She wanted to make a memory.
The reasons were not what they had once been. There would be very little need to revisit it, because there was likely almost no time remaining to do so. Once she and the one who had finished, (plus those around her, ponies who had traveled at her side on that other road, companions and friends and -- whatever the orange one was) worked out where things had gone wrong...
She had promised not to kill herself, for the sake of the others. But when they were taken care of, made safe, fully protected from her fate... the pain would still be there. The failure. A waste of a life, and one which would (should) never be taken back by the one whose time she had thrown away on the pursuit, because in spite of the wonders which should have sprung from his instruction, his labors, his Great Work, she had still managed to get something wrong and became...
...this.
Given that, she had no real reason to create one of the memories. But... it was something to do. Something she had not done since the event. And she did need to make one of the event, because doing so might help her work out what had happened through the process of review. Given the typical creation time required, she might be able to do that before she had to leave for the meeting -- plus one other. A warm-up, because the event was going to be a very complicated memory at best and creating a simpler one might let her approach it gradually, along with allowing her to learn if she was still capable of creation at all.
The pain...
She didn't know.
But the cycle had reached the point where she could once again feel the shield, although not every aspect of it. Even to her agony-distorted senses, what little of the information she was able to interpret seemed -- incomplete. As if it both was and was not her, or at least the version of 'her' which existed at the moment of detection. The signature was distorted, warped in the same fashion as her body, and part of it trailed off into something which was currently invisible -- an aspect she would only feel when the twisting wings began to return, long after she'd lost the rest...
She had created the shield during the event, without conscious thought, while things had -- changed. She suspected there was some degree of layering involved.
But for now, she could feel the shield on the other side of the hidden way once again. Opening the door was a trick she'd been doing for years, and it didn't require any kind of magic at all. Passing through -- more difficult with a larger body, plus there was something in the way at the far end. And parting what was on the other side of the little tunnel -- she could not negate the pegasus aspect from the combined working, but several minutes of struggle eventually allowed her to open a hole she could pass through, one which closed itself behind her as she entered.
There was more than a little fear in an approach which took place more slowly than it had since the very first day. She hadn't tried to get through before because... she had been afraid to see. As long as she didn't see her memories, she could pretend they were all still intact. She thought she had protected them and him, knew the second (and far more important) part had been a success, but it had only made her more fearful of viewing the first...
...they were safe.
Those which were public. The hidden ones. Every memory untouched --
-- including that one.
She looked at it. There was very little choice, for she had put it in a place of honor, one of pride -- and that was something which now sickened her.
Had that been the mistake? The memory itself? Had creating any of them been wrong, and that which was in front of her had simply been the final insult? She didn't want to believe that, but -- it was potential evidence, something she had to consider. One of the last things to happen before the event, and therefore a possible trigger.
But making memories... that had never felt wrong, even when it took her away from her studies. Memory creation was natural. He had said so. She knew that thinking too much about it hurt him, and that was part of why she'd always been so careful about finding the time, getting to the special place and getting out before he came to check on her. For a long time, she'd never wanted him to know that she was making memories at all, because she never wanted to see him in pain.
But on that worst day of all, the day of the event...
...she had been proud.
She had thought... it would help him. Make him feel better. Bring a smile, or a tear of joy. And so she had...
...no. The pink one first. Then the next.
She had to work quickly, but she was used to that: only the reason for the time pressure had changed. Stay too long, the green loop would begin to come around -- and then she wouldn't be able to leave for hours, missing the appointment...
She began.
It was so much harder than before. She couldn't always prevent herself from twitching, and there were harsher pains which made bringing the outer reaction down to a mere twitch impossible. And the pain was constant -- but it had ebbs and flows. Tall spikes and extremly shallow ditches. It never went away, but there were moments when it intensified, and she was beginning to learn some of the signs which indicated a foreshock. She listened to the horror of her body, and found moments when it warned her to step away before it was too late. At others -- the signals were too subtle, or drowned out in the chaos of a twisted sensorium, and then she had to fix a mistake. A process which gave the pain chances to create other errors, and things easily compounded from there.
But it was a learning process, much as memory creation itself had been. The longer she forced herself to listen, the easier it became. The pain never went away, the ebbing would need immense amounts of charity before it could even be described as 'minor' and the only true moments of partial relief were the brief seconds of peak. She could not live with the agony (and just the physical kind), not for a full lifetime, and pretending it was possible to manage, existing only for those times when the silver was at the top of a loop and it was possible to imagine she had done no more than recently fracture several ribs... no.
For now, though... she made errors, more than she had in years, and all of them were ultimately her fault. But she also managed to correct a few of them, and the memory gradually became clearer as she went along.
Every so often, she would stop and listen, for she always had, just in case he came by unexpectedly. (In fact, he tended to drop in on her unexpectedly so often during memory creation that on a subconscious level, she'd learned to expect it.) This was added to something entirely new: glancing up. The novelty of seeing something other than a ceiling wore off quickly.
The special place was no longer a fully protected one.
Sun did not touch the memories, not truly: it had to pass through a pair of shields, and the public ones were thus doubly discolored in tone. She had initially found the results insulting: the magic had no respect for the sanctity of memory. But there was nothing to be done about it, and the offense faded quickly. Her own shield had saved them, the secondary one kept everypony else away, and she could adjust to the alteration of light. She had privacy... but still, she would stop and listen, or look up to see if somehow, somepony who had managed to get through the weaker construct (and she could feel just how weak it truly was) might be staring down at her from the rim.
