Post by Luna on Aug 31, 2012 22:14:11 GMT -5
Luna knocks on your front door! She's a very polite princess.
Twilight_Sparkle calls out, from somewhere inside, 'Come in!'
The door smacks open, hard. Courtesy from a princess has its limits, after all. Ducking her head an inch so that the tip of her horn doesn't catch on the door lintel, Luna steps calmly inside the library. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE! WE, THY PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT, REQUEST THY ASSISTANCE!" she announces, regardless of what she may have just stepped into. She's dressed in a little extra today. Aside from the crown, yoke, and shoes, a harness is strapped to her back, letting her carry a stone crate about the size of a regular pony.
Twilight_Sparkle gets to her hooves, as Luna enters the room, peering worriedly at the crate. "Of course, Princess! You know I'm always at your disposal, but..." She searches for the least disrespectful way to phrase this. "Is...what's in there going to blow up the library? Because I'm very opposed to that and I think we should open it somewhere I'm less concerned with an explosion happening."
Luna's bluegreen eyes stare down at Twilight with a stony lack of comprehension for two seconds. Then they flick around the book-studded walls of the library, and she answers, "If the contents of this box explode, great shall be our lamentation." Her horn shimmers blue, and the thick stone box detaches from her harness, floats around in front of her, and falls to the floor with a BOOM. Ducking her horn, she levers it under the stone lid, and slides that off with an equally noisy scrape and thud. At that point, she announces what will be immediately obvious. "It contains books. Very old, fragile books, Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight_Sparkle's jaw drops. She stares. Then her eyes light up like a little filly's on Christmas morning. "...books," she says, lamely, approaching the stacks as one might approach a delicate, holy shrine.
The books are old. They are beyond old. They're barely books. Some are incunables, with messy, mismatched page sizes. Some are just stacks of paper tied into book shape by string. They all appear to be hand-written. Farther down the box, most of them are scrolls. At the bottom, a couple are fossilized clay tablets. Luna stands with granite solemnity over the box, watching Twilight's reaction, until suddenly her head sags an inch and the tension disappears. Awkwardly, her voice quite low, she asks, "May we speak informally, Twilight Sparkle? These books are of... personal value to us."
Twilight_Sparkle walks around the stacks of books, scrolls, and tablets, slowly, studying them with wide-eyed reverence. She turns to Princess Luna. "Yes," she replies in hished tones. "By all means. Strictly off the record if you like."
Luna lifts a front hoof and waves it over the top of the box, her eyebrows pressing up and together with an expression of unaccustomed abashment. "These are not books... precisely. They were not written for publication. They are mostly journals. They predate the night we betrayed Equestria and were punished by the Elements."
Twilight_Sparkle nods solemnly, still staring at the antiquities. "I...I don't suppose you'd consider letting me have a look at them? To someone like me, these are a treasure trove of history!" She looks up at the taller pony, meekly. "I mean, if I'm not allowed, I understand...Celestia's never shown me anything quite like this, and I've never asked."
Luna sets her hoof down, pulls her head back, and tucks it down. She clears her throat, very softly, very carefully. "We may not have been sufficiently specific. We did not write these. They are memoires, letters, collections of poetry that we have kept in memory of the stallions we loved. Some were written for us. Some merely mention us." Her wings uncurl from her sides to give an embarrassed half flap, then roll up again.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times again. "Mementos," she says, slowly. "Of...all the stallions you've loved. Who've loved you." She looks up at Luna, almost sorrowfully. "It must be hard, living so long."
Luna is less embarrassed about this part. Solemnly, she agrees, "Outliving a lover is not an experience we relish, even when we are long separated by the time they pass. Thou may note how few these momentos are for a thousand years of life." She draws herself up. She's been relaxed and confidential, and although she doesn't quite go stonily formal, she straightens to her full height, looking down on you and continuing, "But though we appreciate thy sympathy, we brought them here for another purpose. We need thy help, Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic. Sealed in stone, they kept through our banishment, but now most of these volumes fragment and dissolve at the touch. We require an expert's assistance."
Twilight_Sparkle nods, the violet librarian immediately on more comfortable turf herself; this is a subject with which she has more experience than she does with love or immortality. "I figured that must be what brought you here. You're interested in preserving these. I'm pretty sure I would be too." She looks thoughtful. "How important is preserving these actual physical objects? I mean, duplicating the content is a simple enough thing. The hardest part would be keeping them from disintegrating during the process, but I could do it. On the other hoof, if what you want is to preserve them in their current forms...well. That's a bigger project."
Luna gapes, her mouth hanging open, bluegreen eyes staring, and the pupils even twitch once. Then she throws her head back and laughs! "MAGNIFICENT! Truly, we have come to the right pony." Stepping around the stone crate, she unfurls one wing, stretching it over Twilight's back and curling it approvingly over her far shoulder. Suddenly jovial, she approves, "We have passed on the Element of Magic to a deserving pony indeed. Such questions had not occurred to us, for our greatest specialty is in much more destructive magics. Hmmm." Laudations granted, she presses her lips together tightly for a second as she considers the actual question. "The latter is preferable, because these are objects of sentimental and historical value, yet in truth it is not necessary. To be able to read the words of Iron Shod as he wonders if he will return home alive to see his night princess again, the speculations of Starswirl as he dissects the essence of space and time from our crude, instinctive magics... that is the true value in these documents."
