Post by Luna on Nov 6, 2012 14:38:08 GMT -5
Ponyville Library
& % $ & % $ . . . PONYVILLE LIBRARY . . . $ % & $ % &
Impressive and mind-boggling on the outside, chaotic and overflowing on the inside, this is the Ponyville Library. It's not hard to see why townfolks occasionally call it "Books and Branches"--the structure is built entirely out of a broad-trunked, hardwood tree! Though most of its innards have been hollowed out, this tree is clearly somehow still alive, as thick green foliage covers the roof and rims the upper windows.
The lower level has a central room with a circulation desk, an equine bust on a pedestal, and books on every wall--it's not uncommon to see them heaped haphazardly in a pile. There's a kitchen and a pantry used by residents of the library--currently Twilight Sparkle, the princess's star pupil, and her dragon assistant, Spike.
The upper levels are dizzyingly irregular, built as they are along branches of the tree. Two overhangs are furnished with moss canopies. The upper levels are also packed with books that appear constantly about to pop out of place. They seem to be organized somehow, but it may be a good idea to ask the librarian if you need something in particular.
Finally, the top levels of the tree feature a bathroom and bedroom for permanent residents, along with an observation balcony on which sits a trusty telescope. The overall mood of the library is intellectually inspiring, venerable, and just a little insane.
[ Obvious Exits: <U>pstairs, <B>asement, Back to Ponyville <S>quare ]
[ Players: Twilight_Sparkle ]
[ Contents: Skymaster set ]
Courtesy and formalities like knocking are for equals and superiors, so Nightmare Moon has no use for them. Her appearance is heralded first by glittering blue fog seeping around the cracks of the library's door, which is then thrown open, not quite slammed. The sleek black Princess of the Eternal Night steps in through the doorway, surrounded by that circling fog. Her voice is much smoother, more confident and touched with emotion than it was as Luna - and that emotion is venomous disdain. "Twilight Sparkle! Your ruler requires your service," she announces.
Twilight_Sparkle jumps, as the door opens! She also drops the five or six books she's levitating at the time, and turns to face Nightmare Moon, her expression a combination of fear and exasperation. "All right, your majesty, I am at your service," she says, a bit sarcastically.
Nighmtare Moon smirks, her long and beautiful face well suited to the expression. She walks slowly into the room, each step making her head loom higher above Twilight's. "Yes. You are. More importantly, you love my sister enough that you may even remember what she looked like. You will find her for me."
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times, and looks up at the taller pony. "I would...really really like to do that," she says, the tone of her voice suddenly sincere. "You have to understand, though, that I've been looking. And I'll keep looking!" She shuts her eyes. "Everything's been going so wrong...sometimes it's foggy...like if I let her go from my mind for a moment I'll lose her."
That hits. It gets an emotion out of Nightmare Moon other than contempt or anger, and Twilight scored right off the bat. Nightmare Moon's head rears back, her mouth twisting in a grimace, her face turning to the side and her pale blue slitted eyes turned farther. She has to drag them back to Twilight, and her sparkling cloud froths around her as she husks, "It is a nightmare. A nightmare the Queen of Nightmares cannot escape. I am ruler alone of Equestria, lacking nothing, and then I turn to tell my next thought to no one, and remember Celestia should have been besid-" She chokes herself off there, glaring down at Twilight with a desperate fury - or a furious desperation.
Twilight_Sparkle is actually a bit affected by this. She looks out the window, at the darkened sky. "I can usually sense her," she says softly. "Even from all the way here in Ponyville, there's always...something. Even when you first came back, she never felt absent. She feels...far away, but not far away...she's not herself. She needs us to find her."
Nightmare Moon is good at composure, and her face hardens again. Admittedly, it's no longer snide, now harsh and glaring, cruelly imperial. Her voice snaps just as curtly. "My eyes are open, Twilight Sparkle, and I am not so proud that I refuse to see my limits. You are a foal, able to wield only a fraction of your strength, but you know more spells than I do already and have the power to cast them all. I do not care what it takes, who lives or dies to make it so, but I. WILL. HAVE. CELESTIA. BACK." At this last sentence her composure cracks again, this time in icy fury. She has to take a deep breath before toning it down enough to merely growl, "Equestria's princess does not settle for half. My beautiful night is not beautiful if I am alone." The crack gapes, and suddenly Nightmare Moon's wings unfurl, sweeping out to cross over her face as she shouts, "HOW DID CELESTIA SURVIVE A THOUSAND YEARS OF THIS?!"