Nopony there. Again and again.
Every so often, she found herself looking at that one. Hating herself for having created it, wondering who else had seen it (for surely somepony had stared into the hole), and wondering if --
-- no. The private memories were still hidden: nopony else had gotten through her shield. There was safety here, at least for now, and the shield itself might outlast her life. She would make sure to take care of her own memories before she died. And as for that one... she would not touch it. Even if it had been the mistake, the thing which had triggered her irredeemable failure... even when all of her others were gone and only the public ones should have remained, she would leave that one behind. For there was every chance it was the final signature of her mistake, writ large for all to see...
...but she could not destroy it, for it wasn't her memory.
It was his.
And she had made it so.
Rainbow had a certain way of getting to the point, and that method reverberated through the castle. Nothing was easier than tracking her down on sound alone, and few things would have been harder than getting her to stop.
"It was you, wasn't it?"
A stumbling, half-stuttered "...n-n-no..."
"I know it was you who did it! Own up!"
"...n-n-n-no... I didn't d-d-do anything..."
Those particular protests hadn't come from Fluttershy: it had been far too loud, the tones were all wrong -- but the brief, locally-inaudible gap before the next burst was quickly given a source. "Fluttershy, I don't care! It wasn't you and it wasn't me, it sure wasn't Pinkie or the Doctor, nopony else was around but them! So that means it's one of them! There's only so many suspects in the book, nopony's brought in a hidden character -- the butler did it! Because it's always the butler! What's your name?"
"Softtread," came a remarkable steady stallion voice.
"So you did it!"
Calmly, "I did not."
The arriving group briefly glanced at each other. Hoofsteps accelerated.
"Prove it!"
"How did you wish me to prove I have not done something?"
"By... you can... I... you're trying to trick me!"
"Miss Dash, I promise you, I take the sanctity of this household and those whom Lord Presence welcomes as guests very seriously."
"Not seriously enough!" Rainbow shouted. "Because it's gone!"
"You are certain you have not misplaced --"
"-- stop asking that! I know where I left it! Somepony must have moved it! And --" her volume did not drop so much as lock wings against ribs before plummeting from a suddenly-calm sky "-- I understand, I really do. Because somepony was curious. They just wanted -- a sneak preview. I'm sure nopony here would ever want to take it and claim they'd done all the work. Just... flipping through it so they could get a direct look at all the awesome. Perfectly understandable." Conspiratorially, "I might have done it myself if somepony as awesome as me was in the castle. So... maybe I should just -- turn around. Face the wall for a couple of minutes. Not really pay any attention to who's going in and out, you know? And if I turn back and it's suddenly here... then it's over. Because I get it. I really do."
Pinkie now. "Rainbow, I don't think --"
"-- turning around now!" The words were almost cheerful. "Counting to a hundred and twenty!"
They were now close enough to hear Fluttershy, if just barely. "...Rainbow, it's a big castle... there's a lot of rooms..."
"Fine," Rainbow grumped. "A hundred and fifty it is. Better start galloping! One -- two --"
Which was when the shopping group reached the study.
Twilight, the last in the procession, found herself frozen in the doorway. It wasn't the sight of Rainbow facing a bookshelf, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Adding an openly-worried Pinkie and Fluttershy to that did nothing for her. The sight of every single servant in the castle -- long-time employees and temporaries alike -- crammed into the room, some nervous, others near-frantic, and more than a few dripping lightly with sweat -- gave her some concern, but only because of what some of them might drip on, and she briefly considered yelling out in a desperate attempt to order them away from the shelves.
Instead, all that emerged was "The books..."
Quiet, who had been approaching Doctor Gentle (at the left end of the servant inquisition line, tending to a mare whose sweat had been rapidly transitioning into froth), glanced back at her. "Twilight?"
"Your books..."
The shelves rose to the ceiling. They were on every wall. There were extras over the doorway. One window was under encroachment, and that was simply a more polite way of saying 'siege'.
The contents gave off the scent of dignified age, that special tang of paper which had been loved over the course of centuries added to aged binding glue, mixes no longer used and still holding (as long as the reader was careful, and Twilight was never anything but). Each spine showing the discoloration of long life was visually loved in turn, for they had earned every age spot and Twilight longed to ask them about the story behind each one.
There were names she knew by heart, and she thought well of Quiet for having them present. There were things she'd only heard of, and she longed to ask about his sources. There were rumors on those shelves, crystallized gossip which had previously only existed as desperate wishes passed back and forth by those who knew there would never be anything more than want, and they were real, solid, and right in front of her...
She did not swoon, but only because Rarity more or less held the local copyright on the action. Staggering forward by a single hoofstep, however, seemed to be more in the public domain.
"Twilight?" Quiet carefully asked.
The servants, none of whom were trying to get through the occupied doorway (and there was still room to pass her), watched, their eyes taking on a fresh layer of bewilderment, one Twilight frankly didn't care about. It wasn't important. The words Rarity had said on the way in could wait. The mission had a few hours before it had to be picked up again and that was still important, even if she was having a little trouble thinking about just how important it was.. but her priorities were in order. All she'd done was shove some entries around on the schedule in order to create new space, then written some very important things down.
Twilight went straight for the first fresh instruction on the revised checklist. She didn't have time for anything else.
"Whatever everypony's doing... could you all please pick another room for it?" There was a dazzle in her voice, as if her very words were failing to blink away teleport flash.
