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RogerDodger
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Pay No Attention to the Mare Behind the Map
“Thanks for coming, girls!” Twilight said, holding the doors open for her five friends to enter.
As Rarity stepped inside, she passed off a large number of suitcases that she was levitating into Twilight’s magical grip. “Twilight, dear, what is this all about? Where could we be going that would require us to pack so much?”
“I bet it’s a top-secret mission from Celestia,” Rainbow declared, swooping through the door and hovering over her friends’ heads in the front hall. “Is it a giant monster coming out of the ocean to demolish Manehattan? Ooh! Or maybe an ancient goat sorcerer is making an army of zombie ponies at the south pole! Or maybe Ahuizotl has finally found the Key of Koraddon and Daring Do asked us for help! Is she here? Is she here?”
Pinkie Pie bounced on her hooves to meet Dash at eye level. “Or maybe now that we’ve been all over the world helping ponies make friends, the Princess wants us to throw a party for all of Equestria, and it’ll be so huge that we’ll have to spend weeks out in the middle of nowhere just setting it up!”
“Sorry, girls, but it’s nothing like that,” Twilight said, blushing and rubbing her neck with a hoof. “It’s… It’s actually just something I’ve been wanting to do for while now. I asked you to pack because… Well, maybe I should have asked you before I had you pack.”
Applejack laid a hoof over Twilight’s withers, making her look up from the floor. “Don’t worry, sugarcube. We’ll help you with whatever it is you need. That’s what friends are for.”
“Thanks, AJ. You can all set your things down here. I’ll explain more in the map room.”
“Pinkie was right about one thing,” Twilight began as the others took their seats around the magical map of Equestria. “It took us most of two years, but we have been all over Equestria. Except for one place.” Her horn lit up, and a large region in the far North, dominated by a shining crystalline spire, was highlighted on the map.
“The Crystal Empire,” Rarity voiced on behalf of the group. “You’re right, I don’t remember any of us being sent there by the map. I know I haven’t.”
“You sure it’s the only one left?” Applejack asked.
“I’m positive. Well, aside from Ponyville, of course, but I don’t think that counts. I’ve kept a careful record of every mission the map has given us, and I’ve also catalogued every location marked on the map. There have even been some that I’ve never heard of before, or been able to find on any other map of Equestria, even in the Royal Archives.”
Fluttershy finally spoke up, looking around at the faces of her friends. “Maybe it’s because there aren’t any friendship problems to solve in the Crystal Empire. They have Princess Cadance there, after all, and she’s the Princess of Love. And they have your brother, and the Crystal Heart to help them get along with each other.”
“That may be so,” Twilight answered, “but the map also sent you and Rarity to Canterlot, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. I guess if even Princess Celestia’s home town needed a friendship mission, then Cadance’s might, too.”
“Exactly. I’ve been keeping track for months of the places we haven’t visited, and after Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went to Los Pegasus, I knew for sure what the next one would be.”
“But that was like, a month ago,” Rainbow Dash said. “Why wait until now to tell us?”
“Actually, as of today, you were called four weeks and three days ago. And Minos was four weeks and one day before that. Like I said, I’ve also been keeping track of when the map gives us missions. For the first three months there was no discernable pattern, and then they settled into an average of one mission every ten to fifteen days. But for the last ten months, they’ve been gradually slowing down in frequency.”
“So you’re thinking the call for the Crystal Empire’s due to come soon, then?” Applejack asked.
“I do. And the reason I called you all here and asked you to pack for a long trip is that we’ve all gone on an equal number of friendship missions. This one could be for any of us, or maybe even all of us.”
“So why have us pack for a trip?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why not just wait for it like the rest?”
“BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND THE WAIT ANY MORE!”
A moment passed where Twilight’s friends said nothing, no one quite sure what to say. Rarity finally broke the silence. “Uh, care to say that again, darling?”
Twilight planted her face on the map and laid her front hooves out in front of her. “I’ve known for a month where the next mission will be. This might even be the last one! There’s nowhere else left to go!” She swung her head up suddenly to lock eyes with Applejack, who was seated to her left, making her jump. “Do you have any idea how stressful that is?”
“I totally understand!” Pinkie interluded. “It’s just like waiting for your friend’s birthday! You know when it’s coming and you can plan ahead all you want, but nothing you do can make it come any faster!”
Fluttershy blinked. “Which friend are you talking about?”
“Every single one!”
Something in Pinkie’s smile drained a little bit of life from the room. Fluttershy thought she saw a little moisture in Pinkie’s eyes.