Twilight_Sparkle beams, proudly! Princessly praise is something she's been courting since she was tiny! "I...think it's worth it to try to do both! I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me fix these up and donate them to the University Library? Sooooo many ponies, by which I mean I, would LOVE to make a study of some of them! And, I could replicate all of them as a single book or set of scrolls for you!" She's practically bouncing up and down with excitement, as she talks about this.
Luna turns her head to look down at you, again perplexed. "Study... these? They are but private notes and journals of stallions long, long, long passed. Who besides I who loved him wishes to read of a warrior talking about getting his armor repaired, or a pegasus complaining about not knowing which way to fly home from the island he just discovered?" As she talks her head swings aside, craning over the box and staring wistfully at its ragged contents. A wing dips in, and the tips of a few feathers lift a page, but let it settle when dust sprinkles from the edges.
Twilight_Sparkle's eyes are full of stars as you speak. Literally. In fact, stars are swirling around her head. She pictures the scenes. "It's easy for you to dismiss it, but...I'm a much younger pony than you are. I haven't been alive since the beginning. Studying history is...like a way of reclaiming the past, and establishing a link to the ponies who came before me? I could spend hours and hours and HOURS with these." She levitates one of the better-preserved scrolls, unrolls it, whisks on her reading glasses, and reads. "...wow, it's a letter from someone named Prince Purple Rain. I've never even HEARD of him."
Luna's brow furrows again. "Prince...?" she begins, and then a smile spreads gently across her face. "Ah, Prince Purple Rain. Neigh, thou would not have heard of him. The Kingdom of Funk is long, long gone. He wished to be our lover. We never agreed, but the letters warmed our heart. He had an odd charm, even when he referred to us as an irresistable bi- well, he had an odd charm." She chuckles softly, and adds, "Surely the love letters and poems, at least, are of no public interest?"
Twilight_Sparkle says "I think you underestimate how important you are, Princess. Every word you've ever written, and every word that's ever been written TO you, is probably of interest to somepony! But...I don't want to just throw everything that's ever been special about you into the public eye. You're entitled to keep any or all of it private." She smiles, and looks up at you. "If you ask me not to, I'll never breathe a word about any of it."
Luna giggles faintly. There just might possibly be a trace of pink along the sleek royal cheekbones. "Privacy is a thing royalty soon learns to let go of, Twilight Sparkle," she notes primly. "We..." She lifts the wing from your back and waves it in a circle. "We will allow thee to decide what to put on public display. Only copies, however. The originals must be returned to us if they can be preserved. As long as we have these memories, we care not if a hundred or a thousand other ponies peruse them."
Twilight_Sparkle picks up a very old tablet, and looks at it, her eyes narrow. She turns it this way and that. She asks, "I have to ask...are there any major revelations in here? The kind of thing that's going to challenge my understanding of the nature of Equestria, time, and reality? Because if there isn't, I'll probably be able to be more focused on the details. But if there IS....well, that would be the BEST."
Luna is really having trouble with this conversation. Yet again she gets that eye-tilted, baffled expression. Sounding distinctly helpless, she answers, "Twilight Sparkle, we have yet to become comfortable and familiar with an Equestria with no war, no rampaging monsters, in which the fear of famine or chaos magic are not merely past, but forgotten. We do not KNOW what would challenge thy understanding. Thee shall hear of both thy princesses as ponies who laugh and kill in battle and take stallions to our bed and bear foals. Will that challenge thee? Thee shall see stallions who are surely now names in obscure books as the flawed and wonderful living beings they were. Will that challenge thee? Thee shall read of days when Equestria was a... harder place. Much harder. When friendship was what kept thy back safe when the chaos spawn attacked, and slaying another pony for pride was not a crime. Will that challenge thee?" She shakes her head, and concludes with a sigh, "The most we can say is that the days of our youth will be as peculiar to thee as this beautiful, gentle world is to us now."
Twilight_Sparkle examines the tablet. she raises one eyebrow, and bites her lip. Then she peers over the tablet, and over the tops of her eyeglasses, at the taller pony. "You think we modern ponies are soft, don't you? I suppose maybe you're right. My life's been fairly pampered, I guess. I've never fought in a war or even seen one, and as far as lovers, I..." Pause. "My point is, though, it doesn't mean I can't handle stories about realities besides my own. It's not as if I've never been in danger. I've led my friends in going up against Discord, and Queen Chrysalis, and Nightmare M--" Another pause. Followed by looking down at her hooves, and murmuring something unintelligible.
