together and her eyes turn down, faintly troubled or mournful. Walking over to a shelf opposite her bed, she stares at a line of little ceramic cat statues, and as blue light rearranges them she answers, "Thou of all ponies deserve answers, Twilight Sparkle. Ask thy questions. There are secrets we do not give, and many more we no longer remember. For thee we shall stretch to the utmost. We owe thee much, for thy services and thy potential."
Twilight_Sparkle shakes her head. "I believe the debt is mine, Princess. And all of Equestria's." She steps beside you, tentatively, as if not quite sure it's her place. "I suppose my first question, the one I've been asking myself as I read further and further back in your old letters, is...what were you like at my age?" She mouths the words to herself a second time, as if unsure they're what she meant. Now that she poses the question aloud to Princess Luna of all ponies, it just sounds ridiculous.
Luna gets very still. When she turns around it's slowly, each step individual. Bluegreen eyes turn to yours, and they're both bleakly solemn and not quite focused. After a few seconds to think, she answers, "Hungry. Desperate. Those days are a blur, so long ago. I believe we sealed away Discord before I reached thy age. After were lost years, repairing the damaged world, gathering ponies and keeping them alive. Thou would not have liked me then, I think. Admired, perhaps. I was hard and rarely happy, turning aside storms, forcing ponies to share, killing monsters. So many monsters. I believe I ate grass and twigs then, but most of what I remember is that even in that broken wasteland Celestia could laugh, and the magic. As thou stretch thy powers now in joy, I pushed them to the limit every day for the survival of myself and others. I swam in magic, breathed it, dreamt of it when I slept. I... I think. Those memories are so distant. I am sorry, Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight_Sparkle nods, first looking into the princess's eyes, and then closing her own, as she imagines, and feels, searching some deep place in her unconscious for the inhherited memory of early Equestria. "Sorry? Don't be. It's..." Her whole body shudders. "It's like the philosopher Padlock said...you probably knew him, didn't you? 'Without civilization, a pony's life would be nasty, brustish and short.' We live the way we do because the two of you dreamed of doing more than surviving." She has a faraway look in her eyes.
Luna chuckles darkly, her solemn expression melting into a small but rather nasty grin. "That, and we greatly disliked Discord. It filled us with rage that he behaved as though he was doing ponydom and the world a favor, because he did not personally kill ponies, merely let them die when a cloud made of razor glass fell on them. We dreamed of destroying the source of all that-" She stops, giving her whole body a shake starting at her head and going all the way back. "Ah!" she exclaims, but not loudly. "We beg thy pardon. It is easy to fall into old angers."
Twilight_Sparkle waves a hoof, dismissively. "Naw, it's okay. I mean, I've met him too." She falls quiet, and looks up at the ceiling, with its painted moon and stars...her horn flashes, and she makes them swirl across the sky, spinning like the real heavens but fast enough to watch.
Luna tilts her head, peering up at the circling stars, and smiles more gently and honestly. "So facile with thy magic, Twilight Sparkle. Is that an impromptu spell? It is impossible to compare our power to thine because we grew up so differently, yet thy instinctive ease with new magic is beyond impressive."
Twilight_Sparkle looks extremely pleased, though she also blushes a little. "Oh, it's basically the same spell you saw me use when we opened the temple. It's actually a much simpler version of it, but it's one I like to play around with. I always think of you, when I do." She concentrates a moment, and arranges the stars as they would have been a thousand years earlier. "I'm glad I get to live in this newer more civilized Equestria. We have the luxury of making things like fun for its own sake, or pure research, important."
Luna takes a single step closer, her head pulling back as well to look up at the ceiling. Blue light faintly highlights her horn, and the touch of her magic lies over Twilight's, changing nothing, just feeling the shape of the impromptu spell. Her voice low, she answers, "Doubt not one moment we agree. We fought not for the virtue of fighting, but to bring this day closer. It is a lonely fact that Celestia brought this day without us, but we would not have made thee wait one single night longer for this peaceful world."