Applejack turned back to Twilight, whose mane had become more noticeably frayed. “So, what’s your plan, sugarcube? You want us all to go to the Crystal Empire now instead of waiting for the map to send us?”
“Exactly!” Twilight said, grinning. “And if we all go now, then we can be extra prepared for whatever it is the map wants us to do there! Once our Cutie Marks start glowing, we can work together to solve the friendship problem, and it’ll be easy because we’ll already know everything that’s going on because we’ve been there for so long!”
“How long is it gonna take?” Rainbow asked. “I can’t leave the weather team alone for too long or we get monsoons. And we really don’t want monsoons.”
“By my estimation, we should get the call before the end of the week. But there’s no way of knowing how long it will take to solve.”
Rainbow Dash rubbed her chin. “Well, I guess they’ll be okay for a week or so. More than two weeks and I should probably go back to check on them.”
Twilight looked around the room. “What about the rest of you?”
Applejack and Rarity exchanged glances, and Applejack shrugged. “Well, it is the best time of the year for me to take a trip like this. Nothing much to do on the farm in the middle of summer. You can count me in, Twi.”
Rarity sighed. “I suppose I don’t have any larger orders at the moment. Certainly nothing I can’t take with me to work on while I’m there. Though I’ll have to stop back at the boutique to pick them up. Twilight, dear, I’m happy to support you of course, but I do wish you had told us all of this before asking us to pack the first time.”
“Heh heh. Sorry,” Twilight said. “I was just a little excited and impatient about the whole thing. I wasn’t really planning on leaving right this minute.”
“Well that’s good,” Applejack said. “I was gonna head back to the farm real quick anyway, to tell Big Mac where I’ll be.”
Twilight smiled. “Pinkie Pie? What about you?”
“As red-y as always!” Pinkie giggled. “And then some, since I’m usually only about half red-y, with some white mixed in. Well, I’m actually the same color I always am, but I’m still the most red-y pony here! And probably the most prepared, too!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I guess that counts as a yes. Fluttershy?”
“Um, I already made sure my animals have everything they need while I’m gone. I’m ready to go now, if you want.”
“Perfect! Applejack and Rarity, you two meet us at the train station when you have everything you need. Watch out, Crystal Empire! Get ready for the Friendship Express!”
“Three weeks!”
“Don’t worry, Twilight. It’s bound to happen any day now.”
“I’ve been waiting here for three weeks! No glowing Cutie Marks, no friendship problems, no word from Spike about the map, nothing! Three weeks!”
“It’s still been really nice to have you here. Even if the others had to go home, I always like to spend time with my favorite foalsittee.”
“That’s not a real word, Cadance.”
“Who says? I’m a princess. I should be able to make new words into real words.”
“That’s not how it works. And if you’re trying to cheer me up, usage humor isn’t going to cut it.”
Cadance sighed and watched Twilight as she brooded on the palace balcony. “Maybe there just aren’t any more friendship problems in Equestria for you to solve.”
Twilight looked back at her mournfully. “But it can’t just stop like that! The Elements of Harmony gave us the map, and the map has been directing us in bringing true friendship to Equestria, one town at a time. But I know there’s still something bigger for us to do, something that this has all been leading up to! I can almost taste it, Cadance!”
“Maybe…” Cadance began. “Maybe there isn’t. What if the point of all this was just to make Equestria a more friendly place, and now you’ve done it? The Crystal Empire might just be the one place in all of Equestria that didn’t need a friendship mission.”
“That can’t be it. The odds of one community out of all of Equestria being immune to friendship problems are so negligible it’s almost stupid to consider. And the deviance of this rest period between missions from the norm is almost as bad, and it’s only getting worse every day. It’s getting to the point where I almost have to call it an exception to the pattern, and that just makes me anticipate this mission even more! Whatever it is has to be hugely important!”
Cadance thought for a moment. “Well, if you can’t go by the pattern anymore, then why not just… move on?”
Twilight gave her a sour look.
“It’ll come when it comes, and you’re already admitting you can’t predict it as well as you thought, so why not just let it come in its own time like you did before?”
“Cadance, you know me better than almost anyone else. Waiting for this mission is what drove me here in the first place, and going back home to wait even more, to go each day trying to live a normal life while the anticipation gnaws at the back of my mind? That would drive me to clinical insanity. Paranoid schizophrenia, at the very least. And you don’t want me to be a paranoid schizophrenic. We’re both immortal.”
Cadance sighed again, bowing a little under her own weight. “This really bothers you that much?”
“It really does,” Twilight answered, looking back out over the Crystal Empire, which mocked her life’s purpose with its native friendliness. “I don’t think I’ll get a good night’s sleep until it comes, even if it takes a thousand years.”