<OOC> Luna says, "...I just realized that Twilight really is the only person Nightmare Moon can confess her sins to. That is hysterical."
<OOC> Twilight_Sparkle says, "I'm yer priest, baby."
Twilight_Sparkle deals with this emotional situation the way she deals with emotional situations--by trying to intellectualize it. Science and magic are of a piece, a form of order, a way of organizing chaos and finding solutions instead of just wallowing in it! To that end, she leaves Luna to shout at the void, turning away to whisk open a drawer. "Let me show you something I'm working on, princess," she says, whisking her glasses onto her face from...somewhere. "I call this Gynocratic Pony Susser-Outer, or GPS." She turns back toward Luna, her glowing horn levitating a scroll, which unfolds itself to reveal a map of Equestria...a glowing blue dot in the center of ponyville. "See, this map can be used to find the magical signature of anypony with an intense enough magic signature to pick up from this far. Mostly, so far it just works on the two of you, and even then only when you're not diverting your magic in a way that distorts the reading, which a lot of sizable spells do." She points toa faint white dot. "That's the last place the map saw Celestia, an entire week ago."
Nightmare Moon stares at the map, slitted eyes commanding a piece of paper that doesn't know how to cower. "Madness," she snap. "Madness," she repeats, "But obviously true. Celestia's magic is nowhere, or I would have felt it. Yet I'm - sure she's alive. I will not know until that moment comes, but I believe we live or die together." That makes her pause for a deep, slow breath, then follow up the thought. "Which means she is alive, but her magic is not just restrained, but gone."
Twilight_Sparkle frowns, and nods. "I had not thought of it that way. She must be, then!" The unicorn looks enormously relieved. "She is alive! She must be. But her magicc..." She turns to Luna. "What would be able to drain her magic away like that? I can't remember reading about that ever happening to an alicorn as powerful as Celestia. There...aren't any alicorns more powerful than her..." She squints at the map. "I'd have seen Discord on here, if it were him. I know what his type of magic looks like."
Nightmare Moon smirks, but it's a grim, automatic sneer that her heart is definitely not in. "While the moon is in the sky, my power is greater than hers - and during the hours of gloaming as well." Gritting her teeth, she scolds herself sharply, "BUT THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. Nothing, not even Discord, can remove her magic entirely, but like the great unicorn mages she can be blocked. Her horn could be damaged, pierced with iron so that her Earth Pony vigor cannot regrow it, or tied off inside her by a magic on the level of a princess's, but I did not do it." Oh, yeah, she's starting to crack up again. She stares right down at the floor, and sparkling blue mist lashes against the walls as she hisses, "I. Did. Not. Do it!"
Twilight_Sparkle nods. "I believe you. Because you know what, Princess? You've never lied to me, ever. You're actually more honest with me than Celestia is sometimes." She frowns, refolding the multidimensional map and putting it away. "But was SOMEpony. What about Celestia herself? Is it possible she's hidden herself for a reason?" She looks up at her own horn, a bit crosseyed, and tries to summon some of Celestia's magic, perhaps in an attempt to cheer up the night princess; she manages to light the interior of the library almost like daytime, but only for a few seconds, before the hues inevitably soften into, well, twilight. "She wouldn't. Not for this long. That's not like her."
Nightmare Moon is really not taking this conversation well. Still looking at the floor, her face only inches from it, she mutters, "She used to be the most open and forthright of all ponies. A thousand years of this loneliness would break Harmony itself. That she did not kill you all is the testament of her kindness." Slitted eyes swivel back up to Twilight, and she adds archly, "*I* am not that kind. Find her, Twilight Sparkle, or I will take more drastic measures, and more drastic still until they work." She rears back up, her regally sleek black head towering above the little purple filly, icy cold again as she snaps, "When you do, I will wish to know instantly. Reshape the spell on your dragon slave if you must, so that it sends the letter to me instead of my sister."
Twilight_Sparkle gulps, her eyes widening. It's easy to forget the Princess Luna she considers a friend, when she does the whole Nightmare Moon thing with this kind of ferocity. "Y'yes ma'am!" she sputters. "You have my word that I won't rest until I've found your sister, and when I do I promise you'll be the first to know!"
Nightmare Moon sneers again. The madness of despair has been covered over by the madness of seething anger. Nodding curtly, she acknowledges, "Good. This is my kingdom, my world, and my subjects will serve me - including you." The audience appears to be suddenly over. She swivels, her wings snapping out for balance and then retracting again, and storms out through the open library door. The sparkling blue cloud follows after, sucked out in her wake.