Doctor_Whooves hums quietly as he trots into the room. No, the guards didn't stop him. The guards didn't even notice him! The COMPLETELY NORMAL UND AVERAGE earth stallion appears to have a screwdriver like object in his mouth, and trots right over to a clock hanging on the wall. In a trifling, he's got it down and opened up.
Twilight_Sparkle smiles up at Princess Luna. She holds the ceiling overhead in their swirly celestial state, looking like the real night sky but brighter and more alive with motion, and lets her mentor's sister explore the spell. "I worked on this one a long time. Sometimes I work on big spells like this out in the forest, where fewer ponies will see. I prefer to unveil something when I know I've gotten it right. I...feel like perfection is what everyone expects from me."
Luna's horn goes dark again, and the touch of magic fades. Even she doesn't notice the pony fixing her clock, although she manages to look faintly perplexed as if she's forgotten something. Still, she manages a wry smile and assures Twilight, "Let us grant thee a well weathered word to the wise. They are so eager for thy perfection that they will see it even if thou fail and fail and fail again. It takes some of the pressure off."
Twilight_Sparkle slowly withdraws the spell, threads of magic and light, like ribbons, retreating back into her horn, leaving the ceiling as it was. "There's a spell I'm working on that's...it might have some implications, if I get it right. I...almost can't bring myself to ask Celestia." Her own magic light extinguished, she flicks an ear, and then turns her head, in the direction of the doctor. "Hey, I know you. You're the future pony."
Doctor_Whooves glances over at Twilight, and bows slightly. "Past, Present, Future. Time is all the same." he says with a smile. "What kind of spell are you working on?" he asks, appearing to have completely overlooked Princess Luna. Which is, of course, Impossible.
Luna tilts her head to one side, looking down at Twilight with a suddenly... well, an even more grave than usual expression. A rise in emotion sends her star-speckled mane billowing out, the shining galaxy that lays over the end like a ribbon wafting through Dr. Whooves. Of course, it's not as if he exists in Twilight's timeline and not Luna's. That would be silly. "Reassure us, Twilight Sparkle. Thou have seen, now, the tragedy of The Night Of Two Moons. Tell us never shall thou attempt the same. No other pony alive would we worry has the strength to try and fail."
Surely unnoticed by the ponies in the room, a very small pink dot tumbles slowly through the moon and stars depicted above. It's rather more noticeable now that the ceiling has returned to being a simple, painted, still image, though. Just as unnoticeably, a tiny squeak of a voice seems to be squealing, "spaaaaaaaaace..." as the dot drifts along.
Twilight_Sparkle shakes her head at the princess. "I don't have any designs on the sky. But, you know, there are other things only royals can do. I've been working on..." She glances around conspiratorially, and whispers, "wings."
Doctor_Whooves continues to fiddle with the clock. Literally. For a moment, he's got part of the clock balanced on his shoulder, and is drawing various gears acrost it. He sets it back down a few seconds later. "Oh this isn't good at all." he says to himself. "You're a month late."
Even more imperceptibly, several even more tiny blue and yellow dots appear over the pink one. The pink dot begins drifting in more directed fashion, towards a not terribly important looking bluish sphere of some size, previously unnoticed in the painting.
Luna's eyebrows dart up, but the worry disappears, replaced by a faint smile. "Twilight Sparkle." The name is said with such emphasis there's a faint pause before she continues, "Thou lack not ambition. Unlike raising the sun and moon, the spell to give thyself wings is recorded, but no grimoire can convey its difficulty. We expect thou shall succeed, but it will be a triu-" She stops, sniffing the air. "Does anypony smell cupcakes and destiny?"
Twilight_Sparkle looks delighted at Luna's response, literally glowing. "I've had some...minor successes...actually not even successes, really, I don't think you'd say. I managed to give Rarity giant butterfly wings, and that was so hard I felt like I'd just run a mare-athon. I was pretty spent for a while. But lately I've made some inroads into--" she stops as well, and sniffs. "I don't know what destiny smells like. I smell clock parts and the salty smells of the seas of time. And cupcakes."