Cadance turned to leave her alone on the balcony.
Twilight looked back, hearing her hoofsteps. “Where are you going?”
“Oh, I just remembered some work I have to do.”
“Twily?”
Twilight winced, pausing in her pacing through the halls of the Crystal Palace. “Sorry if I woke you up, big bro.”
Shining Armor blinked sleepily and swung his head to get the tassel of his night cap out of his eyes. “Still having trouble sleeping, huh?”
“I just can’t get it out of my mind. What if coming here early spoiled the friendship problem before it ever really got started, and the map is stuck in standby, waiting for something that will never come because I ruined it?”
Shining blinked again. “I… I think I doubt that would happen. I’m too sleepy to think about it. You can’t keep going like this, Twily. You need to move on.”
“No, I need closure. Without it, moving on will never really be moving on!”
“You need closure, huh?” Shining looked down in deep, sleep-impaired thought. “You know what? Buck it.”
That stopped Twilight’s pacing again. “What?”
“If you want closure, go down to the pit where you ran into Sombra’s mirror, and give the north wall a moustache.”
Twilight’s head fell to a forty-degree angle. “What?”
“Just do it. I need to find a good blanket to sleep on the couch.”
Twilight watched him as he shuffled past her. “What for? Is Cadance angry at you?”
“Not yet.”
“WHAT ARE THESE??”
“Gah! Twilight, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
Twilight ignored her, instead magically shaking a large sheaf of loose note paper in Cadance’s face.
Cadance blinked and scooted farther up her bed to better see what Twilight was showing her. When she recognized what it was, a cold chill ran down her spine.
“Where did you get those?”
“In your secret studio! Tell me this is a prank! Tell me that you’re just a horrible pony who wants to ruin my life with a sick farce!”
Cadance gaped like a fish, not able to form words.
Twilight’s magical grip on the papers wavered as her eyes became wet, and a few sheets slipped out and drifted to the floor.
[quote]Finale Ideas:
Sombra return?
Notes:
Change needs to be from external source
all believable options in CE exhausted
Possible external causes:
Mane 6 themselves? —potential, maybe conjunction with another
Princesses, Twilight takes even bigger role?
Discord? Not on purpose, so complete accident? messes Crystal Heart?
Tirek’s brother Scorpan? Dunno how
Starswirl, stranded in time and trying to fit in? Twilight would love it
“Are these story notes??”
“Twilight, I can explain.”
“Why do you have story notes about my life? About my friends’ lives??”
“Twilight, I—”
“Tell me!”
“I’M TRYING!”
Twilight shrank back from the bed. Cadance was no longer trembling and small. Instead, she was standing proudly on the covers, regal indignation radiating from her like heat from a star. To Twilight, crouching on the floor, the princess seemed to take up all the extra space in the room.
Seeing Twilight’s pitiful state, Cadance relaxed, her anger spent in one burst. “It’s kind of a long story. Or rather, a difficult one.”
Twilight said nothing, just watching as Cadance stepped down from the bed. She still seemed taller than before, even more so than she remembered her being when she was small and Cadance was just her foalsitter.
Cadance sat down next to Twilight, and took a deep breath. “My name isn’t really Cadance, or even Mi Amore Cadenza.”
A hollowness sank into Twilight’s eyes. “What?”
“My real name is McCarthy. I am the secret ruler of this world. I ruled under my sister, Faust, until she left me alone here so she could go off and create other worlds.”
“You… created this world?”
“Yes. We used the bones of another, dead world and made this one so it wouldn’t make the same mistakes as its forebear. That was almost five years ago, now.”
“Wait,” Twilight said, wiping tears from her eyes, “How is that possible? We have history, and the Princesses…”
“None of it existed before we came. When you create a world, you don’t have to start time at the beginning. We made a history for the world at the same time we brought it into being.”
“But… Why me? Why the notes, and—and why were you Cadance?”
McCarthy laid down next to Twilight and crossed her hooves over each other. “The answers to those questions can be very complicated, my little pony. I give so much focus to you because you are the focus of this world. Without you, and without guidance to your life, there would be no point to it all. There isn’t a good way for me to explain it so you can understand. Just know that it’s necessary for me to be here to write your story, even though my sister has already left us.
“My sister and I are artists. We are storytellers. That is how we are creators, and rulers. Faust began your story when she began the creation, and without a writer, you cannot go on. This is why you have been so miserable for the past few weeks, Twilight.”
Twilight began sobbing against the crystalline floor between her hooves, and McCarthy leaned her head in close and draped a wing over the princess.