& % $ & % $ . . . PONYVILLE LIBRARY . . . $ % & $ % &
Impressive and mind-boggling on the outside, chaotic and overflowing on the inside, this is the Ponyville Library. It's not hard to see why townfolks occasionally call it "Books and Branches"--the structure is built entirely out of a broad-trunked, hardwood tree! Though most of its innards have been hollowed out, this tree is clearly somehow still alive, as thick green foliage covers the roof and rims the upper windows.
The lower level has a central room with a circulation desk, an equine bust on a pedestal, and books on every wall--it's not uncommon to see them heaped haphazardly in a pile. There's a kitchen and a pantry used by residents of the library--currently Twilight Sparkle, the princess's star pupil, and her dragon assistant, Spike.
The upper levels are dizzyingly irregular, built as they are along branches of the tree. Two overhangs are furnished with moss canopies. The upper levels are also packed with books that appear constantly about to pop out of place. They seem to be organized somehow, but it may be a good idea to ask the librarian if you need something in particular.
Finally, the top levels of the tree feature a bathroom and bedroom for permanent residents, along with an observation balcony on which sits a trusty telescope. The overall mood of the library is intellectually inspiring, venerable, and just a little insane.
[ Obvious Exits: <U>pstairs, <B>asement, Back to Ponyville <S>quare ]
[ Players: Twilight_Sparkle ]
[ Contents: Skymaster set ]
Courtesy and formalities like knocking are for equals and superiors, so Nightmare Moon has no use for them. Her appearance is heralded first by glittering blue fog seeping around the cracks of the library's door, which is then thrown open, not quite slammed. The sleek black Princess of the Eternal Night steps in through the doorway, surrounded by that circling fog. Her voice is much smoother, more confident and touched with emotion than it was as Luna - and that emotion is venomous disdain. "Twilight Sparkle! Your ruler requires your service," she announces.
Twilight_Sparkle jumps, as the door opens! She also drops the five or six books she's levitating at the time, and turns to face Nightmare Moon, her expression a combination of fear and exasperation. "All right, your majesty, I am at your service," she says, a bit sarcastically.
Nighmtare Moon smirks, her long and beautiful face well suited to the expression. She walks slowly into the room, each step making her head loom higher above Twilight's. "Yes. You are. More importantly, you love my sister enough that you may even remember what she looked like. You will find her for me."
Twilight_Sparkle blinks a few times, and looks up at the taller pony. "I would...really really like to do that," she says, the tone of her voice suddenly sincere. "You have to understand, though, that I've been looking. And I'll keep looking!" She shuts her eyes. "Everything's been going so wrong...sometimes it's foggy...like if I let her go from my mind for a moment I'll lose her."
That hits. It gets an emotion out of Nightmare Moon other than contempt or anger, and Twilight scored right off the bat. Nightmare Moon's head rears back, her mouth twisting in a grimace, her face turning to the side and her pale blue slitted eyes turned farther. She has to drag them back to Twilight, and her sparkling cloud froths around her as she husks, "It is a nightmare. A nightmare the Queen of Nightmares cannot escape. I am ruler alone of Equestria, lacking nothing, and then I turn to tell my next thought to no one, and remember Celestia should have been besid-" She chokes herself off there, glaring down at Twilight with a desperate fury - or a furious desperation.
Twilight_Sparkle is actually a bit affected by this. She looks out the window, at the darkened sky. "I can usually sense her," she says softly. "Even from all the way here in Ponyville, there's always...something. Even when you first came back, she never felt absent. She feels...far away, but not far away...she's not herself. She needs us to find her."
Nightmare Moon is good at composure, and her face hardens again. Admittedly, it's no longer snide, now harsh and glaring, cruelly imperial. Her voice snaps just as curtly. "My eyes are open, Twilight Sparkle, and I am not so proud that I refuse to see my limits. You are a foal, able to wield only a fraction of your strength, but you know more spells than I do already and have the power to cast them all. I do not care what it takes, who lives or dies to make it so, but I. WILL. HAVE. CELESTIA. BACK." At this last sentence her composure cracks again, this time in icy fury. She has to take a deep breath before toning it down enough to merely growl, "Equestria's princess does not settle for half. My beautiful night is not beautiful if I am alone." The crack gapes, and suddenly Nightmare Moon's wings unfurl, sweeping out to cross over her face as she shouts, "HOW DID CELESTIA SURVIVE A THOUSAND YEARS OF THIS?!"