Doctor_Whooves sniffs as well. "I smell cupcakes too... What does destiny smell like though?" he asks as he trots over to Luna and Twilight. He begins to poke and prod at them much as a doctor would... "Welp, it's official, you're both a month late." he says with a serious nod of his head.
The collection of dots gets smaller and smaller. With a last squeak of 'Spaaaace!' they seem to merge with the blue one, and vanish. In a totally unrelated occurence, a pink dot suspended underneath several blue and yellow ones appears high over the castle, and begins growing larger.
Twilight_Sparkle hmphs. "I'll have you know I *pride* myself on my punctuality. I was voted Miss Punctuality in school. Possibly as a joke, but not an ironic one, I can assure you."
Luna concedes easily, "It smells much like clock parts and the salty breeze off of the seas of time." She continues to be unaware of Dr. Whooves, but a month of temporal displacement will do that to you. Leaning in, she lowers her mouth to Twilight's ear and mumurs, "It is considered unfair favoritism, but let us give thee a hint. The physical shape change is the easy half of the spell, and likely thou got it right. Wings are more than a shape, however. What thou are truly attempting is to divert part of thy unicorn magic of aether and forces to create within thyself a pegasus's magic of wind and water. Since thou cannot touch that magic without having that magic, it is a spell like dancing blindly on a cloud. Still, we have faith in thee."
Doctor_Whooves hums quietly. Huh... "You can't hear me can you?" he says, getting right up next to Luna. "Do you think she can see me either?" he asks Twilight, grinning.
Pinkie_Pie drifts down onto the balcony, holding several blue and yellow balloons overhead. "Oh, hi, everybody! Wow, Twilight, I just had the greatest dream! You were in it, and Luna, anlthough they may have just been the moon," she speculates. She lets go of the blaloons, and cheerfully watches them float back up into the blue sky.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks at Pinkie's arrival...but, it's Pinkie. It would be quite another thing if it was anypony else, but her current theory about Pinkie Pie is that...she doesn't have a current theory about Pinkie Pie. "I'm sure the Princess sees you, doctor! She's just...sharing..." Luna is now murmuring those words into her ear. Her eyes widen, her irises dilate (for some reason related to blah blah cartoon) and she gets an expression like Siddhartha at his moment of enlightenment.
Luna turns her head, greeting, "Ah, the Element of Frosting. When thou are sleeping, dream thou of us? How strange. That thou would dream of Twilight Sparkle is no surprise at all, of course." She gives Pinkie a wan smile. "No doubt that connection has drawn thee here to her."
Doctor_Whooves decides to do the strangest and most insane thing... He hops up onto a table, and then to Luna's back, intending to hug/sprawl on her. It's the best way to test if she can REALLY perceive him or not! "Hello Pinkamena Diane Pie!" he calls out with a smile. "How are you doing next week?"
Pinkie_Pie nodnods. "I bet that's it! Oooh, are you gifting her with enlightenment? Awesome!" She leans close to Twilight, and peers into her sparkling eye. "Oooh, I can see forever... and really, really tiny things with red stuff in them? Weird."
Well, that's torn it. Literally. When Dr. Whooves lands on Luna's back, her already badly lagging timestream ruptures. The Luna with Dr. Whooves on her back looks up at him, asking coldly, "Sirrah, do thee LIKE thy head where it is? Our patience and egalitarianism have thy limits." The other Luna lowers her head and peers into Twilight's other eye right next to Pinkie. "Forever, say thee? It is in our eyes reflecting each other. Note well an endlessness of little Pinkies, proceeding through a progressive diminution towards a revelation of the ultimate truth."
Pinkie_Pie looks into the reflection of Twilight and Luna's eyes, amazed. "You're right! I see a whole BUNCH of little Pinkies! I think some of them are floating through space being carried by balloons. That's so neat! Hello little mes!" She waves happily.
