Thirty Minute Ponies

by Arcainum

A Difficult Concept

Prompt #312: A new life.

The steel door exploded, chunks of the great metal slab scattering about the lab.

“Twilight Sparkle, you will stop this.”

Princess Celestia stepped through the cloud of dust and ash left by her forced entry into her pupil’s inner sanctum and cast her gaze about the room, her eyes piercing even the gloom shrouding the cavernous dome of the palace’s largest laboratory. A far cry from the meticulous neatness of Twilight’s quarters, the lab fair bristled with magitechnical equipment, every surface hidden by crackling power sources, artifacts thrumming with energy, and wicked-looking tools, the use of which Celestia only dared speculate.

But she was not interested in the state of the lab. She had not summoned every guard in the Palace to her side, nor sent Luna to the deepest vaults of Canterlot’s catacombs, because the place was in a bit of a state. No, matters were far, far, more dangerous.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The silence, such as it was in the hum of machinery, only deepened. Celestia closed her eyes and breathed deeply, in part to hide her fear.

“Twilight…please.”

In the shadows, something stirred. A lamp flickered on, a shaft of light in the darkness, illuminating the face of her pupil. Celestia’s mouth tightened as despair as Twilight’s condition became clear.

“Hello, Princess.”

Pulling herself unsteadily up from the chair she had been slumped in, Twilight stepped forward, into the light creeping in from the doorway behind Celestia. Her haggard features, rough with lack of sleep or food, sagged in fatigue, a mask of shadows cast in triumphant ruin. Celestia swallowed, and knew without asking that all her fears had been realised. Twilight had done it. Or was about to. Either way…

“Twilight Sparkle, you know why I am here.”

Twilight’s face twisted into an ironic smile. “You’re here because I’ve exposed you. I’ve uncovered your lies.”

Celestia winced. She was right, of course. She had lied, to every pony alive, for thousands of years, and she had never once let a single subject find this out. Until now. And now, it seemed, she was to pay the price for that deception. “Twilight, you must understand, what I have done-“

“What you have done, Princess, is do the most horrible… the most disgusting…the most…” Twilight sputtered to a halt, her mouth working silently as she tried to put words to her fury. Celestia waited as her beloved student stared beyond her, unable to articulate the depths of the horror Celestia had mistakenly allowed her to touch. Once Twilight’s eyes refocused, brought her back to the pony in front of her, Celestia spoke again.

“Twilight, you cannot understand. You were not there, you do not understand the necessity.”

Twilight’s laughter was short, sharp, bitter. “Necessity?! What possible need was there for…for this?!” With a sudden flourish of enraged movement, Twilight levitated a diagram from the desk she had been leaning against, waving it angrily in the air above her. Smoothly alternating curves undulated across the paper as though alive. “A compulsion! A magical compulsion underlying every pony’s, every pony’s, brainwaves making them do what you want, making them fit your plan! How could you do this, Celestia?! What in Equestria happened that necessitated you fundamentally altering the mind of every pony ever born?!” Twilight sneered, all her anguish and betrayal twisted into a rictus of hate. “Did it just get too hard to actually rule? Did you decide it would be easier to just make sure everypony listened to what you said, whether they wanted to or-“

“Twilight.”

Celestia’s voice was so quiet, so small, that it halted Twilight’s tirade in an instant. Her pupil stared at her, mouth still open, as Celestia looked her in the eye and continued to speak in that calm, measured tone.

“Twilight…What does it mean to be killed?”

Twilight blinked, her mouth closing in surprise. For a moment she simply stood stunned, then, slowly, hesitantly, she answered. “I…it…It means to die. From something else’s work. Like a, a, a manticore. Or something. Yes. To die at someone else’s hooves, or by anything other than natural causes.”

Celestia nodded, pausing before her next question. This was the moment, the moment in which millennia of grand deception came to its head. She took the plunge.

“And what does it mean to kill?”

Twilight opened her mouth to answer…then stopped. For several moments she spoke silence again, her brow furrowing as she tried, visibly, to puzzle through what Celestia had said. Eventually, she said, “I… don’t understand.”

“What does it mean to kill? If I were to say, ‘Twilight, kill me,’ what would you think?”

More silence as Twilight ground her teeth and pushed a hoof to her temple. The briefest flash of fond nostalgia made its way through Celestia’s memories. Twilight had never liked not knowing the answers.

“I don’t…I just don’t get it, Princess. Me…kill…somepony? No, that’s…that doesn’t make any sense. Can I even do that? How does that… No. Right? No.”

Celestia’s smile was sad. “Do you see now, Twilight? The magic woven into everypony’s soul is not one of control. It is one of understanding.”

Twilight stared at her, unable to respond. Celestia sighed.

“Long ago…before your books, or Star Swirl’s histories…Ponies could kill. They could get angry, or be cruel, or wage war, or take revenge, or…do a thousand other things to take another pony’s life. They died in droves at their own hooves because they understood what it was to end another’s existence deliberately, willfully. My sister and I watched our subjects slowly dwindle as the years went by, watched them cull themselves to near-extinction, all because they knew better, because they understood.” Celestia’s face was impassive, unreadable. “And so, now…you do not.”

Twilight slowly closed her mouth, her next words a hoarse whisper. “You…blocked us.”

Celestia nodded sadly. “We tied the spell into the very fabric of Equestria, into the very magic that forms us. Every pony born from now until the end of time will be utterly unable to comprehend the act of murder, of pony killing pony.”

Silence fell once more, broken only by the sound of Twilight slumping to the floor in abject despair. She looked up at Celestia, a pleading hope in her eyes. “What…what can I do?”

Light glinted from the tears welling in Celestia’s eyes. “You can forget, Twilight Sparkle. You can show me how you discovered this, and I will ensure it never happens again. And then you will forget this ever happened, and you will live as you have lived until now. Happy. Content. Ignorant.”

Twilight shook her head. Celestia knew she could not, would not give up knowledge of any scale. And this, this was more than knowledge. This was truth. “Princess I…I don’t know if I can.”

Celestia looked down at her pupil, sorrow tinging every line of her brow. “You must, Twilight Sparkle. Because…” Light and shadow danced across her face in the cold, cluttered darkness of the lab. “I understand.”

Author's Note:

I honestly have nothing to say about this. I just... wrote it because I hadn't done a TMP in ages. I think it's okay. Originally it was going to be way better, with Twilight's mysterious project being creating a being, and the big reveal being not only the block but that the creature wouldn't have it, and it thus being the most dangerous thing that Twilight could ever ever do.

BUT THIRTY MINUTES SO WHATEVER. So now it only JUST fits the prompt, metaphorically, because Twilight's new life is either a. the life she'll lead with that knowledge or b. the life she'll lead having forgotten it or whatever.

Comments

[RTStephens]

Truthfully, and it's a hard decision, I'd go with ignorance. It's bliss in these cases.

Chilling but thrilling!