"Fifteen, sixteen... oh, no..." Rainbow groaned, turned away from the shelf, wound up waiting for Applejack to pass as the farmer claimed a quiet corner towards the back. "Twilight, I'm glad you're back, we need the extra eyes and any magic you might know for this, I'd really appreciate your casting it, but what I'd appreciate almost as much right now is if you'd take a second and blink."
"The Teerantinto," Twilight non-replied. "Why is that spiral-bound?"
"It's his notes," Quiet said. "Twilight, I think --"
"-- you have his notes."
"...yes."
"I'll give you five thousand bits."
Rarity's groan was a soft one, and no less pained for the lack of volume. "Twilight, dear, you do not have five thousand bits. I do not keep a particularly close eye on your finances, but I am not certain you generally have five hundred to spare, especially given how you have been so very carefully saving up so you can take the six-pony version of the escort test..."
"I'll use a Royal Voucher."
"This is not a mission expense," Rarity carefully tried. "Nor is it any aspect of our stay in Trotter's Falls which the palace would naturally understand and sign for. You cannot --"
"-- installments. Five bits per moon. For a thousand moons. Or we could do it faster. It's all just details." Her field was aching to flow forward and seize the volume, but she had to formalize the transfer first... no, wait: she'd just realized there were additional negotiations to throw in. "And that's a Fortreeze next to it. You have a Fortreeze. Out of the entire print run, there are supposed to be only two Fortreezes surviving in the world. The Princess has one and the Archives have the other. That isn't either of them."
"It's his fieldwritten first draft," Quiet helplessly said. "He bound it himself to see how it would look once it was published. Twilight, I think we need to find out what's going on here before --"
"-- his first draft."
Spike's groan chorused with Rarity's.
"Yes," Quiet said.
"The one he wrote himself."
"...yes. And bound."
"I'll give you my wings --"
-- which was the point where a multiply-offended Rainbow threw herself in front of Twilight's frozen gaze. "Twilight!"
She blinked.
"...what?"
"Books are important, right?"
She nodded.
"More important than anything?"
"...sometimes..."
"Fine! Then let's talk about mine! Because I'm pretty sure somepony stole it!"
The vocalization of near-ultimate blasphemy made her blink twice. (For his part, Quiet added an extra three.)
"...oh."
"Yeah."
"I'll help you look."
"Thanks."
"Has anypony searched this room yet? I'll start taking things down. Just in case it was accidentally shelved somewhere in here. Or stuck behind a book. Or maybe inside one. I know it was pretty thick, but some of those books might be able to hold it. Plus your binding wasn't that good, Rainbow. The pages might have gotten separated. There could be a single one inside every other volume. Somewhere. Which means somepony needs to turn all these pages. Carefully. While making sure some of the text doesn't match. You know, that would be really great to see in a mystery novel -- Pinkie, pass me the hat... So everypony head out, I don't want anypony getting hit by floating volumes and there's just so many volumes, I'm going to need some space..."
Twilight grumbled to herself as she prowled through the latest in the series of castle corridors. She had only been trying to be thorough. There had been absolutely no need for her friends to shove her out.
She had no magical means of tracking the composition. If Rainbow had been fieldwriting, then there would have been a signature to reach out for, but... pegasus. It left her with the same method everypony else was using: lift, turn, flip, make sure nothing had been tucked under anything else, and try not to leave any stone unturned -- or, given the way Quiet's ancestors had tended to shop, any drawer unopened. And there were a lot of drawers.
The servants continued to swear that none of them had taken the manuscript, and Quiet had eventually released them to join the hunt (with Rainbow muttering about how that at least gave the thief a chance to change their mind). He and the Doctor had remained in the library to search it themselves, and Twilight was trying very hard to convince herself that Quiet wasn't using the time to move some of his volumes to safety, things he would be claiming he'd never owned in the first place -- but she didn't think he would ever do that to her and besides, it was too late: she was certain she had at least a twentieth of the best ones memorized and, based on what she'd already seen, could project the possible inventory for another seven percent, and that was a number which she barely would have believed in if she'd seen the results in her nightscape...
They would be talking later. A very long talk. Not about -- the things Rarity had said, because there was a fresh priority, one she clearly had to work out immediately before anypony of intelligence found that room and made a better offer for the treasures within. But for now... she had to help in the search. Because friends came first. And Twilight was genuinely upset. The manuscript might have been -- well, she had to be frank: Rainbow's writing needed a lot of help, and some of the assistance on the earliest efforts might have needed to take the form of a divine intervention which she was no longer able to pray for. But Rainbow's efforts had also been sincere. And from what Twilight had seen of the manuscript, there had been a slow improvement in progress as the pages had gone by. Coming to grips with the material, slowly learning how to work with it at all, letting the subconscious lessons from every successive journey taken at Daring Do's side come that much closer to reaching the actual page. Rainbow had no skill at punctuation and just a little more when it came to the concept of paragraphs: if her work had been rendered into Ancient Crystalia, it would have fit right it. But as for simply expressing herself through the written word... Twilight felt she would have gotten there in time. Moons of it, filled with hard instruction, harsh edits, and more than a few non-adventure books field-flung in her direction in the hopes that one of them would teach her what a semicolon was for.
And even without that... even if it had truly been the worst thing ever written in Equestria's history -- it was Rainbow's manuscript.
Twilight was sure Rainbow wouldn't have misplaced it. And for somepony to steal a book...
