Chapter 2: Goodbye Petunia
Loré kicked in the library doors of Las Pegasus with enough force to cause a startling echo to ring through the many open levels connect to the lobby. All the ponies who had been quietly enveloping themselves in the many tomes and scrolls of history were now curiously staring as she ran through the library.
“Well, if it isn’t Lor–” the pony behind the information desk attempted to greet Loré, but was instantly interrupted by her.
“No time!”
“Loré, When did you come b–” tried one of her coworkers as she galloped through the narrow hallways towards the deepest and darkest corners of the library’s archives.
“No time!!”
“Excuse me, oh, wait, I thought you were studying in Cante–” her boss managed to interject as Lorè stumbled into him for a brief second before continuing her course.
“NO TIIIIIIIME!” Loré shrieked at the top of her lungs to the point of her voice cracking something awkwardly. Though, it was worth it as the message had finally sunk in. No more ponies stopped to ask her why she’d suddenly returned from her research in the Canterlot archives. She was finally able to just gallop down the neatly decorated hallways and the final flights of stairs in peace. However, her erratic running and zig-zagging between the occupants of the building brought on new attention as she almost knocked down several of the gold framed portraits of contributors to the library. She didn’t issue any apologies; she just kept at it till she found herself inside a dark and rarely accessed room of pre-Equestrian and early Equestrian history.
“Finally, I made it,” grumbled Loré under her breath, groaning about all the contrived conversations she would’ve had to endure if she hadn’t made it crystal clear that she neither wished nor wanted anypony to talk to her right now. The annoyance was shortly lived as her mind went back to focusing on finding one particular book among the many shelves that were almost overflowing with rolled up parchments and dusty old books.
“Loré? Why in Celestia’s name are you already back here?” sounded a familiar voice from the entrance to the room. Loré did not even have to glance in her general direction to know that it was her ‘friend’, Amber Page. She didn’t want to take her eyes off of the shelves anyway. She was, in fact, too engaged in digging through the numerous scrolls and books, attempting to find something very particular to even respond to Amber.
Amber slowly approached Loré, dodging one volume of lore after another as they were tossed aside, sliding across the wooden floor after being deemed useless by Loré, “If you’re looking for something, you could just ask me you know,” said Amber, strongly hinting towards her career as the library’s archivist.
“Huh? Well, erhm, I’m looking for an old book. It should come from the Crystal Empire back in its early days. Probably written a bit before the empire was even founded. It should also be written in a language that we haven’t fully deciphered. Any book like that down here?” asked Loré while glancing up at Amber’s dimly lit face.
Amber couldn’t help but smile softly at Loré as she’d managed to finally rip her attention away from the shelves. Amber’s horn glowed a dark blue color, and so did an old black book with a crystal-like flare to its cover. The book flew down from one of the top shelves and ended up being suspended between the two unicorns. The dark blue color quickly changed to a pale purple as Loré yanked it out of Amber’s spell, plopping it down on a study table to wildly flip through its pages.
“You’re welcome…” muttered Amber with a sigh while brushing her silver mane back. “Now, can you please answer me why you’ve returned? I thought you made it quite clear that you wanted to stay in Canterlot to get further with your research project. You got an all-expenses paid trip there, courtesy of this place you know...” Amber placed a bit more emphasis on her last sentence compared to the rest of her words, trying to clue Loré in on what she was actually doing.
“I know I’m being paid to do my research and publish something noticeable for this institution. But, I came back solely for this book, Amber! You see. I had a dream!” Loré glanced up at Amber with an unnerving smirk plastered on her face. “Oh, and, don’t worry; I don’t plan to stay for long. I just came to get this book and then I’ll be on my way once more.”
Amber managed a concerned smile as she stared into the mildly deranged scarlet eyes of Loré. “You came back here for a book that we’ve only gotten a bit of information out of, and the bit we got sounded like an old recipe for a stew. Loré, listen, I know you can be a bit of an oddball at times, but you came all the way back to Las Pegasus for a cookbook, because of a dream?” Amber raised an eyebrow and sighed, sitting down next to Loré. “You’re risking your job by just abandoning your work in Canterlot. You should head back right away instead of doing something this silly.”
“Yes, I came back because of this book!” Loré snarled at Amber. ”And it is not a cookbook, it is a diary. I saw it in my dream.” She continued to flip through the pages, trying to make sense of the strange glyphs.
“You can’t even read it Loré!” Amber placed a hoof on Loré’s shoulder. “Don’t you think it’s just a tad silly to come back here on some hunch you got in a dream?”
“I can read some of it! Well, at least a few glyphs, I think… It doesn’t matter. My dream showed me how to extract the knowledge I need from this book.”