Luna turns smoothly to face you. She lifts a foreleg, touches a hoof to your chin and raises it so that her bluegreen eyes can look down into your own. Her expression is mild and sad, but her pupils narrow into mere snakelike slits as she stares. "Twilight Sparkle, Chrysalis would have murdered thee for pleasure. Discord's jokes would have riven the world and slain nine ponies out of ten. I made all attempt to scare thee and thy friends off, but thou persisted, and I *would* have driven my horn through thy heart and laughed as I watched thy life bleed away. I do not question thy bravery, only suggest that the ponies of the past may seem rough of merely peculiar when their thoughts and habits are laid bare. And... one other thing." She takes a deep breath, her pupils filling out to normal roundness again before she adds in a much more stern voice, "There are notes in this box from Horizon and Starswirl, magics of control of time and space we have kept hidden from other unicorns. We trust thee with them but please, PLEASE do not attempt to raise the sun or moon, even if the secret seems in front of thee."
Twilight_Sparkle looks up at the princess, and smiles, her eyes welling up with tears. "I just hope you know what an honor it is to be allowed to delve into your past. And, for the record, I'm glad you didn't skewer me on your horn and then laugh and dance around in my blood. I'd much rather be able to think of you as a friend." She hesitates a moment, nervously scuffling her hoof. "I've always wanted to learn from you. You're as important to understanding magic as Celestia is."
The two of you hear an odd, echoey, chipping sort of sound. You're really not sure what it is, but it's getting louder.
Luna lowers her hoof, and turns away, stepping back around the other side of the big stone crate. This lets her sweep threatrically as she laughs, then turn her head and point out, "Peculiar words, Twilight Sparkle. Have a look at thy cutie mark. How many of the strongest unicorns have had cutie marks of the moon or stars? Whose blood think thee runs strong in them?" The seriousness of moments before gone, she manages a thin, sly grin as she looks down at the purple filly. "And who think thee the Element of Magic chose before thyself?"
After another minute or so, part of the library floor crumbles away as if it were made of dirt, and a pink head wearing a miner's helmet pops up. It looks around blankly for a minute, then calls back down into the newly formed hole. "Sorry, Screwloose, we dug into the library again. Better just go back to the hospital. See you same time next week!"
Twilight_Sparkle blinks, at Luna's words. She looks back at her flank, then back at Luna. Her mouth hangs open, a bit. She had never considered that as a possibility. "I'll...have to fetch my geneological records from Canterlot, before I edit and sort these then," she says, finally, her expression a bit dazed. And it is in this state that she is suddenly confronted with a hole in her floor, with one of her friends in it. "Pinkie Pie?" Dramatic sigh. "I've told you before, I really prefer it when you use the front door."
Luna chuckles, "We wish thee good hunting. Thou might be eighty generations removed, and are unlikely less than twenty. Such are the tricks time plays on us." Walking with careful, clipped steps over to the hole, she taps Pinkie twice on the head with her hoof. "Element of Laughter, may we assist thee with aught?"
Pinkie_Pie beams up at the two of you. "Oh, wow, you're in the same room and everything! This is wonderful! This is my most purple day EVER!" She pops out of the hole, and absently scuffs at the floor for several seconds, like a dog digging. Sawdust flies up, filling in the egress neatly. "Help me? Um... oh, I know! When you called me the Element of Laughter (hee! I love that name! It's one of my five favorites!) it reminded me to ask you - what other elements WERE you, besides Magic like Twi here?" She flankbumps Twilight happily.
Twilight_Sparkle sets about repairing the hole in the floor. This is not that difficult a job for her at this point; the hole is enveloped in a dome of light, which expands, then shrinks again, leaving a seemingly undamaged floor behind as it vanishes. She looks back at Luna, at Pinkie Pie's question; there's something in her gaze, now, something questioning, wondering, longing. Or maybe there's not and Twilight just always looks like that at people who give her old books to study.
Luna raises her eyebrows, but at least it's not nearly as perplexing a question to her as Twilight's. "Our sister Celestia held Honesty, Laughter, and Kindness. We knew her as the Element of Love. Ourself, we held Generosity, Loyalty, and Magic. Together they made us the Element of Protection. Then we committed an act of absolute selfishness, betraying the ponies who trusted us, and turned our magic against Harmony itself to harm them. They have chosen more deserving wielders now, and we are thankful that Equestria has their protection again." Her horn shimmers as she talks, and as stealthily as possible, which is to say with a loud and obvious scraping sound, the stone lid sneaks up to close the stone box full of very delicate books that are suddenly in Pinkie Pie's presence.
Pinkie_Pie's eyes are so big. "Woooow! That's so neat! I mean not so much that you corrupted one of the building blocks of love and friendship into utter betrayal, but the whole thing otherwise is so cool! It makes /so much sense/!" she chirps. "Thank you! Let me see if there's anything else I wanted to know." She tells Twilight, "I hardly EVER see Luna. Can you believe it? Oh, I know! Princess Darkbutt, you MUST know who Twilight's guy ancestor is, cause it's super obvious she's descended from you, with the purple and the dark and the cutie mark and phenomenal cosmic powers. It's not like you were kissing so many colts you can't remember all of them, right? What was his name? Tell me all about him! Was he hot?"
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times, staring at Pinkie Pie. "YOU'D already figured that out?" She touches her hoof to her face, adopting an "I am such an idiot" grimace.