She had been fuming her way through the corridors and after the first two, only a little of it had been about the blocked study.
Next room...
Her field coated the lever, opened the door. She glanced inside --
-- oh.
I shouldn't...
...I can't...
...it's his bedroom...
It couldn't have been anything else. The little freestanding shelf and beautifully-carved bookends -- Celestia's mane, they were the same as her mother's set -- told her who slept there. Invading his sanctuary...
...well, at the very least, she should inspect the reading material and make sure some servant hadn't accidentally put the manuscript there, plus there might be something else to make an offer on and surely it wouldn't hurt anypony if, say, she gave up twenty seconds for a particularly interesting page. Possibly forty. Was five minutes too --
-- it was Quiet's bedroom.
Her body had slipped all the way inside without her conscious notice. She was in his bedroom.
He had excellent taste in furniture, or somepony had before him. The metalwork on the headboard was unexpected: most ponies went with wood -- but there was nothing wrong with minotaur art, and Twilight gave up a second to appreciate the pattern of the twists and turns hammered into the cold iron, suggestions of leaves and branches, hints of birds, a cricket here and there. One large currently-closed walk-in closet off to the side, then a smaller (and ancient) wardrobe next to that. There was a winding ramp in one corner and from Twilight's memory of the castle, it would have to be heading directly for the observatory. Look towards the bed (and there was so much room in the bed, perfectly made but that had probably been the servants, a little dent in the mattress for the side closer to the shelf) because that was the way to get back to the books --
-- there was a small, ornate pearl-edged pillbox next to that little shelf. She hadn't noticed it at first, lost in the shadow of a first edition which...
...he probably takes something. For whatever's in his blood. It can't be cured, but there are some things where the right medicine can at least moderate the symptoms. I should ask how often he has to take them. Maybe I should carry one or two, just in case he gets caught away from --
-- and next to the pillbox...
Twilight looked at the picture.
She could have spent some time on the frame. She could have cataloged it: surely it was several centuries old, and the scrollwork around the edges deserved appreciation. That was within, however... that had been there for less than a year.
Quiet's captured image was on the left side. She paid it very little attention.
The mare on the right had her full focus.
Somewhat taller than Quiet, with a solid build. A leaf-green coat, a shade she instinctively associated with a plant which Fluttershy had once warned her away from. The eyes were almost the same shade, but seemed to have a touch of muted orange around the fringes, and the mane and tail took that further into an elaborate curl of orange-white, one Rarity might have tried out for herself if those instructions turned out to be legible.
The wedding dress was beautiful, especially given the white roses which almost seemed to be growing from the headdress, setting off the elegant-seeming horn. The pony wearing it looked... passive. Not particularly concerned about smiling for the camera. Almost -- bored.
A quick glance at the left. Quiet had been smiling. But... only a little. To Twilight, it looked like the smile worn when somepony had just been told to do so by some level of authority, a mask put on for a situation which those above you insisted you attend, and you just stood there pressing hoof after hoof after hoof while longing for the chance to get out of sight, end the whole thing, just end it so you could take the mask off...
...or he might have just been smiling.
Back to the right.
She's prettier than I am. No great surprise, especially as Twilight generally thought every mare in the world had her beaten -- but this one was much prettier. Almost on Fluttershy's level, but with what felt like a haughtiness added to that beauty...
...or boredom...
She kept looking at it. Not the pillbox, much less any contents. There was no searching for the lost manuscript. Just the picture.
Twilight had no idea how long she stayed there, didn't care to find out. It was just her and...
...the picture.
It wasn't a very good picture, really.
Actually, the more she thought about it, it was a horrible picture, especially for one taken on a wedding day. She hated it...
...and she left. Somepony else could search this room.
She hadn't even checked out the rest of the books.
It took some time to fill his first friend in on all the details and thankfully, every last moment of it was conducted in privacy. Nopony else was supposed to come near the study, and two servants were stationed at each end of the approach corridor to make certain Twilight didn't come back.
"Necessary," Doctor Gentle finally said, his field tugging at a book before pushing it almost all the way back, working on the illusion of a complete (if not to 'flip every page' level) search. In a more weary tone, "Necessary..." Quiet, who was also using the chance to do a little reshelving, glanced over. It got him a tired smile. "It is becoming a mantra, Quiet. I am experiencing a certain need to remind myself why Coordinator is part of this at all, and I somehow doubt you have been able to get through this day without thinking the word at least once..."
Quiet wearily nodded. "There is no doubt in my mind that he's the one who told the press where she was. I never paid that much attention to his school stories, at least not to where I would have had them memorized. Having horse apples stuffed into my ears never struck me as an appealing way to pass a party. But I got the general drift of them. I knew he hated Twilight: I even had some idea as to why. Because he couldn't completely control her. For somepony like Coordinator, that's a sin. I think he made her life miserable in that school -- and now he's proving he can pick up exactly where he left off."
Doctor Gentle sighed. "The emotions of an angry first-year who has been told that while he can play with and even break every other toy in the playroom, there is one he should be careful with -- and so he forgets all the other toys even exist. A tantrum stretched over more than half a lifetime. I knew he was a petty pony in so many ways, and yet he still finds means of surprising me."
Starkly, "We have to get them out. There may be very little chance of their actually discovering anything and there's probably a few whose first instinct on finding out what was going on would be trying to sign up. I can just imagine Murdocks' reaction if he decided there was a way to supplement all the screams of 'Depose!' with somepony he could depose with. An actual replacement to go on the thrones, and possibly the ability to make his favorite candidate into a personally-controlled Princess..."