Doctor_Whooves glances from Luna to Luna. "Oh well THAT'S interesting." he says, hopping down from the first Luna. "I was wondering what would happen." he says, trotting over to give Pinkie Pie a randomly selected jellybaby candy.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks, and shakes her head! Her normal pupils return, though her expression still looks more than a little gobsmacked. She sits down on her haunches, looking strikingly similar to that famous sculpture, Ponyn's 'The Thinker.'
Non-Whooves Luna giggles at Twilight's collapse, her face adopting a gentle, affectionate smile as she explains to Pinkie, "We have given Twilight the key to new magics, and it is much as the first day somepony told thee that sugar could be mined from rock candy clouds. Still, she will not thank us. We have pointed her to the correct mountain to climb, and it is the tallest by far." Whooves Reality Luna extends her wings, giving her body a shake, and demands, "Do not merely scuttle away, sirrah. Explain thyself, and why-" She lifts her head, sniffing deeply, "-why everything smells like destiny now."
Doctor_Whooves waves a hoof. "Sorry, it's my cologne." he says to Whooves Luna. "That and I appear to have torn the space-time continuum into shreds... Oh dear. I just hope that you don't KEEP splitting like this." he says ominously.
Pinkie_Pie pokes Twilight gingerly with a hoof. "Are you feeling all right, Twi? You're not going to suddenly split into two of you again, are you? Although I didn't get to see that last time. That'd be pretty interesting!"
Non-Whooves Luna pats Pinkie on the head with a hoof. "Let her be, Element of Frosting. Her smack hath been gobbed, and she must ruminate upon this smacking. We will teleport her back to her home that she may do so." Whooves Luna, on the other hoof, gives Dr. Whooves a hard look, asking, "Torn the space-" She sniffs again, and looks over at the other Luna next to her. "Oh. Well, we ARE good at time magic. Still, it baffles us. We would have to be weeks late for destiny's thread to be so stretched it could snap. Perhaps a month."
Luna sighs with the exasperation known to every princess, when the world is breaking down AGAIN and you're the one who has to make the laws of physics function properly. She leans over and pokes herself on the butt. "OW! FORSOO- oh," Non-Whooves Luna gives herself a similarly exasperated look, and declares, "So be it. We shall... restore all ponies to their proper states!" Both Lunas' horns glow, and then shine, and then flare blue as her power takes hold of not just the room, but the time happening in the room. And then everypony is gone, leaving only Dr. Whooves in the room.
Twilight_Sparkle's mane and tail are blown back by the blasts, as they come, washing over her body. She *does* have the courtesy not to wake up a sleeping princess, at least not for more important reasons than she has today. She decides to wait Luna out, and take a moment to peruse the dark princess's personal bookshelves. She opens a book, and manages to read about a sentence before the next snore blows the book to a completely different page. She sighs, but after a moment begins to make a game of it for herself, taking the time in between snores to find a sentence on each random
The books on Luna's shelves right now come in two varieties. First, history books. The theme of those seems rather clear, focusing on recent history, and nothing more than a thousand years ago. The second are books on magical theory. Not basic stuff. Not even nice stuff. There's a slim grimoire with a lock on it about necromancy and healing magic and the differences between them, and a much larger book filled with bookmarks about binding spells and seals used to trap powerfully magic beings. Meanwhile, Luna snores. Thunderously. Cacophanously. Lungs of an elephant, this princess. It doesn't take long for her to wake up. The faint puff of noise as a book closes seems to do the trick, because the snoring stops instantly, and Luna falls off the ceiling onto the floor with a thump like a fiercely beaten carpet. She gathers her legs underneath her and looks up without any sign of pain or irritability, greeting, "Ah, Twilight Sparkle. It is both a pleasure and an honor. We beg pardon for the circumstances. Once thou teach thyself to cast a spell in thy sleep, it is difficult to stop."