Luna spreads her wings in surprise as she recoils from the onslaught of Pinkie's enthusiastic prattle. Eyes wide, she stammers, "Element of Harmony... eighty generations. Two thousand years! We had foals by a dozen stallions ere our banishment. Celestia's blood is strong in her as well, as though in her heart as well as by her horn two sisters were reunited after a thousand years. We cannot..." She sighs then, her head slumping down and her whole body sagging a little. Rolling her eyes up, she admits grumpily, "Once we saw her in the Starswirl costume, it seemed clear to us she was his get. He and I had one daughter, Evening, before our romance ended. By four dozen generations, Twilight is surely her daughter."
Pinkie_Pie BEAMS. "Twilight, that's wonderful! Starswirl is one of your most favorite ponies! And he's super famous in magic things, there's even a branch of the library named after him! I remember because we broke into it together! Good times, good times!"
Twilight_Sparkle's eyes open wide. She swoons. Then, she falls over, in a melodramatic faint worthy of Rarity. She doesn't have rarity's aim, though, or, for that matter, own a fainting couch. She collapses onto a pile of books, and since this isn't very comfortable, she's awake and struggling to her hooves again soon. She looks up at Pinkie and Luna. "Oof. Sorry. Heh heh! Forgot not to stand with my knees locked."
Luna can't help but smirk, her mouth curled up on one side in DISTINCTLY royal sarcasm. The royal tail lashes, although that's more visible as a billowing ripple in its glittering blue haze. "A wing named after him? Starswirl would be ecstatic. He cared for nothing half so much as books and learning, except possibly that unmentionable beard." She snorts in playful disgust, then her smile softens. "His madness was hypnotic, fascinating, a mind devoted utterly to brilliance. His blood is at least as strong in Twilight's as our own."
Pinkie_Pie helps Twilight up, smiling. "That sure sounds like our Twilight, all right. I didn't know books could be transmitted down generations! Not literally books, but the whole BOOK and reading thing, in order for books to actually be passed down generations we'd have to have some kind of code language in our cells we could pass on to our foals and you two don't know anything about that yet. Isn't that silly?"
Twilight_Sparkle nods, distractedly, still looking dazed. "Uh huh. Silly," she repeats. Then, "You know what? I think I knew that. Starswirl, I mean. I didn't see him in my family's genealogical records, but it was so long ago and the records aren't very complete, from that period. But reading his work it just...felt like it came from someone close to me." She looks up at Luna. "So how closely related are we, anyhow? What am I to you?" She looks at Pinkie Pie. "And Pinkie, and the others...are we all your children? I mean, in the broadest sense of that term? Not the ABSOLUTE broadest, though, because that'd encompass a sort of 'family of ponies' sense that has less to do with blood, and..." She suddenly looks sheepish. "But how many ponies *are* descendants of yours?"
Luna raises her eyebrows again, this time not in confusion, but amusement. Her voice is rather light as she looks down at the two little ponies in front of her and answers, "After two thousand years? Perhaps much more? All of thee. We would be surprised if a single pony does not have the blood of ourself or our sister or both. Eighty generations is enough for our offspring to have married into every family in Equestria. Starswirl was our descendant, but with ten generations removed there was no hint that was improper. Time passes, our little ponies, and it plays strange tricks as it does."
Pinkie_Pie rests her head comfortably across Twilight's back. "I like that. Just one super big family," she says contentedly. "And I like being related to you, and The Great White Plot. I hope it's true. Happy thing usually are." She looks over to the side, and asks, "So what's in the giant stone coffin I'm not supposed to be noticing? Is it a present? I can start wrapping presents in rocks if that's the fashionable thing now."
Twilight_Sparkle contemplates this. "That's taking the long view," is all she says, but what's in her mind, and her heart, is so much more. She smiles, and her horn and eyes glow some, warmly, with soft happy light.
Luna is buffeted by all this happiness, forced to smile not in humor but in gentle affection. She extends a wing and pats the top of the crate, answering Pinkie, "These are the books thou spoke of, passed down from her ancestors. They are so fragile a breath might render some dust, and we are leaving them here that Twilight Sparkle may make them whole, and copy those she deems fit." Folding her wings again, straightening up to stiff formality and then giving her head a small bow, she asks, "Shall thou do thy princess this service, Element of Magic?"
Twilight_Sparkle bows gently in Luna's direction. "It will be my honor and my pleasure, my princess."
Pinkie_Pie seems to have fallen asleep draped across Twilight's back, smiling softly. The sheer energy needed just to be Pinkie sometimes gets to her, and she just shuts off like a candle being blown out. Of course she can turn back on just as suddenly. Mostly, though, you think she's just abosrbing the here-ness of good friends and - perhaps, as it turns out - family.
Luna turns abruptly, and walks towards the door. "Keep us abreast of thy progress, and do not hesitate to make contact if thee have questions. Letters passed through thy dragon shall reach us as easily as Celestia." She stops long enough for the front door to slam open loudly in front of her, and then steps out.
Twilight_Sparkle watches the princess go, and then curls up with Pinkie Pie, amidst the cushionpile. This is the sort of afternoon it helps to sleep on!