"Except," Doctor Gentle quietly said, "that such has never been what this is about. I am aware of how many among those who support us cherish such dreams... and I am not about to hand so much as the offer of a stronger fantasy over to that one unless there is truly no other way forward. I am certainly not about to grant him any chance at the reality. But it would be all he could see... all so many have chosen to perceive at all..."
"Plus," Quiet wryly pointed out, "we would need a reporter who would stay bought."
The elder managed a smile. "Even with, shall we say, enlightened self-interest involved... difficult."
"Very. Other than hoof-stomping on their shells, which just tends to summon more to the site of the crushing... any ideas on how to clear up our infestation problem?"
That produced a sigh. "I was hoping you had one. And the pony who might have the strongest notion of how to deal with it is the one creating it. The only concept I have is forcing a story somewhere else, something they would all have to leave and cover -- but I'm having some trouble imagining what we could create which would warrant taking their attention away from a Princess. Not without actually hurting somepony."
"Don't even count on it then," Quietly dryly said. "Injured ponies are news. Twilight is gossip... We'll just have to keep thinking about it, and ask everypony else if they can come up with something. At worst, Chief Copper might be able to manage a little harassment -- as if that wouldn't make headlines, but it'll be a distraction -- and we can all try to keep an eye on them, steering them away from anything risky. But there's still a major element of luck in this. One bad moment, one sighting..."
"Fortune has been on our side thus far," Doctor Gentle admitted. "But I am not about to count on retaining that favor. The two things we know we can control are excluding them from the party invitations, then keeping them from sneaking onto the grounds. We may need some extra security, but no cancellation should be necessary. We keep all of them outside the castle, Quiet. Nopony is going to acquire an arrival point in the corridors. Add that to regular patrols and our own knowledge of just who is not welcome here, and the meeting will work as planned."
Quiet exhaled, allowed his field to position a bookmark for later. "I'm comforted... at least for that. I just wish I had something else for you. Getting rid of press... I swear, I'm feeling sorrier for Twilight by the day. All the ones she dealt with before coming here, having them invade, and it's not exactly going to stop after she leaves..."
He had been trying to think of a definitive solution, anything which would guarantee her privacy and peace of mind for whatever her lifetime would be. It hadn't happened and despite his total lack of responsibility for the creation of the issue, that particular failure felt like a completely personal one.
"There is a price to pay for every gift," was the steady answer. "That has always been known, ever since the first days. But in this case... the gift she has gained outweighs that price, and so it shall be for all whom we help."
Quiet nodded. "So for the press..."
"We keep thinking. If nopony thinks of anything, we conceal, we redirect, we do what we must. And hope it is enough."
"And -- Coordinator? I don't think we can force the issue with him on the press, at least not just yet -- but what about the manuscript?" Doctor Gentle had told the group that he'd woken up shortly after Twilight and the pegasus had, spoken to Coordinator on their mutual way out the door and thus seen the bureaucrat leave without any papers at all. The Bearers had believed him without question.
Immediately, "Let him keep it for a time."
Quiet blinked. "Because?"
"Because -- he is necessary, at least for a while longer. And where things have been written down... there might be lessons to learn. You recall what the pegasus had been writing about?"
He sent his memory back to the previous night's dinner, sorted through the self-involved words launched across the table until he'd extracted some actual information. "It sounded like she was trying to record some of their early adventures..."
"Yes," the older stallion calmly said. "Adventures to which 'mis' might be applied..."
Quiet turned away, faced a different shelf. His field sorted, rearranged.
"If there is nothing there -- we find the manuscript in a day or so, and there is no harm done," Doctor Gentle continued. "But until then... let him practice his art, and see what kind of path he might paint for us."
The younger male nodded, continued the pointless search. "Two days, maximum. We may have to move the party up a bit -- the end of that second day. We may be hurting our chance of getting a full gathering, but the faster we do this, the less time the press has to get their teeth into anything. We can return the papers just before everything starts."
A smile, unseen. "I have faith in Coordinator's ability to finish reading by then."
"We'll know how fast he's going by the painkiller stock drop rate in the pharmacy."
They falsely labored in silence for a few minutes.
"Five thousand bits," Doctor Gentle said.
"Yes."
"What was the actual value? Because I would guess she was attempting a drastic overbid in the hopes of getting it away from you before you came back to your senses."
Quiet smiled. "You know, I honestly have no idea what it's worth? It was on the shelf long before I was born. I only check the prices on things I'm trying to acquire..."
"Given that you're hardly planning to sell off, I understand that completely."
"Well... maybe if we have to run. I can always grab a few pieces on the way out. Things rare enough to sell immediately, but not so scarce that anypony's going to question a bunch of them hitting the market at once." He gave that some thought. "I should start pulling a few things. Just in case."
"Very sensible," Doctor Gentle complimented him. "But from the sound of it, that would leave the Teerantinto and Fortreeze out. Will you take them with you?"
"Do you know how many books it takes to overload a saddlebag?" Quiet managed a shrug. "The answer is generally at least five books less than you figured on, especially with my hauling. I might just -- mail them off to a dedicated collector. Somepony who'd appreciate them..."
With a smile, "Which costs you five thousand bits."
"We'd never be able to cash the Royal Voucher anyway."
"And -- teasing now "-- the wings?"
It didn't even require a moment of thought. "Pass."