<OOC> Luna says, "...I just realized that Twilight really is the only person Nightmare Moon can confess her sins to. That is hysterical."
<OOC> Twilight_Sparkle says, "I'm yer priest, baby."
Twilight_Sparkle deals with this emotional situation the way she deals with emotional situations--by trying to intellectualize it. Science and magic are of a piece, a form of order, a way of organizing chaos and finding solutions instead of just wallowing in it! To that end, she leaves Luna to shout at the void, turning away to whisk open a drawer. "Let me show you something I'm working on, princess," she says, whisking her glasses onto her face from...somewhere. "I call this Gynocratic Pony Susser-Outer, or GPS." She turns back toward Luna, her glowing horn levitating a scroll, which unfolds itself to reveal a map of Equestria...a glowing blue dot in the center of ponyville. "See, this map can be used to find the magical signature of anypony with an intense enough magic signature to pick up from this far. Mostly, so far it just works on the two of you, and even then only when you're not diverting your magic in a way that distorts the reading, which a lot of sizable spells do." She points toa faint white dot. "That's the last place the map saw Celestia, an entire week ago."
Nightmare Moon stares at the map, slitted eyes commanding a piece of paper that doesn't know how to cower. "Madness," she snap. "Madness," she repeats, "But obviously true. Celestia's magic is nowhere, or I would have felt it. Yet I'm - sure she's alive. I will not know until that moment comes, but I believe we live or die together." That makes her pause for a deep, slow breath, then follow up the thought. "Which means she is alive, but her magic is not just restrained, but gone."
Twilight_Sparkle frowns, and nods. "I had not thought of it that way. She must be, then!" The unicorn looks enormously relieved. "She is alive! She must be. But her magicc..." She turns to Luna. "What would be able to drain her magic away like that? I can't remember reading about that ever happening to an alicorn as powerful as Celestia. There...aren't any alicorns more powerful than her..." She squints at the map. "I'd have seen Discord on here, if it were him. I know what his type of magic looks like."
Nightmare Moon smirks, but it's a grim, automatic sneer that her heart is definitely not in. "While the moon is in the sky, my power is greater than hers - and during the hours of gloaming as well." Gritting her teeth, she scolds herself sharply, "BUT THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. Nothing, not even Discord, can remove her magic entirely, but like the great unicorn mages she can be blocked. Her horn could be damaged, pierced with iron so that her Earth Pony vigor cannot regrow it, or tied off inside her by a magic on the level of a princess's, but I did not do it." Oh, yeah, she's starting to crack up again. She stares right down at the floor, and sparkling blue mist lashes against the walls as she hisses, "I. Did. Not. Do it!"
Twilight_Sparkle nods. "I believe you. Because you know what, Princess? You've never lied to me, ever. You're actually more honest with me than Celestia is sometimes." She frowns, refolding the multidimensional map and putting it away. "But was SOMEpony. What about Celestia herself? Is it possible she's hidden herself for a reason?" She looks up at her own horn, a bit crosseyed, and tries to summon some of Celestia's magic, perhaps in an attempt to cheer up the night princess; she manages to light the interior of the library almost like daytime, but only for a few seconds, before the hues inevitably soften into, well, twilight. "She wouldn't. Not for this long. That's not like her."
Nightmare Moon is really not taking this conversation well. Still looking at the floor, her face only inches from it, she mutters, "She used to be the most open and forthright of all ponies. A thousand years of this loneliness would break Harmony itself. That she did not kill you all is the testament of her kindness." Slitted eyes swivel back up to Twilight, and she adds archly, "*I* am not that kind. Find her, Twilight Sparkle, or I will take more drastic measures, and more drastic still until they work." She rears back up, her regally sleek black head towering above the little purple filly, icy cold again as she snaps, "When you do, I will wish to know instantly. Reshape the spell on your dragon slave if you must, so that it sends the letter to me instead of my sister."
Twilight_Sparkle gulps, her eyes widening. It's easy to forget the Princess Luna she considers a friend, when she does the whole Nightmare Moon thing with this kind of ferocity. "Y'yes ma'am!" she sputters. "You have my word that I won't rest until I've found your sister, and when I do I promise you'll be the first to know!"
Nightmare Moon sneers again. The madness of despair has been covered over by the madness of seething anger. Nodding curtly, she acknowledges, "Good. This is my kingdom, my world, and my subjects will serve me - including you." The audience appears to be suddenly over. She swivels, her wings snapping out for balance and then retracting again, and storms out through the open library door. The sparkling blue cloud follows after, sucked out in her wake.