Twilight_Sparkle calls out, from somewhere inside, 'Come in!'
The door smacks open, hard. Courtesy from a princess has its limits, after all. Ducking her head an inch so that the tip of her horn doesn't catch on the door lintel, Luna steps calmly inside the library. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE! WE, THY PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT, REQUEST THY ASSISTANCE!" she announces, regardless of what she may have just stepped into. She's dressed in a little extra today. Aside from the crown, yoke, and shoes, a harness is strapped to her back, letting her carry a stone crate about the size of a regular pony.
Twilight_Sparkle gets to her hooves, as Luna enters the room, peering worriedly at the crate. "Of course, Princess! You know I'm always at your disposal, but..." She searches for the least disrespectful way to phrase this. "Is...what's in there going to blow up the library? Because I'm very opposed to that and I think we should open it somewhere I'm less concerned with an explosion happening."
Luna's bluegreen eyes stare down at Twilight with a stony lack of comprehension for two seconds. Then they flick around the book-studded walls of the library, and she answers, "If the contents of this box explode, great shall be our lamentation." Her horn shimmers blue, and the thick stone box detaches from her harness, floats around in front of her, and falls to the floor with a BOOM. Ducking her horn, she levers it under the stone lid, and slides that off with an equally noisy scrape and thud. At that point, she announces what will be immediately obvious. "It contains books. Very old, fragile books, Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight_Sparkle's jaw drops. She stares. Then her eyes light up like a little filly's on Christmas morning. "...books," she says, lamely, approaching the stacks as one might approach a delicate, holy shrine.
The books are old. They are beyond old. They're barely books. Some are incunables, with messy, mismatched page sizes. Some are just stacks of paper tied into book shape by string. They all appear to be hand-written. Farther down the box, most of them are scrolls. At the bottom, a couple are fossilized clay tablets. Luna stands with granite solemnity over the box, watching Twilight's reaction, until suddenly her head sags an inch and the tension disappears. Awkwardly, her voice quite low, she asks, "May we speak informally, Twilight Sparkle? These books are of... personal value to us."
Twilight_Sparkle walks around the stacks of books, scrolls, and tablets, slowly, studying them with wide-eyed reverence. She turns to Princess Luna. "Yes," she replies in hished tones. "By all means. Strictly off the record if you like."
Luna lifts a front hoof and waves it over the top of the box, her eyebrows pressing up and together with an expression of unaccustomed abashment. "These are not books... precisely. They were not written for publication. They are mostly journals. They predate the night we betrayed Equestria and were punished by the Elements."
Twilight_Sparkle nods solemnly, still staring at the antiquities. "I...I don't suppose you'd consider letting me have a look at them? To someone like me, these are a treasure trove of history!" She looks up at the taller pony, meekly. "I mean, if I'm not allowed, I understand...Celestia's never shown me anything quite like this, and I've never asked."
Luna sets her hoof down, pulls her head back, and tucks it down. She clears her throat, very softly, very carefully. "We may not have been sufficiently specific. We did not write these. They are memoires, letters, collections of poetry that we have kept in memory of the stallions we loved. Some were written for us. Some merely mention us." Her wings uncurl from her sides to give an embarrassed half flap, then roll up again.
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times again. "Mementos," she says, slowly. "Of...all the stallions you've loved. Who've loved you." She looks up at Luna, almost sorrowfully. "It must be hard, living so long."
Luna is less embarrassed about this part. Solemnly, she agrees, "Outliving a lover is not an experience we relish, even when we are long separated by the time they pass. Thou may note how few these momentos are for a thousand years of life." She draws herself up. She's been relaxed and confidential, and although she doesn't quite go stonily formal, she straightens to her full height, looking down on you and continuing, "But though we appreciate thy sympathy, we brought them here for another purpose. We need thy help, Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic. Sealed in stone, they kept through our banishment, but now most of these volumes fragment and dissolve at the touch. We require an expert's assistance."
Twilight_Sparkle nods, the violet librarian immediately on more comfortable turf herself; this is a subject with which she has more experience than she does with love or immortality. "I figured that must be what brought you here. You're interested in preserving these. I'm pretty sure I would be too." She looks thoughtful. "How important is preserving these actual physical objects? I mean, duplicating the content is a simple enough thing. The hardest part would be keeping them from disintegrating during the process, but I could do it. On the other hoof, if what you want is to preserve them in their current forms...well. That's a bigger project."
Luna gapes, her mouth hanging open, bluegreen eyes staring, and the pupils even twitch once. Then she throws her head back and laughs! "MAGNIFICENT! Truly, we have come to the right pony." Stepping around the stone crate, she unfurls one wing, stretching it over Twilight's back and curling it approvingly over her far shoulder. Suddenly jovial, she approves, "We have passed on the Element of Magic to a deserving pony indeed. Such questions had not occurred to us, for our greatest specialty is in much more destructive magics. Hmmm." Laudations granted, she presses her lips together tightly for a second as she considers the actual question. "The latter is preferable, because these are objects of sentimental and historical value, yet in truth it is not necessary. To be able to read the words of Iron Shod as he wonders if he will return home alive to see his night princess again, the speculations of Starswirl as he dissects the essence of space and time from our crude, instinctive magics... that is the true value in these documents."