Twilight_Sparkle eyerolls. "I know, right?" she says. "What I hate is when I *dream* I'm casting a spell, and I actually do cast it in real life. I've asked other unicorns, and most of them don't cast spells in their sleep, but...you know." She shrugs. "We're a breed apart. Runs in the family, right?" She hesitates a moment, then says, "By the way, I've developed an anti-snoring spell that can keep a DRAGON fron snoring. A baby dragon, anyhow. It's why the library isn't a smoldering pile of ash. If you're ever in need of something like that..."
Luna assures you blithely, "We cannot imagine we would need such a spell. Neither Firefly nor our sister snore noticeably. Still, thy offer is more than generous. It speaks volumes of thee that at thy tender age thou are deliberately crafting new magics." As she talks she rises from the floor, sliding upwards gracefully and tucking her wings tightly at her side. A faint smile curls her mouth as she adds, "As thou say, it runs in the family. Runs so strongly that our blood has come to the fore in thee, though nearly two millenia come between us."
Twilight_Sparkle smiles, cheeks pinkening a little. "I can't even tell you how honored I am, when either you or your sister says something like that. Which reminds me...I...well. I have a lot of questions I want to ask, about the past. And if you don't want to answer, please don't be offended by my having asked? I couldn't bear to offend you, but there's so much I just have to know. I feel you've put me on the verge of understanding something very important."
Luna frowns. The sleek royal brow is not prone to furrowing, but her eyebrows press together and her eyes turn down, faintly troubled or mournful. Walking over to a shelf opposite her bed, she stares at a line of little ceramic cat statues, and as blue light rearranges them she answers, "Thou of all ponies deserve answers, Twilight Sparkle. Ask thy questions. There are secrets we do not give, and many more we no longer remember. For thee we shall stretch to the utmost. We owe thee much, for thy services and thy potential."
Twilight_Sparkle shakes her head. "I believe the debt is mine, Princess. And all of Equestria's." She steps beside you, tentatively, as if not quite sure it's her place. "I suppose my first question, the one I've been asking myself as I read further and further back in your old letters, is...what were you like at my age?" She mouths the words to herself a second time, as if unsure they're what she meant. Now that she poses the question aloud to Princess Luna of all ponies, it just sounds ridiculous.
Luna gets very still. When she turns around it's slowly, each step individual. Bluegreen eyes turn to yours, and they're both bleakly solemn and not quite focused. After a few seconds to think, she answers, "Hungry. Desperate. Those days are a blur, so long ago. I believe we sealed away Discord before I reached thy age. After were lost years, repairing the damaged world, gathering ponies and keeping them alive. Thou would not have liked me then, I think. Admired, perhaps. I was hard and rarely happy, turning aside storms, forcing ponies to share, killing monsters. So many monsters. I believe I ate grass and twigs then, but most of what I remember is that even in that broken wasteland Celestia could laugh, and the magic. As thou stretch thy powers now in joy, I pushed them to the limit every day for the survival of myself and others. I swam in magic, breathed it, dreamt of it when I slept. I... I think. Those memories are so distant. I am sorry, Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight_Sparkle nods, first looking into the princess's eyes, and then closing her own, as she imagines, and feels, searching some deep place in her unconscious for the inhherited memory of early Equestria. "Sorry? Don't be. It's..." Her whole body shudders. "It's like the philosopher Padlock said...you probably knew him, didn't you? 'Without civilization, a pony's life would be nasty, brustish and short.' We live the way we do because the two of you dreamed of doing more than surviving." She has a faraway look in her eyes.
Luna chuckles darkly, her solemn expression melting into a small but rather nasty grin. "That, and we greatly disliked Discord. It filled us with rage that he behaved as though he was doing ponydom and the world a favor, because he did not personally kill ponies, merely let them die when a cloud made of razor glass fell on them. We dreamed of destroying the source of all that-" She stops, giving her whole body a shake starting at her head and going all the way back. "Ah!" she exclaims, but not loudly. "We beg thy pardon. It is easy to fall into old angers."