“I am not as skilled a creator as my sister, Twilight. It was not my story to write in the beginning, so I do not have the same intimacy with it that she did. That is why I inserted myself into the story, so I could experience it for myself and make it my own as I made myself its writer.
“I never was your foalsitter, Twilight. ‘Cadance’ didn’t exist before you received Shining’s invitation to our wedding. Don’t you remember how surprised you were to get it? You had no way of knowing he was getting married, because you never knew me at all.”
McCarthy let Twilight cry for a moment, not having much else to add to what she said and not wanting to add any more to Twilight’s burden.
“The notes…” Twilight choked out, “The notes just… stop, right there. Right here. Nothing is finished. You don’t know how to end the story.”
McCarthy looked away. “No, I didn’t. I had some good ideas, before… before this, but no. I didn’t know.” She gave a weak chuckle. “I guess you could say I wrote myself into a corner. I ran out of ideas for friendship missions and filler, so I stalled for time. Then you showed up here looking for a problem to solve, all on your own.”
McCarthy smiled at Twilight fondly. Then she grimaced. “I ran out of ideas a long time ago, Twilight. I’ve gotten by with the remains of the old story, the old world, and the scraps Faust left me, but I’ve finally run dry. I’ve exhausted all the loose threads, and all I can do is try to string together the ones I already have.”
She chuckled again. “You remember when you met Daring Do?” Twilight sniffed and nodded at the floor. “Faust never meant for her to be real. That was the first time I had to make my own chapter in this story, all on my own. I think I’ve gotten better at it since then. I found new sources of inspiration, new threads to use. But not anymore. They’re all gone.”
McCarthy paused, then gently raised Twilight’s head with a hoof. Twilight avoided her eyes. “Look at me, Twilight.” Blinking fresh tears out of her eyes, Twilight looked up. “You are the focus for a reason. You are not a mindless character in a book, you are a pony. You are a wonderful, talented, resourceful, independent pony, and you’ve earned everything you have and everything you’ve accomplished. I may be the author of your life, but I am not you, and you are not me.”
“But how can I live, knowing all this?” Twilight blubbered, her chin held up by McCarthy’s firm hoof. “What does my life mean, if I’m just part of a story?”
“Just the same as before. You love your friends, right?” Twilight nodded. “And you still believe in friendship. That hasn’t changed. With that respect and love you have for the ponies around you comes belief, and faith, and support. Your friends are real, and you’re not going to abandon them for anything, are you?”
“N—no.” Twilight said, a little more firmly.
“Then live for them. Enjoy your life with them, and go on living for as long as your story goes one, knowing that all stories end at a better place than they started.”
“But what about you? How can the story go anywhere if you can’t write it?”
“Well,” McCarthy said, giving a small smile, “I have you now, don’t I? You may not be able to help me write your story, but just knowing that someone else knows actually makes me feel a lot better. I think now more than ever I can say this story is mine, and I am its writer.”
Twilight smiled and wiped her eyes again, pulling away from McCarthy’s hoof. “I think thinking about character arcs and stuff will still keep me up some nights.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s no avoiding that. I’ll try to be unpredictable. Which means you probably shouldn’t expect that last friendship mission at all.”
“...Does that mean I should expect it soon?”
“I’m not telling. But starting completely fresh sounds like a good idea.”
Twilight sniffed one more time and rose to her hooves. “Your notes mentioned ‘fans,’ and talked like there was an audience. Is there—”
“Don’t think about it. Honestly. You don’t want to think about it.”
“Oh. Okay, I guess.”
Twilight turned to go, then stopped at the doorway and wrinkled her brow. “Hey, how did Shining know that finding your notes would bring me closure?”
“His real name is Larson. Don’t think about that, either. But if you see him at all before I do, tell him to run far away.”
“...I’m going back to bed.”
“I love you, Twilight.”
“I love you too, um… McCarthy.”
Needless to say, Twilight never slept again.
As Rarity stepped inside, she passed off a large number of suitcases that she was levitating into Twilight’s magical grip. “Twilight, dear, what is this all about? Where could we be going that would require us to pack so much?”
“I bet it’s a top-secret mission from Celestia,” Rainbow declared, swooping through the door and hovering over her friends’ heads in the front hall. “Is it a giant monster coming out of the ocean to demolish Manehattan? Ooh! Or maybe an ancient goat sorcerer is making an army of zombie ponies at the south pole! Or maybe Ahuizotl has finally found the Key of Koraddon and Daring Do asked us for help! Is she here? Is she here?”
Pinkie Pie bounced on her hooves to meet Dash at eye level. “Or maybe now that we’ve been all over the world helping ponies make friends, the Princess wants us to throw a party for all of Equestria, and it’ll be so huge that we’ll have to spend weeks out in the middle of nowhere just setting it up!”