They worked, for creating the illusion of a thorough search involved just as much effort as the search itself. They talked to each other in privacy and safety, with much of it working out to be the simple casual jokes which so often passed between friends. Neither paid any attention to the clock, for the effort took as long as it took, and ended when it ended.
And so neither had any knowledge that Twilight, who had been keeping an eye on the time, had headed off the grounds, taking two of the Doctor's with her so they could all reach their appointment...
A new chapter! Excellent!
Huh, that's weird: I was just randomly looking at my favorites list, and noticed that this was at the top for just being updated. But I didn't actually receive a notice that it updated.
4994065
same here, if it hadn't been in the featured box, I wouldn't have even known it updated.
4994130 Wow, didn't even see that it was in the FB. Neat!
4994130
I *did* receive an update, but when I went into my favorite list to DL the latest chapter, the fic wasn't there.
Weird shit happening all over the place.
Ah, sweet, adorkable Twilight. Never change. Also, nice brief tie-in with Escort Service.
I find the Great Work increasingly perplexing. What are their real goals?
People(including me) for some reason never received a notification for this one.Spooky.
Great chapter. I can see a lot of threads heading towards a snarl.
Neat! It did update! I'm quite glad, as are many of the other new readers who jumped on board with the publishing of the latest tie-in, I'm sure.
I'm curious as to what from the "memories" take, and what they really are. Magically Preserved and shareable experiences? Writings? Something else entirely?
We also get our first description of the Missus. She seems... Nice. I'm looking forward to Twilight meeting her.
Oh, and clever bit there about Quiet and Gentle stealing Rainbow's book to try to discern the secrets of how Twilight successfully ascended. It would be almost amusing to see Coordinator trying to slog through Rainbow's prose to learn that. Of course on the downside, Coordinator now has access to some information that might be able to through a bit of a negative light on Twilight, depending on how free with info Dash was with their (mis)adventures.
4994394
As far as I can tell, the really short version of that is to artificially ascend a pony into an alicorn. That is, opposed to a "proper" ascension mediated by another alicorn.
4994815
Yeah, particularly since there seems to be next to zero passion, or even interest, between her and Quiet. Seems like there were other motivations at play as to why they got married. Now it's possible that it was something like a political marriage, but that seems unlikely given how much Quiet apparently shuns politics. I've got a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the Great Work.
Somehow, I missed the parallels between Twilight and her until now. Obsessively studious, utterly devoted to their mentors, horrified by the thought of disappointing them...
Also, her memories... There's clearly something up there, but I don't know what. They're not just abstract representations, because they'll persist after she's gone. They could be something as prosaic as journals, but I suspect there's something more there...
A broken heart can overwhelm an inquiring mind. Poor Twilight...
Ha! Try asking her if she thinks that's the case. But, of course, they won't. Because being an alicorn must be wonderful, it must be everything they hope it is. Otherwise, what would be the point of all that they've done? What would that make them?
Eagerly looking forward to more, whenever it may come.
How do you manage to make them sound both like good ponies, yet like they are doing something so horrendous that the princesses wouldn't even give them a trial?
Triptych update?
Yessssss
Post-read edit:
You know, I think Coordinator could really use a good Rainbow Dash Found Out He Took Her Book.
And apparently the thing that survived Gentle's house fire was some sort of memory storage unit? Unless it's just a regular old safe and she is just dramatically writing things down in a journal.
4995173 I got the ascension part. What I am wondering is the motive to ascend.
4999030 That's ... a good point. We know that they were preparing her for various princessly (is that a word?) duties, but I don't think we've seen concrete statements/reasoning for wanting to do this whole thing in the first place. But I get the impression that the rationale is more than just "to see if we can".
4994065 Even more weird is that it showed up in my updates, as I had forgotten to mark this particular story in any way (I've since corrected that error).
4997440 That's simple. They most likely are not aware of the Alicorn Amulet or how low Starswirl descended during and after his quest to make it. It seems like all they have are the notes Starswirl had made on the path to his own failed ascension before he gave up on it because the method he had come up with wouldn't work on him.
History remembers Starswirl as a great pony, because neither Celestia nor Luna publicly condemned him after his death. They chose to remember him for the good that he had done.
Now, if you discovered that your family library had copies of an unfinished masterpiece made by a greatly respected historical figure with a sterling reputation, and those notes seemed to be so tantalizingly close to producing what seemed to be a desirable result, wouldn't you feel inclined to perhaps try to continue the Great Work?
4997440 reality doesn't do black and white, only gray
what they are doing isn't by necessity evil, merely that the result is horrific
Snerk. Twilight being completely blindsided by a library full of rare, even unique works. I guess even the many-time savior of Equestria and wielder of world-shattering magics has her weaknesses.
5000170 5004644
It was a rhetorical question intended to compliment Estee on pulling something off that most authors can not.
5005566 Ummm...
Yay?
New chapter, yay.
I both love and hate that I love the antagonists in this story.
4994065 I only just realised it had updated because I went to Estee's page and checked his stories, sorted by most recent updates.
Now I'm worried about what other stories have updated that I missed, because FIMFiction had a hiccup.
5044311 That's a good point: was the snag particular to this story, to estee, or site-wide?
Spent a couple days reading this( and much of the continuum) and just finished. I very much like the other stories I read andI like this story and your portrayal of Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight are great. I have problems with Fluttershy's and Applejack's characters. Fluttershy seems just a little too sad and comes across as outright damaged. Applejack is a little too... something. I don't know, stubborn? Set in her ways? And I detest that Pinkie has an abusive family.