Twilight_Sparkle beams, proudly! Princessly praise is something she's been courting since she was tiny! "I...think it's worth it to try to do both! I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me fix these up and donate them to the University Library? Sooooo many ponies, by which I mean I, would LOVE to make a study of some of them! And, I could replicate all of them as a single book or set of scrolls for you!" She's practically bouncing up and down with excitement, as she talks about this.
Luna turns her head to look down at you, again perplexed. "Study... these? They are but private notes and journals of stallions long, long, long passed. Who besides I who loved him wishes to read of a warrior talking about getting his armor repaired, or a pegasus complaining about not knowing which way to fly home from the island he just discovered?" As she talks her head swings aside, craning over the box and staring wistfully at its ragged contents. A wing dips in, and the tips of a few feathers lift a page, but let it settle when dust sprinkles from the edges.
Twilight_Sparkle's eyes are full of stars as you speak. Literally. In fact, stars are swirling around her head. She pictures the scenes. "It's easy for you to dismiss it, but...I'm a much younger pony than you are. I haven't been alive since the beginning. Studying history is...like a way of reclaiming the past, and establishing a link to the ponies who came before me? I could spend hours and hours and HOURS with these." She levitates one of the better-preserved scrolls, unrolls it, whisks on her reading glasses, and reads. "...wow, it's a letter from someone named Prince Purple Rain. I've never even HEARD of him."
Luna's brow furrows again. "Prince...?" she begins, and then a smile spreads gently across her face. "Ah, Prince Purple Rain. Neigh, thou would not have heard of him. The Kingdom of Funk is long, long gone. He wished to be our lover. We never agreed, but the letters warmed our heart. He had an odd charm, even when he referred to us as an irresistable bi- well, he had an odd charm." She chuckles softly, and adds, "Surely the love letters and poems, at least, are of no public interest?"
Twilight_Sparkle says "I think you underestimate how important you are, Princess. Every word you've ever written, and every word that's ever been written TO you, is probably of interest to somepony! But...I don't want to just throw everything that's ever been special about you into the public eye. You're entitled to keep any or all of it private." She smiles, and looks up at you. "If you ask me not to, I'll never breathe a word about any of it."
Luna giggles faintly. There just might possibly be a trace of pink along the sleek royal cheekbones. "Privacy is a thing royalty soon learns to let go of, Twilight Sparkle," she notes primly. "We..." She lifts the wing from your back and waves it in a circle. "We will allow thee to decide what to put on public display. Only copies, however. The originals must be returned to us if they can be preserved. As long as we have these memories, we care not if a hundred or a thousand other ponies peruse them."
Twilight_Sparkle picks up a very old tablet, and looks at it, her eyes narrow. She turns it this way and that. She asks, "I have to ask...are there any major revelations in here? The kind of thing that's going to challenge my understanding of the nature of Equestria, time, and reality? Because if there isn't, I'll probably be able to be more focused on the details. But if there IS....well, that would be the BEST."
Luna is really having trouble with this conversation. Yet again she gets that eye-tilted, baffled expression. Sounding distinctly helpless, she answers, "Twilight Sparkle, we have yet to become comfortable and familiar with an Equestria with no war, no rampaging monsters, in which the fear of famine or chaos magic are not merely past, but forgotten. We do not KNOW what would challenge thy understanding. Thee shall hear of both thy princesses as ponies who laugh and kill in battle and take stallions to our bed and bear foals. Will that challenge thee? Thee shall see stallions who are surely now names in obscure books as the flawed and wonderful living beings they were. Will that challenge thee? Thee shall read of days when Equestria was a... harder place. Much harder. When friendship was what kept thy back safe when the chaos spawn attacked, and slaying another pony for pride was not a crime. Will that challenge thee?" She shakes her head, and concludes with a sigh, "The most we can say is that the days of our youth will be as peculiar to thee as this beautiful, gentle world is to us now."
Twilight_Sparkle examines the tablet. she raises one eyebrow, and bites her lip. Then she peers over the tablet, and over the tops of her eyeglasses, at the taller pony. "You think we modern ponies are soft, don't you? I suppose maybe you're right. My life's been fairly pampered, I guess. I've never fought in a war or even seen one, and as far as lovers, I..." Pause. "My point is, though, it doesn't mean I can't handle stories about realities besides my own. It's not as if I've never been in danger. I've led my friends in going up against Discord, and Queen Chrysalis, and Nightmare M--" Another pause. Followed by looking down at her hooves, and murmuring something unintelligible.