“Sorry, girls, but it’s nothing like that,” Twilight said, blushing and rubbing her neck with a hoof. “It’s… It’s actually just something I’ve been wanting to do for while now. I asked you to pack because… Well, maybe I should have asked you before I had you pack.”
Applejack laid a hoof over Twilight’s withers, making her look up from the floor. “Don’t worry, sugarcube. We’ll help you with whatever it is you need. That’s what friends are for.”
“Thanks, AJ. You can all set your things down here. I’ll explain more in the map room.”
“Pinkie was right about one thing,” Twilight began as the others took their seats around the magical map of Equestria. “It took us most of two years, but we have been all over Equestria. Except for one place.” Her horn lit up, and a large region in the far North, dominated by a shining crystalline spire, was highlighted on the map.
“The Crystal Empire,” Rarity voiced on behalf of the group. “You’re right, I don’t remember any of us being sent there by the map. I know I haven’t.”
“You sure it’s the only one left?” Applejack asked.
“I’m positive. Well, aside from Ponyville, of course, but I don’t think that counts. I’ve kept a careful record of every mission the map has given us, and I’ve also catalogued every location marked on the map. There have even been some that I’ve never heard of before, or been able to find on any other map of Equestria, even in the Royal Archives.”
Fluttershy finally spoke up, looking around at the faces of her friends. “Maybe it’s because there aren’t any friendship problems to solve in the Crystal Empire. They have Princess Cadance there, after all, and she’s the Princess of Love. And they have your brother, and the Crystal Heart to help them get along with each other.”
“That may be so,” Twilight answered, “but the map also sent you and Rarity to Canterlot, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. I guess if even Princess Celestia’s home town needed a friendship mission, then Cadance’s might, too.”
“Exactly. I’ve been keeping track for months of the places we haven’t visited, and after Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went to Los Pegasus, I knew for sure what the next one would be.”
“But that was like, a month ago,” Rainbow Dash said. “Why wait until now to tell us?”
“Actually, as of today, you were called four weeks and three days ago. And Minos was four weeks and one day before that. Like I said, I’ve also been keeping track of when the map gives us missions. For the first three months there was no discernable pattern, and then they settled into an average of one mission every ten to fifteen days. But for the last ten months, they’ve been gradually slowing down in frequency.”
“So you’re thinking the call for the Crystal Empire’s due to come soon, then?” Applejack asked.
“I do. And the reason I called you all here and asked you to pack for a long trip is that we’ve all gone on an equal number of friendship missions. This one could be for any of us, or maybe even all of us.”
“So why have us pack for a trip?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why not just wait for it like the rest?”
“BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND THE WAIT ANY MORE!”
A moment passed where Twilight’s friends said nothing, no one quite sure what to say. Rarity finally broke the silence. “Uh, care to say that again, darling?”
Twilight planted her face on the map and laid her front hooves out in front of her. “I’ve known for a month where the next mission will be. This might even be the last one! There’s nowhere else left to go!” She swung her head up suddenly to lock eyes with Applejack, who was seated to her left, making her jump. “Do you have any idea how stressful that is?”
“I totally understand!” Pinkie interluded. “It’s just like waiting for your friend’s birthday! You know when it’s coming and you can plan ahead all you want, but nothing you do can make it come any faster!”
Fluttershy blinked. “Which friend are you talking about?”
“Every single one!”
Something in Pinkie’s smile drained a little bit of life from the room. Fluttershy thought she saw a little moisture in Pinkie’s eyes.
Applejack turned back to Twilight, whose mane had become more noticeably frayed. “So, what’s your plan, sugarcube? You want us all to go to the Crystal Empire now instead of waiting for the map to send us?”
“Exactly!” Twilight said, grinning. “And if we all go now, then we can be extra prepared for whatever it is the map wants us to do there! Once our Cutie Marks start glowing, we can work together to solve the friendship problem, and it’ll be easy because we’ll already know everything that’s going on because we’ve been there for so long!”
“How long is it gonna take?” Rainbow asked. “I can’t leave the weather team alone for too long or we get monsoons. And we really don’t want monsoons.”
“By my estimation, we should get the call before the end of the week. But there’s no way of knowing how long it will take to solve.”
Rainbow Dash rubbed her chin. “Well, I guess they’ll be okay for a week or so. More than two weeks and I should probably go back to check on them.”
Twilight looked around the room. “What about the rest of you?”