I'm also am intrigued and dislike that I have no idea how you're going to finish this story. Who is Fluttershy going to choose to be wiped from existence? How will the girls react if and when the find out about the Great Work and who is involved? What will become of Doctor Gentle? Because no matter how much he really loved her, the way he raised her is child abuse.
I'll keep reading, but I hope that things come to a head soon.
Well, this has been quite an enjoyable read so far! I stumbled a bit at the mentions of the… speed dating story, which I'd forgotten was yours, but I am attempting to simply pretend that that does not exist, or at least not in this universe. This story I've Favourited, though, and I look forward to the next update. :)
Great story! I've really enjoyed it!
I've been reading through this a second time... lots of subtle references that I'm catching this time around. Probably more later.
Dr. Gentle... he's found, touched, done something that's 'changed' him. Something Other. Discord knows, maybe it's in some sort of relationship to him, but it's obviously something. Maybe not dangerous, maybe so, but it's clear that it does something.
Pinkie and Fluttershy, the only two who are so divergent from their race. Pinkie with her own manifestations and oddities, and a complete lack of earth pony 'feel' and magic, though still the endurance and strength of one.
Fluttershy, a true oddity amongst pegasi. Both with her desire for ground and ability to connect with all animals.
Both aren't repulsed by 'Her' mark. Everypony else has a near inherent revulsion to it (save Spike), as if it speaks to something very wrong that's ingrained in each one of them, except Fluttershy and Pinkie... some sort of residual touch from what affected them?
4995173 I'm calling it right now, his "wife" is the failed Alicorn. Right or wrong, my gut has been telling me this since I first started reading. That Quiet and the malicorn were both children of the good doctor who shared a passion for.. idk knowledge? Knowledge seems right. But they met through him, she tried to ascend, failed hard and had her everything discorded.
4999108 I can't help but feel that you missed a wonderful chance to respond with "For SCIENCE!!" and would have had a legitimate leg to stand on. (Plus, ya know, avatar pic)
5180294
Maybe? It's possible, but I doubt that, because I think Twilight would have taken notice of that when she saw Quiet's wedding picture. Based on the picture, it's clear that there's no passion there, and I'd say that it was something like a political marriage. And the impression that I get about her is that she was an eager subject who believed in the Great Work.
D'OH! Very good point, sir/madam. Now I feel like an idiot.
5180338
Happens to the best of us good sir/madam. Sometimes, we all forget to think.
That said, the reason I say that she is or was his "wife" is that it could give them a cover story as to why she was spending so much time with him. (Ponies talk in small towns and the rumor-mill is always highering). Twilight did say that she was tall, and Quite's wife was described as being.. hold on
The colors on her body seem to move and shift. Estee goes from Green, to Orange to White. Earth pony was green, pegasus was silver white. I don't believe unicorn was orange but I could be wrong, can't find exactly what chapter it was in an my lazy has kicked in. That and, she was described as being a bit taller than Twilight and Twi was only a little taller than Quiet.
But, this is just my running theory. There is a high probability of me seeing parallels where there's nothing but smoke.
5181721
How true.
Anyway, about her being Quiet's wife and the odd colors in the picture, I think that it was just her cutie mark that was shifting, not her entire coat. Besides, the mare in the picture is a unicorn, and I believe that she was originally an Earth pony. Not to mention that they're apparently expecting the wife back anyday now, but they're still on the lookout for her. I don't think that they'd jump the gun and say that she'd be back shortly if they are still looking for her.
5181906
Sadly yes, you are probably right. But a madstallion can dream, can he not? That our alicorn of OCD ( CDO, I like my mental derangements alphabetized. Thank you. ) might be able to find love and happiness? Or even peace?
Course, I might just be a hopeless romantic.
5187173 Yes, Estee corrected me on that shortly after I'd posted my comment.
5283406
Eh, when I wrote that I was high on frustration. I was getting Into story and tired of reading about "him" and wanted to know which male character from the show this guy was because that was the only logical reason to hide his name and have characters acting weird by playing what cinema sins calls the pronoun game without anyone calling them out on it like most normal people would. When you have that big of a build up (somewhere around the length of a standard western novel if I remember right), an anticlimax of revealing "Hello I'm random OC which caused people to not act like normal rational people do act" is highly annoying and frustrating.
It also doesn't help that this story seems to suffer from multiple mysteries that you know are going to impact the story along with length issues.
Newcomer here. Gotta say I love the story so far.
I may be in the minority here, but I actually think Coordinator is, in a way, less disturbing than Quiet and Gentle. He's a completely selfish and entitled blackmailing petty jerk, but at least he's honest about his motivations. He's in it for himself and he knows it. It's...easy to hate him.
Quiet and Gentle? Yeah, they seem like genuinely decent ponies, but they've still been spearheading a project that has had horrible consequences for somepony and are covering it up rather than simply ASKING for help. And for all that they condemn Coordinator's actions, they are still willing to use his "talents" for their own ends. Even though lives are at risk.
I guess it could be a variant of the Sunken Cost Fallacy. They've invested too much time and effort into the Great Work that stopping doesn't seem feasible to them.