Twilight_Sparkle waves a hoof, dismissively. "Naw, it's okay. I mean, I've met him too." She falls quiet, and looks up at the ceiling, with its painted moon and stars...her horn flashes, and she makes them swirl across the sky, spinning like the real heavens but fast enough to watch.
Luna tilts her head, peering up at the circling stars, and smiles more gently and honestly. "So facile with thy magic, Twilight Sparkle. Is that an impromptu spell? It is impossible to compare our power to thine because we grew up so differently, yet thy instinctive ease with new magic is beyond impressive."
Twilight_Sparkle looks extremely pleased, though she also blushes a little. "Oh, it's basically the same spell you saw me use when we opened the temple. It's actually a much simpler version of it, but it's one I like to play around with. I always think of you, when I do." She concentrates a moment, and arranges the stars as they would have been a thousand years earlier. "I'm glad I get to live in this newer more civilized Equestria. We have the luxury of making things like fun for its own sake, or pure research, important."
Luna takes a single step closer, her head pulling back as well to look up at the ceiling. Blue light faintly highlights her horn, and the touch of her magic lies over Twilight's, changing nothing, just feeling the shape of the impromptu spell. Her voice low, she answers, "Doubt not one moment we agree. We fought not for the virtue of fighting, but to bring this day closer. It is a lonely fact that Celestia brought this day without us, but we would not have made thee wait one single night longer for this peaceful world."
Doctor_Whooves hums quietly as he trots into the room. No, the guards didn't stop him. The guards didn't even notice him! The COMPLETELY NORMAL UND AVERAGE earth stallion appears to have a screwdriver like object in his mouth, and trots right over to a clock hanging on the wall. In a trifling, he's got it down and opened up.
Twilight_Sparkle smiles up at Princess Luna. She holds the ceiling overhead in their swirly celestial state, looking like the real night sky but brighter and more alive with motion, and lets her mentor's sister explore the spell. "I worked on this one a long time. Sometimes I work on big spells like this out in the forest, where fewer ponies will see. I prefer to unveil something when I know I've gotten it right. I...feel like perfection is what everyone expects from me."
Luna's horn goes dark again, and the touch of magic fades. Even she doesn't notice the pony fixing her clock, although she manages to look faintly perplexed as if she's forgotten something. Still, she manages a wry smile and assures Twilight, "Let us grant thee a well weathered word to the wise. They are so eager for thy perfection that they will see it even if thou fail and fail and fail again. It takes some of the pressure off."
Twilight_Sparkle slowly withdraws the spell, threads of magic and light, like ribbons, retreating back into her horn, leaving the ceiling as it was. "There's a spell I'm working on that's...it might have some implications, if I get it right. I...almost can't bring myself to ask Celestia." Her own magic light extinguished, she flicks an ear, and then turns her head, in the direction of the doctor. "Hey, I know you. You're the future pony."
Doctor_Whooves glances over at Twilight, and bows slightly. "Past, Present, Future. Time is all the same." he says with a smile. "What kind of spell are you working on?" he asks, appearing to have completely overlooked Princess Luna. Which is, of course, Impossible.
Luna tilts her head to one side, looking down at Twilight with a suddenly... well, an even more grave than usual expression. A rise in emotion sends her star-speckled mane billowing out, the shining galaxy that lays over the end like a ribbon wafting through Dr. Whooves. Of course, it's not as if he exists in Twilight's timeline and not Luna's. That would be silly. "Reassure us, Twilight Sparkle. Thou have seen, now, the tragedy of The Night Of Two Moons. Tell us never shall thou attempt the same. No other pony alive would we worry has the strength to try and fail."
Surely unnoticed by the ponies in the room, a very small pink dot tumbles slowly through the moon and stars depicted above. It's rather more noticeable now that the ceiling has returned to being a simple, painted, still image, though. Just as unnoticeably, a tiny squeak of a voice seems to be squealing, "spaaaaaaaaace..." as the dot drifts along.