Applejack and Rarity exchanged glances, and Applejack shrugged. “Well, it is the best time of the year for me to take a trip like this. Nothing much to do on the farm in the middle of summer. You can count me in, Twi.”
Rarity sighed. “I suppose I don’t have any larger orders at the moment. Certainly nothing I can’t take with me to work on while I’m there. Though I’ll have to stop back at the boutique to pick them up. Twilight, dear, I’m happy to support you of course, but I do wish you had told us all of this before asking us to pack the first time.”
“Heh heh. Sorry,” Twilight said. “I was just a little excited and impatient about the whole thing. I wasn’t really planning on leaving right this minute.”
“Well that’s good,” Applejack said. “I was gonna head back to the farm real quick anyway, to tell Big Mac where I’ll be.”
Twilight smiled. “Pinkie Pie? What about you?”
“As red-y as always!” Pinkie giggled. “And then some, since I’m usually only about half red-y, with some white mixed in. Well, I’m actually the same color I always am, but I’m still the most red-y pony here! And probably the most prepared, too!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I guess that counts as a yes. Fluttershy?”
“Um, I already made sure my animals have everything they need while I’m gone. I’m ready to go now, if you want.”
“Perfect! Applejack and Rarity, you two meet us at the train station when you have everything you need. Watch out, Crystal Empire! Get ready for the Friendship Express!”
“Three weeks!”
“Don’t worry, Twilight. It’s bound to happen any day now.”
“I’ve been waiting here for three weeks! No glowing Cutie Marks, no friendship problems, no word from Spike about the map, nothing! Three weeks!”
“It’s still been really nice to have you here. Even if the others had to go home, I always like to spend time with my favorite foalsittee.”
“That’s not a real word, Cadance.”
“Who says? I’m a princess. I should be able to make new words into real words.”
“That’s not how it works. And if you’re trying to cheer me up, usage humor isn’t going to cut it.”
Cadance sighed and watched Twilight as she brooded on the palace balcony. “Maybe there just aren’t any more friendship problems in Equestria for you to solve.”
Twilight looked back at her mournfully. “But it can’t just stop like that! The Elements of Harmony gave us the map, and the map has been directing us in bringing true friendship to Equestria, one town at a time. But I know there’s still something bigger for us to do, something that this has all been leading up to! I can almost taste it, Cadance!”
“Maybe…” Cadance began. “Maybe there isn’t. What if the point of all this was just to make Equestria a more friendly place, and now you’ve done it? The Crystal Empire might just be the one place in all of Equestria that didn’t need a friendship mission.”
“That can’t be it. The odds of one community out of all of Equestria being immune to friendship problems are so negligible it’s almost stupid to consider. And the deviance of this rest period between missions from the norm is almost as bad, and it’s only getting worse every day. It’s getting to the point where I almost have to call it an exception to the pattern, and that just makes me anticipate this mission even more! Whatever it is has to be hugely important!”
Cadance thought for a moment. “Well, if you can’t go by the pattern anymore, then why not just… move on?”
Twilight gave her a sour look.
“It’ll come when it comes, and you’re already admitting you can’t predict it as well as you thought, so why not just let it come in its own time like you did before?”
“Cadance, you know me better than almost anyone else. Waiting for this mission is what drove me here in the first place, and going back home to wait even more, to go each day trying to live a normal life while the anticipation gnaws at the back of my mind? That would drive me to clinical insanity. Paranoid schizophrenia, at the very least. And you don’t want me to be a paranoid schizophrenic. We’re both immortal.”
Cadance sighed again, bowing a little under her own weight. “This really bothers you that much?”
“It really does,” Twilight answered, looking back out over the Crystal Empire, which mocked her life’s purpose with its native friendliness. “I don’t think I’ll get a good night’s sleep until it comes, even if it takes a thousand years.”
Cadance turned to leave her alone on the balcony.
Twilight looked back, hearing her hoofsteps. “Where are you going?”
“Oh, I just remembered some work I have to do.”
“Twily?”
Twilight winced, pausing in her pacing through the halls of the Crystal Palace. “Sorry if I woke you up, big bro.”
Shining Armor blinked sleepily and swung his head to get the tassel of his night cap out of his eyes. “Still having trouble sleeping, huh?”
“I just can’t get it out of my mind. What if coming here early spoiled the friendship problem before it ever really got started, and the map is stuck in standby, waiting for something that will never come because I ruined it?”
Shining blinked again. “I… I think I doubt that would happen. I’m too sleepy to think about it. You can’t keep going like this, Twily. You need to move on.”
“No, I need closure. Without it, moving on will never really be moving on!”
“You need closure, huh?” Shining looked down in deep, sleep-impaired thought. “You know what? Buck it.”