“Loré… I haven’t seen you act this excitedly about anything since… well since we were little fillies.” She eased into a soft smile as she continued. “You have the same weird look on your face that you had when you made strange connections between you and some really weird things.” The hoof on Loré’s shoulder turned into a half embrace as Amber’s foreleg slid around her. “I definitely remember the time when you thought the large boulder in Mr. Print’s garden was a magical artifact from a long lost era. I also remember how you thought it would grant you eternal power if you just unlocked its secrets.” Amber smiled fondly of their childhood adventures. “Are you sure this dream of yours isn’t like that? Are you sure that this book actually has anything to do with you?”
“It has everything to do with me!” Loré shrieked while slamming the book together. “I know who wrote this book, and why. My dream revealed it to me. It also confirmed a different matter I had looked into while rummaging through the Canterlonian Archives.”
“Really now?” Amber humored Loré. “Then who was it that wrote this dusty old book? And what was this different matter you looked into?”
“It was King Sombra himself who wrote this book, and within it are some of his greatest and darkest secrets.” Loré pulled the book off the desk and stored it away in her saddlebag.
There was a moment of complete silence before Amber finally responded with a skeptical and slightly frustrated “Your dream told you that King Sombra wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“He wrote a diary about all his dark secrets and it somehow ended up in Las Pegasus?”
“Yes.”
“Okay… What was the other thing then?” The dramatic revelation by Loré was still largely dismissed as Loré having reverted to her foalhood ways to Amber.
“The matter I looked into was my family lineage. I finally found an answer to why my horn is so different.” Loré’s voice was warm and reminiscent while she thought back on the realization. “I just happened upon a book about King Sombra. I had never seen a painting of him, but his horn was like mine. So, I thought I would look into my family history while being in Canterlot, as their population records are quite extensive. What I found baffled even me, but I now can’t be more happy about it! I finally have an answer for my strange horn. If you trace my family far enough back in time, then you’ll see that my ancestors came from the Crystal Empire! This connection can’t be denied. The dream and my history can only mean one thing. I am related to Sombra.”
“Wait wait wait… you are his what, great grand daughter or something? I didn’t even know Sombra had any foals to begin with.” Amber looked at her riled up friend in a perplexing fashion.
“Yes, I think Sombra must have had a wife and she managed to escape the empire before it disappeared. I’ve felt Sombra’s presence ever since the Crystal Empire reemerged last week, and even more so after he was defeated…” A hint of sadness could be detected in Loré’s voice as she mentioned his defeat. “Actually, I’m his great, great, great…” she continued until the word had been repeated 38 times, “grand daughter.”
Amber sighed deeply. “Loré, I think you’ve spent too much time with your nose buried in those dusty old books about Sombra. As your friend, I’m starting to get really concerned. It’s one thing to make weird connections to rocks, but to King Sombra is different, and now you’ve sought out a book written by him. for what purpose? I think this is something you should probably just let be. Why don’t you just go back to your research while you still have a job?”
Though Amber had only the best intentions for her friend, she was met with a glare filled with disdain from Loré. She shook off Amber’s embrace and huffed past her, flicking her nose once with her dark purple tail.
“You and I aren’t ‘friends’. You only spent time with me during fillygarten. I remember you ditched me the second better options for ‘friends’ came along.” She glared back at Amber from the doorway leading back into the library hallways. “It was first when we both began working here that you started pestering me again.”
Amber stared back with hurt in her eyes. “Loré… I didn’t ditch you. I just needed a little break from your negative attitude.” Her ears fell low as she admitted the truth. “Before I knew it, we just had to go our separate ways. But, we’re working at the same place now. Surely we can be friends again. I’ve been trying really hard to patch things between us.”
“Nopony asked you to patch things up with me. I don’t want any friends, Amber. I never even needed friends. I have never once encouraged you to be around me. You just do, pestering me with all your nonsense,” grumbled Loré on her way out of the room. “I’ve always wanted something like this to happen to me. I will risk everything to get this… everything.”
Another saddened and slightly frustrated sigh escaped Amber’s lips as she shook her head in disappointment. Amber had tried her best to help Loré, tried to improve her behavior and make her less cynical when they were little fillies. For all of Loré’s huffing and puffing, Amber had seen something good inside of her, something that she had hoped to bring out in her someday. “You leave me with no choice Loré. I have to talk to our boss…”
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It did not take Loré more than a few minutes to gallop from the library to her little apartment on the manestreet of Las Pegasus. The place was the epitome of organized chaos, with used utensils and plates slouching against the crooked towers of disheveled books, unopened packages crammed into shelves and drawers, along with piles of dirty clothes springing forth from closets and baskets. There was even a fine line of dust coating everything, except for one particular flower on a round table in the middle of the living room.