Twilight_Sparkle shakes her head at the princess. "I don't have any designs on the sky. But, you know, there are other things only royals can do. I've been working on..." She glances around conspiratorially, and whispers, "wings."
Doctor_Whooves continues to fiddle with the clock. Literally. For a moment, he's got part of the clock balanced on his shoulder, and is drawing various gears acrost it. He sets it back down a few seconds later. "Oh this isn't good at all." he says to himself. "You're a month late."
Even more imperceptibly, several even more tiny blue and yellow dots appear over the pink one. The pink dot begins drifting in more directed fashion, towards a not terribly important looking bluish sphere of some size, previously unnoticed in the painting.
Luna's eyebrows dart up, but the worry disappears, replaced by a faint smile. "Twilight Sparkle." The name is said with such emphasis there's a faint pause before she continues, "Thou lack not ambition. Unlike raising the sun and moon, the spell to give thyself wings is recorded, but no grimoire can convey its difficulty. We expect thou shall succeed, but it will be a triu-" She stops, sniffing the air. "Does anypony smell cupcakes and destiny?"
Twilight_Sparkle looks delighted at Luna's response, literally glowing. "I've had some...minor successes...actually not even successes, really, I don't think you'd say. I managed to give Rarity giant butterfly wings, and that was so hard I felt like I'd just run a mare-athon. I was pretty spent for a while. But lately I've made some inroads into--" she stops as well, and sniffs. "I don't know what destiny smells like. I smell clock parts and the salty smells of the seas of time. And cupcakes."
Doctor_Whooves sniffs as well. "I smell cupcakes too... What does destiny smell like though?" he asks as he trots over to Luna and Twilight. He begins to poke and prod at them much as a doctor would... "Welp, it's official, you're both a month late." he says with a serious nod of his head.
The collection of dots gets smaller and smaller. With a last squeak of 'Spaaaace!' they seem to merge with the blue one, and vanish. In a totally unrelated occurence, a pink dot suspended underneath several blue and yellow ones appears high over the castle, and begins growing larger.
Twilight_Sparkle hmphs. "I'll have you know I *pride* myself on my punctuality. I was voted Miss Punctuality in school. Possibly as a joke, but not an ironic one, I can assure you."
Luna concedes easily, "It smells much like clock parts and the salty breeze off of the seas of time." She continues to be unaware of Dr. Whooves, but a month of temporal displacement will do that to you. Leaning in, she lowers her mouth to Twilight's ear and mumurs, "It is considered unfair favoritism, but let us give thee a hint. The physical shape change is the easy half of the spell, and likely thou got it right. Wings are more than a shape, however. What thou are truly attempting is to divert part of thy unicorn magic of aether and forces to create within thyself a pegasus's magic of wind and water. Since thou cannot touch that magic without having that magic, it is a spell like dancing blindly on a cloud. Still, we have faith in thee."
Doctor_Whooves hums quietly. Huh... "You can't hear me can you?" he says, getting right up next to Luna. "Do you think she can see me either?" he asks Twilight, grinning.
Pinkie_Pie drifts down onto the balcony, holding several blue and yellow balloons overhead. "Oh, hi, everybody! Wow, Twilight, I just had the greatest dream! You were in it, and Luna, anlthough they may have just been the moon," she speculates. She lets go of the blaloons, and cheerfully watches them float back up into the blue sky.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks at Pinkie's arrival...but, it's Pinkie. It would be quite another thing if it was anypony else, but her current theory about Pinkie Pie is that...she doesn't have a current theory about Pinkie Pie. "I'm sure the Princess sees you, doctor! She's just...sharing..." Luna is now murmuring those words into her ear. Her eyes widen, her irises dilate (for some reason related to blah blah cartoon) and she gets an expression like Siddhartha at his moment of enlightenment.
