Time to wake up
Sometimes having great powers can put you into troubles.
But let’s be honest, most of the time having great powers is just awesome. And nopony knows that better than Twilight the alicorn princess of Equestria and literally bearer of the element of magic. Well, former bearer, but that is as close to perfection as one could ever come.
And to those who keep saying that being powerful is a burden, I want to tell you about what happened one morning as Twilight had gone to bed a little too late and felt kind of sleepy.
Her alarm clock woke her up. She made the sound stop with her right hoof, but kept her eyes closed. In vain. Her beautiful dream seemed to have already escaped her. It was something about the crystal empire, and a guard there, and a philosophical discussion about the existence or non existence of a sun ray if nopony was there to see it.
All she could really remember from that was the argument that the heat from the sun ray could still be detected even after the sun ray was gone. She just couldn’t remember if it had been her argument or that of the guard. She just hoped it had been hers.
She shook her head. One more second and she would have gone back to sleep, which would have been a total disaster to her whole schedule for the day.
On the other hoof, she was really considering staying in bed at that point.
Yes, she had to get up to avoid a war with some lizard folks from an ancient empire in the south. Still, the weight of her eyelids made her understand that she probably wasn’t in any condition to discuss foreign relations. And even more, it was good to make an ambassador wait. This would definitely give her an edge over him.
She went back to letting the dreamland taking her mind away.
She suddenly stood up, her eyes wide opened, all covered in sweat. She couldn’t afford to be late. She couldn’t afford to just lazily stay in bed. Of course she wanted to, but she was a princess now and there was no way she would begin her rule by giving such a bad example. Princess Celestia had been capable of raising the sun at precisely the same time every day for a thousand years, so Twilight should at least be able to respect the schedule she had herself established.
Her mind told her that she could still just take five more minutes of pleasant rest before really beginning the day, but she shook the idea away. So her mind told her she could always call sick, but Twilight refused to use such a cheap cheating trick. In despair, her mind told her that she should just decree for the night to last longer.
There was, of course, no way Celestia would agree to that, and Twilight smiled at the thought that she would even just try to nicely ask such a favor. Then again, there was another way for the almighty Twilight to find her way around it.
It was crazy, but the thought was so tempting and she was so tired that she decided to go for it anyway.
Focusing her power, she cast a spell and began to bend time around her. Or more precisely, she was bending every single time measurement instrument in all of Equestria, from the clocks to the internal feeling of time of the roosters. She could see the hands of her own clock going back for a good thirty minutes.
The alicorn smiled and quickly went back under the sheets of her bed, closing her eyes and letting the wonders of sleep take her into a world where impossible becomes the norm.
“Twilight, Twilight!” said Spike’s voice to the alicorn’s ear. “Wake up, you’re going to be late!”
The alicorn, against her own will, opened one eye and looked at the dragon.
“Look at the time.” said Spike, pointing at the clock with his claws. “I think you forgot to put the alarm, but by chance I woke up just in time.”
It was time to get up again. Twilight sighed. She had just had the most wonderful dream ever, involving stuff and other stuff all around, with more stuff on the top. She wasn’t sure anymore, but there was the certitude that the dream had been wonderful.
Still, this time there was no more escape, as Spike was there to call on her cheating if she were to do it again.
Or maybe not…
“Say Spike… What would you say if I were to offer you the possibility to go back to sleep for a while?” she innocently asked with a hypothetical tone that was very clearly saying she could do it and wanted to do it.
“Seriously?” replied Spike.
In less time than it takes to read it, the dragon was already in his little bed, the sheet not even having had the time to come back down on him.
“Ready when you are!” he added.
Happy to have the support of her assistant, and seriously wanting to go back to sleep, Twilight cast the spell once again, making all of Equestria go back another good thirty minutes in the past, at least if you were to refer to the clocks and similar tools.
Satisfied and ignoring Spike’s snoring, Twilight went back to sleep.
The feeling of somepony poking her shoulder made Twilight come out of the cozy dream she had been laying in for a little while. With a slight feeling of irritation, she opened her eyes and saw on the clock in front of her that she should still have a good ten minutes to sleep.
“Spike…” she began, assuming only the dragon could have been bothering her, “I hope you’ve got a good reason.”