Luna turns smoothly to face you. She lifts a foreleg, touches a hoof to your chin and raises it so that her bluegreen eyes can look down into your own. Her expression is mild and sad, but her pupils narrow into mere snakelike slits as she stares. "Twilight Sparkle, Chrysalis would have murdered thee for pleasure. Discord's jokes would have riven the world and slain nine ponies out of ten. I made all attempt to scare thee and thy friends off, but thou persisted, and I *would* have driven my horn through thy heart and laughed as I watched thy life bleed away. I do not question thy bravery, only suggest that the ponies of the past may seem rough of merely peculiar when their thoughts and habits are laid bare. And... one other thing." She takes a deep breath, her pupils filling out to normal roundness again before she adds in a much more stern voice, "There are notes in this box from Horizon and Starswirl, magics of control of time and space we have kept hidden from other unicorns. We trust thee with them but please, PLEASE do not attempt to raise the sun or moon, even if the secret seems in front of thee."
Twilight_Sparkle looks up at the princess, and smiles, her eyes welling up with tears. "I just hope you know what an honor it is to be allowed to delve into your past. And, for the record, I'm glad you didn't skewer me on your horn and then laugh and dance around in my blood. I'd much rather be able to think of you as a friend." She hesitates a moment, nervously scuffling her hoof. "I've always wanted to learn from you. You're as important to understanding magic as Celestia is."
The two of you hear an odd, echoey, chipping sort of sound. You're really not sure what it is, but it's getting louder.
Luna lowers her hoof, and turns away, stepping back around the other side of the big stone crate. This lets her sweep threatrically as she laughs, then turn her head and point out, "Peculiar words, Twilight Sparkle. Have a look at thy cutie mark. How many of the strongest unicorns have had cutie marks of the moon or stars? Whose blood think thee runs strong in them?" The seriousness of moments before gone, she manages a thin, sly grin as she looks down at the purple filly. "And who think thee the Element of Magic chose before thyself?"
After another minute or so, part of the library floor crumbles away as if it were made of dirt, and a pink head wearing a miner's helmet pops up. It looks around blankly for a minute, then calls back down into the newly formed hole. "Sorry, Screwloose, we dug into the library again. Better just go back to the hospital. See you same time next week!"
Twilight_Sparkle blinks, at Luna's words. She looks back at her flank, then back at Luna. Her mouth hangs open, a bit. She had never considered that as a possibility. "I'll...have to fetch my geneological records from Canterlot, before I edit and sort these then," she says, finally, her expression a bit dazed. And it is in this state that she is suddenly confronted with a hole in her floor, with one of her friends in it. "Pinkie Pie?" Dramatic sigh. "I've told you before, I really prefer it when you use the front door."
Luna chuckles, "We wish thee good hunting. Thou might be eighty generations removed, and are unlikely less than twenty. Such are the tricks time plays on us." Walking with careful, clipped steps over to the hole, she taps Pinkie twice on the head with her hoof. "Element of Laughter, may we assist thee with aught?"
Pinkie_Pie beams up at the two of you. "Oh, wow, you're in the same room and everything! This is wonderful! This is my most purple day EVER!" She pops out of the hole, and absently scuffs at the floor for several seconds, like a dog digging. Sawdust flies up, filling in the egress neatly. "Help me? Um... oh, I know! When you called me the Element of Laughter (hee! I love that name! It's one of my five favorites!) it reminded me to ask you - what other elements WERE you, besides Magic like Twi here?" She flankbumps Twilight happily.
Twilight_Sparkle sets about repairing the hole in the floor. This is not that difficult a job for her at this point; the hole is enveloped in a dome of light, which expands, then shrinks again, leaving a seemingly undamaged floor behind as it vanishes. She looks back at Luna, at Pinkie Pie's question; there's something in her gaze, now, something questioning, wondering, longing. Or maybe there's not and Twilight just always looks like that at people who give her old books to study.
Luna raises her eyebrows, but at least it's not nearly as perplexing a question to her as Twilight's. "Our sister Celestia held Honesty, Laughter, and Kindness. We knew her as the Element of Love. Ourself, we held Generosity, Loyalty, and Magic. Together they made us the Element of Protection. Then we committed an act of absolute selfishness, betraying the ponies who trusted us, and turned our magic against Harmony itself to harm them. They have chosen more deserving wielders now, and we are thankful that Equestria has their protection again." Her horn shimmers as she talks, and as stealthily as possible, which is to say with a loud and obvious scraping sound, the stone lid sneaks up to close the stone box full of very delicate books that are suddenly in Pinkie Pie's presence.
Pinkie_Pie's eyes are so big. "Woooow! That's so neat! I mean not so much that you corrupted one of the building blocks of love and friendship into utter betrayal, but the whole thing otherwise is so cool! It makes /so much sense/!" she chirps. "Thank you! Let me see if there's anything else I wanted to know." She tells Twilight, "I hardly EVER see Luna. Can you believe it? Oh, I know! Princess Darkbutt, you MUST know who Twilight's guy ancestor is, cause it's super obvious she's descended from you, with the purple and the dark and the cutie mark and phenomenal cosmic powers. It's not like you were kissing so many colts you can't remember all of them, right? What was his name? Tell me all about him! Was he hot?"
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times, staring at Pinkie Pie. "YOU'D already figured that out?" She touches her hoof to her face, adopting an "I am such an idiot" grimace.