Luna turns her head, greeting, "Ah, the Element of Frosting. When thou are sleeping, dream thou of us? How strange. That thou would dream of Twilight Sparkle is no surprise at all, of course." She gives Pinkie a wan smile. "No doubt that connection has drawn thee here to her."
Doctor_Whooves decides to do the strangest and most insane thing... He hops up onto a table, and then to Luna's back, intending to hug/sprawl on her. It's the best way to test if she can REALLY perceive him or not! "Hello Pinkamena Diane Pie!" he calls out with a smile. "How are you doing next week?"
Pinkie_Pie nodnods. "I bet that's it! Oooh, are you gifting her with enlightenment? Awesome!" She leans close to Twilight, and peers into her sparkling eye. "Oooh, I can see forever... and really, really tiny things with red stuff in them? Weird."
Well, that's torn it. Literally. When Dr. Whooves lands on Luna's back, her already badly lagging timestream ruptures. The Luna with Dr. Whooves on her back looks up at him, asking coldly, "Sirrah, do thee LIKE thy head where it is? Our patience and egalitarianism have thy limits." The other Luna lowers her head and peers into Twilight's other eye right next to Pinkie. "Forever, say thee? It is in our eyes reflecting each other. Note well an endlessness of little Pinkies, proceeding through a progressive diminution towards a revelation of the ultimate truth."
Pinkie_Pie looks into the reflection of Twilight and Luna's eyes, amazed. "You're right! I see a whole BUNCH of little Pinkies! I think some of them are floating through space being carried by balloons. That's so neat! Hello little mes!" She waves happily.
Doctor_Whooves glances from Luna to Luna. "Oh well THAT'S interesting." he says, hopping down from the first Luna. "I was wondering what would happen." he says, trotting over to give Pinkie Pie a randomly selected jellybaby candy.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks, and shakes her head! Her normal pupils return, though her expression still looks more than a little gobsmacked. She sits down on her haunches, looking strikingly similar to that famous sculpture, Ponyn's 'The Thinker.'
Non-Whooves Luna giggles at Twilight's collapse, her face adopting a gentle, affectionate smile as she explains to Pinkie, "We have given Twilight the key to new magics, and it is much as the first day somepony told thee that sugar could be mined from rock candy clouds. Still, she will not thank us. We have pointed her to the correct mountain to climb, and it is the tallest by far." Whooves Reality Luna extends her wings, giving her body a shake, and demands, "Do not merely scuttle away, sirrah. Explain thyself, and why-" She lifts her head, sniffing deeply, "-why everything smells like destiny now."
Doctor_Whooves waves a hoof. "Sorry, it's my cologne." he says to Whooves Luna. "That and I appear to have torn the space-time continuum into shreds... Oh dear. I just hope that you don't KEEP splitting like this." he says ominously.
Pinkie_Pie pokes Twilight gingerly with a hoof. "Are you feeling all right, Twi? You're not going to suddenly split into two of you again, are you? Although I didn't get to see that last time. That'd be pretty interesting!"
Non-Whooves Luna pats Pinkie on the head with a hoof. "Let her be, Element of Frosting. Her smack hath been gobbed, and she must ruminate upon this smacking. We will teleport her back to her home that she may do so." Whooves Luna, on the other hoof, gives Dr. Whooves a hard look, asking, "Torn the space-" She sniffs again, and looks over at the other Luna next to her. "Oh. Well, we ARE good at time magic. Still, it baffles us. We would have to be weeks late for destiny's thread to be so stretched it could snap. Perhaps a month."
Luna sighs with the exasperation known to every princess, when the world is breaking down AGAIN and you're the one who has to make the laws of physics function properly. She leans over and pokes herself on the butt. "OW! FORSOO- oh," Non-Whooves Luna gives herself a similarly exasperated look, and declares, "So be it. We shall... restore all ponies to their proper states!" Both Lunas' horns glow, and then shine, and then flare blue as her power takes hold of not just the room, but the time happening in the room. And then everypony is gone, leaving only Dr. Whooves in the room.