She stopped there. Because she had looked at the one who had been poking at her shoulder to wake her up. And because it was no other that the princess of the sun in person.
“Oh… goooooood morning princess Celestia…” awkwardly said Twilight with the hope that she wasn’t going to get banished to the sun or into some sort of deep dungeon.
“Hello Twilight.” gently said the sun princess with a kind smile. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I kind of noticed that this is the third time I only have one hour left before raising the sun. I also may have noticed a huge concentration of magic power around your house, so I figured I would come to ask what was going on.”
Twilight stayed petrified for a few seconds. Should she admit her fault, or try to play the innocent one? There was the risk of getting banished but, at the same time, it was clear she had already been exposed, so there wasn’t much point denying. She began to panic, as she was unable to choose between two bad choices and knew that each second passing was just making her even more guilty that the last.
“The third time, really?” she asked out of nowhere, because she had felt like she should say something and it had been the only thing that had crossed her mind.
Of course she immediately regretted it, but she would have probably regretted any word spoken anyway. There was no escape from Celestia’s grasp. All she could do was pray.
“Please tell me…” said Celestia. “How did you do it?”
“I…” began Twilight, before swallowing her saliva for the last time. “I used magic to make all time measurement instruments go back thirty minutes.”
And then she added, in panic:
“I didn’t really think it through, I thought nopony would notice, I swear, I didn’t mean any harm. Please don’t be angry at me and banish me to the sun!”
But to her surprise, Celestia just laughed.
“It’s so simple!” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one in all those years.”
“You mean you’re not angry?” Twilight asked with hope.
“Of course not.” Celestia replied. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve tried to stay in bed longer without being able to. I think I’ve tried everything and it always turned wrong. I went back in time several times and I ended up to be twenty of myself in the same room, which was quite a problem. I also tried to bring all of Equestria back in time, which created quite a ruckus I can tell you. I’ve raised the sun a little bit later than was due more times than I can count, but there was always somepony to notice it and I had to invent some weird reason and ended up creating the solstices…”
Twilight sighed out of relief. Things had turned out way better than expected.
“Can you do it again?” asked Celestia.
“Of course.” answered Twilight. “It’s actually quite easy. How far back should we go?” she asked.
“Make it at least three hours. I want to have time to really sleep.” replied Celestia.
But as soon as she had said those words, clouds hid the moon, creating a huge shadow that invaded the room as the darkness took possession of every corner of every wall. The air got cold through a frozen breeze that was transporting the sounds of hisses of thousands of sleeping creatures, and the whole space of the room seemed to be slowly retracting over itself under the effect of some powerful dark power.
And then, as thunder announced the beginning of a heavy rain outside, a very cranky voice made itself heard:
“I swear that if any of you forces me to work for would it only be one more minute, I promise that Nightmare Moon will be a joke compared to what you’ll have to face!”
A lightning lit the face of a very angry Luna’s face, right between Twilight and Celestia who both went back a few steps out of fear.
“Did I make myself clear?” Luna asked, with more threat in her voice than the worst demon of hell could have produced.
“Of course. Sorry.” both replied Twilight and Celestia at the same, agreeing on the fact that it was better not to antagonize the princess of the night any further.
“Now you both go back to sleep right now!” Luna ordered with her royal voice.
“But…” began Twilight, “I’ve actually got to get up right now. It’s in my schedule.”
She pointed at the parchment where the whole schedule was written, and at her clock where it was clearly time for her to get prepared.
“And I think I have a sun to raise in about fifty minutes…” said Celestia. “We wouldn’t want to be late with that one, right?”
Luna didn’t really appreciate the allusion, but accepted the excuses, finished her cup of coffee, yawned as she had been working all night, and finally disappeared into the darkness, as the clouds were leaving the sky and letting the moon light Ponyville with its pale halo.
Twilight and Celestia’s looks met and they both stayed like that, looking at each other for a few seconds, slowly getting from the fear they had felt to the relief and then, finally, laughter.
“Well, my dear Twilight, let that be our lesson for this night.” said Celestia with a smile.
“Yes?” asked Twilight, always ready to hear her former mentor teach her anything whatsoever.
“Sometimes having great powers can put you into troubles.” wisely stated Celestia. “But it’s usually worth it.” she added with a little giggling.
She then took off into the night, to go offer Equestria the dawn of a new day.
[THE END]