“No Petunia, you are not listening to me at all. This is not a crazy idea, this is a brilliant one!” Loré groaned at the inanimate houseplant as if she was having a real conversation with it.
“Don’t you understand? The dream I had in Canterlot was real. It showed me everything! I know what I must do, and where I should go. This book is going to help me achieve my dreams… once I figure out how to read it that is.”
“Stop looking at me like that!” she snarled at the plant while sticking her face into its petals. It had neither made a sound nor a movement in response to Loré’s wild bantering with the lifeless plant.
“If you had anything against what I’m doing now, you should have spoken up sooner. You could have stopped me while we were still in Canterlot, but you didn’t. Something in you must have believed in me. You know just as well as me that this is my one chance to show my stuff. To show how important I am, and how Princess Celestia is running this kingdom into the ground.” She growled and grumbled some as she went further into her darker thoughts. “My hate for the Princesses haven’t lessened over the years, Petunia. Neither has my dislike of that royal runt of a protégé to Celestia, what’s her name again?” She glanced at Petunia expectantly. “Ah yes, Twilight Sparkle. I hate her and her little group of friends the most for what they did to King Sombra… them and their wonderful friendship.” The sarcasm had never been thicker in her voice than when she uttered a word most poisonous to her, friendship.
“Friendship is not magic! Hatred is.” A devious smirk lit up her face as she contemplated the rewards that laid ahead of her on the adventure. “If my dream is true, which it is, then I’ll finish the work that Sombra started, Petunia. You’ll see, everypony will see what real magic is!” Her villainous speech would have been followed by a maniacal cackle if Loré hadn’t managed to reel herself back in.
“What do you mean that I can’t make it!?” Loré growled while bumping her nose up against Petunia’s petals. “So what if I’m not particularly talented when it comes to magic, or that I have little experience doing things outside libraries and dig sites… I can definitely get by if I just give it my best.” Her voice imitated a rollercoaster of confidence and doubt as it peaked once, dipped and then peaked again.
“This argument is over, Petunia.” Loré threw a blanket over her potted plant and went about her business gathering her least ruined and least dirtied clothes, some writing utensils, and of course, most importantly of all, her life savings of bits. She proceeded to put on a dreary cloak before carrying Petunia out of her apartment.
“I’m sorry, Petunia. You know that I can’t just leave you at my place for the entire duration of my journey. I have no idea how long this could take. Days, weeks, months, maybe even years. I can’t risk you withering away and dying on me while I am gone, so I’m going to put you in the care of that annoyingly nice elderly couple over at Cherrypine,” muttered Loré to the plant as she walked down the different streets and avenues, much to the spectators’ confusion.
Cherrypine was a very quiet street at the outskirts of Las Pegasus, and also the place Loré grew up at. She took in a deep breath once standing before the door to the elderly couple, mentally preparing herself before finally hitting the doorbell.
Ding dong.
The door was opened by a small, fragile looking old mare with glasses that could have been mistaken for binoculars.
“Yes? What is it? Oh! If it isn’t little Loré. Why are you here sweetheart?” asked the elderly earthpony.
“I’m taller than you, Miss Print,” Loré replied disgruntledly at the beige mare.
“You are? Well, I remember you being just a little filly yesterday. I even remember that time at the office when you had-“
Loré promptly halted Miss Print in her regaling of one of Loré’s embarrassing moments. “Petunia! I am here because I want you and your husband to look after Petunia.” Loré even threw in an awkward smile to seal the deal as she motioned towards the potted plant on the ground between the two mares.
“Petunia?” Miss Print glanced down at the plant in confusion. “Like the stuffed bird you had when you were just a few years old?”
“Yes! I named Petunia here in honor of that… thing…” Loré trailed off into a grumble, getting very fed up by the slow pace of Miss Print. “Now, could you please just look after her while I'm away. It would mean a lot to me if she didn’t wither off and die while I’m gone.”
“Well sure Loré, but I thought you had some friends that could have helped you with that, and where in Equestria are you going? I thought you were living in the libraries and books, nothing too ambitious to keep you away from watering a plant.”
Loré pushed the plant closer to Miss Print before answering. “Pft, I don’t have any real friends, I don’t need any anyways. And for where I’m going? Well Miss Print.” Loré turned around, one hoof firmly planted before her as she gazed off into the northern horizon, wind blowing through the long locks of her dark purple mane and a determined smirk on her face. “I’m going on an adventure!” was the last thing she said before galloping off into the distance.