Luna spreads her wings in surprise as she recoils from the onslaught of Pinkie's enthusiastic prattle. Eyes wide, she stammers, "Element of Harmony... eighty generations. Two thousand years! We had foals by a dozen stallions ere our banishment. Celestia's blood is strong in her as well, as though in her heart as well as by her horn two sisters were reunited after a thousand years. We cannot..." She sighs then, her head slumping down and her whole body sagging a little. Rolling her eyes up, she admits grumpily, "Once we saw her in the Starswirl costume, it seemed clear to us she was his get. He and I had one daughter, Evening, before our romance ended. By four dozen generations, Twilight is surely her daughter."
Pinkie_Pie BEAMS. "Twilight, that's wonderful! Starswirl is one of your most favorite ponies! And he's super famous in magic things, there's even a branch of the library named after him! I remember because we broke into it together! Good times, good times!"
Twilight_Sparkle's eyes open wide. She swoons. Then, she falls over, in a melodramatic faint worthy of Rarity. She doesn't have rarity's aim, though, or, for that matter, own a fainting couch. She collapses onto a pile of books, and since this isn't very comfortable, she's awake and struggling to her hooves again soon. She looks up at Pinkie and Luna. "Oof. Sorry. Heh heh! Forgot not to stand with my knees locked."
Luna can't help but smirk, her mouth curled up on one side in DISTINCTLY royal sarcasm. The royal tail lashes, although that's more visible as a billowing ripple in its glittering blue haze. "A wing named after him? Starswirl would be ecstatic. He cared for nothing half so much as books and learning, except possibly that unmentionable beard." She snorts in playful disgust, then her smile softens. "His madness was hypnotic, fascinating, a mind devoted utterly to brilliance. His blood is at least as strong in Twilight's as our own."
Pinkie_Pie helps Twilight up, smiling. "That sure sounds like our Twilight, all right. I didn't know books could be transmitted down generations! Not literally books, but the whole BOOK and reading thing, in order for books to actually be passed down generations we'd have to have some kind of code language in our cells we could pass on to our foals and you two don't know anything about that yet. Isn't that silly?"
Twilight_Sparkle nods, distractedly, still looking dazed. "Uh huh. Silly," she repeats. Then, "You know what? I think I knew that. Starswirl, I mean. I didn't see him in my family's genealogical records, but it was so long ago and the records aren't very complete, from that period. But reading his work it just...felt like it came from someone close to me." She looks up at Luna. "So how closely related are we, anyhow? What am I to you?" She looks at Pinkie Pie. "And Pinkie, and the others...are we all your children? I mean, in the broadest sense of that term? Not the ABSOLUTE broadest, though, because that'd encompass a sort of 'family of ponies' sense that has less to do with blood, and..." She suddenly looks sheepish. "But how many ponies *are* descendants of yours?"
Luna raises her eyebrows again, this time not in confusion, but amusement. Her voice is rather light as she looks down at the two little ponies in front of her and answers, "After two thousand years? Perhaps much more? All of thee. We would be surprised if a single pony does not have the blood of ourself or our sister or both. Eighty generations is enough for our offspring to have married into every family in Equestria. Starswirl was our descendant, but with ten generations removed there was no hint that was improper. Time passes, our little ponies, and it plays strange tricks as it does."
Pinkie_Pie rests her head comfortably across Twilight's back. "I like that. Just one super big family," she says contentedly. "And I like being related to you, and The Great White Plot. I hope it's true. Happy thing usually are." She looks over to the side, and asks, "So what's in the giant stone coffin I'm not supposed to be noticing? Is it a present? I can start wrapping presents in rocks if that's the fashionable thing now."
Twilight_Sparkle contemplates this. "That's taking the long view," is all she says, but what's in her mind, and her heart, is so much more. She smiles, and her horn and eyes glow some, warmly, with soft happy light.
Luna is buffeted by all this happiness, forced to smile not in humor but in gentle affection. She extends a wing and pats the top of the crate, answering Pinkie, "These are the books thou spoke of, passed down from her ancestors. They are so fragile a breath might render some dust, and we are leaving them here that Twilight Sparkle may make them whole, and copy those she deems fit." Folding her wings again, straightening up to stiff formality and then giving her head a small bow, she asks, "Shall thou do thy princess this service, Element of Magic?"
Twilight_Sparkle bows gently in Luna's direction. "It will be my honor and my pleasure, my princess."
Pinkie_Pie seems to have fallen asleep draped across Twilight's back, smiling softly. The sheer energy needed just to be Pinkie sometimes gets to her, and she just shuts off like a candle being blown out. Of course she can turn back on just as suddenly. Mostly, though, you think she's just abosrbing the here-ness of good friends and - perhaps, as it turns out - family.
Luna turns abruptly, and walks towards the door. "Keep us abreast of thy progress, and do not hesitate to make contact if thee have questions. Letters passed through thy dragon shall reach us as easily as Celestia." She stops long enough for the front door to slam open loudly in front of her, and then steps out.
Twilight_Sparkle watches the princess go, and then curls up with Pinkie Pie, amidst the cushionpile. This is the sort of afternoon it helps to sleep on!
;D