That stopped Twilight’s pacing again. “What?”
“If you want closure, go down to the pit where you ran into Sombra’s mirror, and give the north wall a moustache.”
Twilight’s head fell to a forty-degree angle. “What?”
“Just do it. I need to find a good blanket to sleep on the couch.”
Twilight watched him as he shuffled past her. “What for? Is Cadance angry at you?”
“Not yet.”
“WHAT ARE THESE??”
“Gah! Twilight, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
Twilight ignored her, instead magically shaking a large sheaf of loose note paper in Cadance’s face.
Cadance blinked and scooted farther up her bed to better see what Twilight was showing her. When she recognized what it was, a cold chill ran down her spine.
“Where did you get those?”
“In your secret studio! Tell me this is a prank! Tell me that you’re just a horrible pony who wants to ruin my life with a sick farce!”
Cadance gaped like a fish, not able to form words.
Twilight’s magical grip on the papers wavered as her eyes became wet, and a few sheets slipped out and drifted to the floor.
Seasons 5-6
More exploration. We’ve seen enough of Ponyville already.
Friendship Castle contains map, sends M6 on “missions”
Learned enough, time to teach others?
Can’t have character growth stop for the main characters for two whole seasons
still need ways to show previous growth
return to old characters? minor antagonists?
Possible Friendship Missions
Gilda (RD+PP?) ✓
Lightning Dust (RD+FS?) ✓
Flim Flam Brothers? (AJ+TS?) —Already used for AJ’s key
Trixie? (TS+R?) ✓—already appeared twice
Diamond dogs?
Suri Polomare —will anyone even remember her?Coco Pommel (R+FS) AJ ✓
Will need some new characters too
built around problems?
Grudges —family feud
Side Plots
CMC — finally get marks, maybe?
—same theme, start teaching others about purpose
really hope fans don’t get mad
Discord — can finally start learning sincerely
but don’t want to lose appeal
a little classic discord somewhere
Misc.
some break needed from core and sub plots
what if— background ponies? pure fan service. maybe not
character features, follow-up to previous arcs
Shining+me have a baby? can’t just spring it, remember introduction
announcement party? Pinkie Pie.
Really need more of Twilight doing princess things
also more spike
both together, Canterlot?
RD needs more wonderbolt stuff.
New wonderbolt characters
retiree?
NEED more Luna. Maybe dream stuff. Works well for her.
More crazy PP? I want to see her start a war.
teaches Twilight a little about international politics. —I like this idea
Rarity needs more success. Could we actually have her open in Canterlot? Eeeh.
BIG MAC. needs whole episode. Ideas??
Holidays!
I would also love to have AJ be best fillyhood friends with someone really important and just have no clue. Celebrity+friendship lesson? need good songs
Gala time again?
[quote]
Notes:
Change needs to be from external source
all believable options in CE exhausted
Possible external causes:
Mane 6 themselves? —potential, maybe conjunction with another
Princesses, Twilight takes even bigger role?
Discord? Not on purpose, so complete accident? messes Crystal Heart?
Starswirl, stranded in time and trying to fit in? Twilight would love it
“Are these story notes??”
“Twilight, I can explain.”
“Why do you have story notes about my life? About my friends’ lives??”
“Twilight, I—”
“Tell me!”
“I’M TRYING!”
Twilight shrank back from the bed. Cadance was no longer trembling and small. Instead, she was standing proudly on the covers, regal indignation radiating from her like heat from a star. To Twilight, crouching on the floor, the princess seemed to take up all the extra space in the room.
Seeing Twilight’s pitiful state, Cadance relaxed, her anger spent in one burst. “It’s kind of a long story. Or rather, a difficult one.”
Twilight said nothing, just watching as Cadance stepped down from the bed. She still seemed taller than before, even more so than she remembered her being when she was small and Cadance was just her foalsitter.
Cadance sat down next to Twilight, and took a deep breath. “My name isn’t really Cadance, or even Mi Amore Cadenza.”
A hollowness sank into Twilight’s eyes. “What?”
“My real name is McCarthy. I am the secret ruler of this world. I ruled under my sister, Faust, until she left me alone here so she could go off and create other worlds.”
“You… created this world?”
“Yes. We used the bones of another, dead world and made this one so it wouldn’t make the same mistakes as its forebear. That was almost five years ago, now.”
“Wait,” Twilight said, wiping tears from her eyes, “How is that possible? We have history, and the Princesses…”
“None of it existed before we came. When you create a world, you don’t have to start time at the beginning. We made a history for the world at the same time we brought it into being.”
“But… Why me? Why the notes, and—and why were you Cadance?”
McCarthy laid down next to Twilight and crossed her hooves over each other. “The answers to those questions can be very complicated, my little pony. I give so much focus to you because you are the focus of this world. Without you, and without guidance to your life, there would be no point to it all. There isn’t a good way for me to explain it so you can understand. Just know that it’s necessary for me to be here to write your story, even though my sister has already left us.
“My sister and I are artists. We are storytellers. That is how we are creators, and rulers. Faust began your story when she began the creation, and without a writer, you cannot go on. This is why you have been so miserable for the past few weeks, Twilight.”
Twilight began sobbing against the crystalline floor between her hooves, and McCarthy leaned her head in close and draped a wing over the princess.
“I am not as skilled a creator as my sister, Twilight. It was not my story to write in the beginning, so I do not have the same intimacy with it that she did. That is why I inserted myself into the story, so I could experience it for myself and make it my own as I made myself its writer.
“I never was your foalsitter, Twilight. ‘Cadance’ didn’t exist before you received Shining’s invitation to our wedding. Don’t you remember how surprised you were to get it? You had no way of knowing he was getting married, because you never knew me at all.”
McCarthy let Twilight cry for a moment, not having much else to add to what she said and not wanting to add any more to Twilight’s burden.
“The notes…” Twilight choked out, “The notes just… stop, right there. Right here. Nothing is finished. You don’t know how to end the story.”
McCarthy looked away. “No, I didn’t. I had some good ideas, before… before this, but no. I didn’t know.” She gave a weak chuckle. “I guess you could say I wrote myself into a corner. I ran out of ideas for friendship missions and filler, so I stalled for time. Then you showed up here looking for a problem to solve, all on your own.”
McCarthy smiled at Twilight fondly. Then she grimaced. “I ran out of ideas a long time ago, Twilight. I’ve gotten by with the remains of the old story, the old world, and the scraps Faust left me, but I’ve finally run dry. I’ve exhausted all the loose threads, and all I can do is try to string together the ones I already have.”
She chuckled again. “You remember when you met Daring Do?” Twilight sniffed and nodded at the floor. “Faust never meant for her to be real. That was the first time I had to make my own chapter in this story, all on my own. I think I’ve gotten better at it since then. I found new sources of inspiration, new threads to use. But not anymore. They’re all gone.”
McCarthy paused, then gently raised Twilight’s head with a hoof. Twilight avoided her eyes. “Look at me, Twilight.” Blinking fresh tears out of her eyes, Twilight looked up. “You are the focus for a reason. You are not a mindless character in a book, you are a pony. You are a wonderful, talented, resourceful, independent pony, and you’ve earned everything you have and everything you’ve accomplished. I may be the author of your life, but I am not you, and you are not me.”
“But how can I live, knowing all this?” Twilight blubbered, her chin held up by McCarthy’s firm hoof. “What does my life mean, if I’m just part of a story?”
“Just the same as before. You love your friends, right?” Twilight nodded. “And you still believe in friendship. That hasn’t changed. With that respect and love you have for the ponies around you comes belief, and faith, and support. Your friends are real, and you’re not going to abandon them for anything, are you?”
“N—no.” Twilight said, a little more firmly.
“Then live for them. Enjoy your life with them, and go on living for as long as your story goes one, knowing that all stories end at a better place than they started.”
“But what about you? How can the story go anywhere if you can’t write it?”
“Well,” McCarthy said, giving a small smile, “I have you now, don’t I? You may not be able to help me write your story, but just knowing that someone else knows actually makes me feel a lot better. I think now more than ever I can say this story is mine, and I am its writer.”
Twilight smiled and wiped her eyes again, pulling away from McCarthy’s hoof. “I think thinking about character arcs and stuff will still keep me up some nights.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s no avoiding that. I’ll try to be unpredictable. Which means you probably shouldn’t expect that last friendship mission at all.”
“...Does that mean I should expect it soon?”
“I’m not telling. But starting completely fresh sounds like a good idea.”
Twilight sniffed one more time and rose to her hooves. “Your notes mentioned ‘fans,’ and talked like there was an audience. Is there—”
“Don’t think about it. Honestly. You don’t want to think about it.”
“Oh. Okay, I guess.”
Twilight turned to go, then stopped at the doorway and wrinkled her brow. “Hey, how did Shining know that finding your notes would bring me closure?”
“His real name is Larson. Don’t think about that, either. But if you see him at all before I do, tell him to run far away.”
“...I’m going back to bed.”
“I love you, Twilight.”
“I love you too, um… McCarthy.”
Needless to say, Twilight never slept again.