5285494
Just finished, and I agree. The devil of it is, it's so obvious that those two mean nothing but well, that they honestly believe that they're doing something wonderful. They don't want to hurt anyone, and they're genuinely bothered by the fact that they have and are sparing no effort in trying to make it better. And at no point does it seem to have occurred to them that if their "Great Work" is something that they feel the need to hide from frickin' Princess Celestia, who is over a thousand years old, an expert on all things magical, and generally regarded by everyone except this Murdocks and his ilk as the very model of wisdom and benevolence, then just maybe that's a teensy bit of a sign that it's not a good idea.
5298301
Agree with you on racism appearing on the show. The Hearth's Warming Eve episode in particular shows how bad it used to be in canon: the animosity between the leaders of the tribes was so bad that it provided a buffet to evil spirits that feed on hatred and gave them the power to create an endless winter that nearly wiped out all life on the planet.
The supplementary work Journal of the Two Sisters reveals that one of the reasons Celestia and Luna were made the rulers of Equestria in the first place was because the three tribes would only agree to follow rulers who had traits of all three tribes while not being a member of any one tribe at the same time. Even the threat of extinction by an endless winter was not enough to make the ponies lay aside their differences on its own.
It's a little uncanny how the role of alicorns both in canon and in this fic's continuity was to act as glorified babysitters to the ponies who can't take care of themselves without degenerating to petty bickering.
Just finished rereading this, was just as good the second time through. Hope we get an update for it soon.
5431137
Please reference the first seven words of the author banner.
Nooooo...!
The dreaded moment. I've caught up.
By the maker, this is something of the best I've ever read; and I've read a lot. Don't you dare delete it, even if you should never finish it. This deserves to be read for the sheer delight of each chapter and I'd pay for the bound book when it's finished. I've paid good money for much lesser works.
Your characters are glorious and the story is riveting; your ideas and explanations are perfect. As is your exploration of the mane six in a different light and I for one think especially Applejack is totally in character for that - no one has ever explored that tradition- and family bound side so well to my knowledge. The inner turmoil of the Element of Honesty is really hard hitting and realistic for this setting.
As is Twilight's suffering under her newly acquired lack of control, celebrity status and godhood.
Glorious.
Damn it, I've caught up. I guess now I'll have to go back to reading Orwell like the common folk...
But now that I've caught up, I can say that this is, without a doubt, one of the greatest fics on this sight, if not the greatest. It's certainly the greatest i've ever read. All of your stories are just so fantastic and clever. Plus, you've got such a wide range, even within this one story, let alone your other work. I think you should be a writer. A real one. Even if this isn't the best story on site, it definitely has the best author.
Unless of course you do moonlight as a professional writer, in which case get off of my iPad and onto my bookshelf!
Pleaaaaase don't give up on this fic! I just caught up and I love it so much.
I've been getting a different vibe than most people about her. Maybe I missed something? The way I understood the doctors comment about stabilizing as a unicorn and being a glorious failure earlier and how people would slowly be disgusted by her over the course of a lesson was that she was never a normal pony, and they didn't make her this way.
And, now I've finally reached the end.
Wow, people put way too much faith in the awesomeness of Alicorns. Celestia and Luna are clearly rather tired, but they seem to be the only ones who won't let the country fall apart.
They should try the Lich route or the cyborg route.
And oh boy, 30 week hiatus.
I've very much enjoyed this so far. Every time i've felt i'm getting a grip on what's happening, the next twist throws most all of it out the window.
It's refreshing to me, being thrown for a loop so often in one story, as I've often felt a little too adept at feeling out a tales direction early. Consequence of reading too much, unfortunately.
Looking forward to future chapters coming in time.
6181369
Your response raises two immediate questions:
1. Is any of that stuff part of the official backstory of the "Triptych Continuum", possibly explained in one of the expanded universe stories that I haven't gotten around to reading yet?
2. If it is, then why isn't this shown anywhere in this story, where it would have made Applejack look less like an asshole, stubbornly clinging to the racism of her ancestors?
As the story stands, without referring to whatever source you got your response from, all it looks like is that certain earth ponies are every bit as racist and conceited as we've seen unicorns can be, and they insist on keeping their magic secret as a weapon against the other races, whose powers and weaknesses are well-known. They even bring up their children with cheery stories of having to murder anyone who stops lying and decides to trust their non-pureblood friends, so that they grow up knowing when it's time to get out the rope and go a-lynching.
This entire charade exist for the explicit purpose of making unicorns and pegasi believe that earth ponies have no offensive powers, but when Twilight expresses the exact belief that Applejack so desperately wants her to have, AJ attacks her for it, at the dumbest possible moment.
Applejack's conflict is like a tragic reflection of Huck Finn's moral struggle in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Huck's friendship with Jim, the escaped slave, brings him in constant conflict with everything he was brought up to believe, and his desire to reform and become "good" by his society's standards. And even though he cannot shake off the childhood indoctrination that tells him aiding Jim is not merely a crime but sinful, when his struggle between "a sound heart and a deformed conscience" (as Twain called it) finally reaches the climactic breaking point, he decides, "All right, then, I'll go to hell." His friendship with Jim is greater than his desire for salvation; he'd rather go to hell as a sinner against "god's will" than abandon Jim to his fate.
When Applejack reaches this point, she goes the other way. Traditional earth pony hatreds and secrecy trump any friendships she might have with unicorns and pegasi, and when her best efforts cannot prevent the breach of tradition, she is shattered. The story hasn't yet continued far beyond this point, but what we've seen of AJ's subsequent behaviour seems to indicate that she now views herself as a traitor, mentally casting herself out of her own family. Frankly, I'd be worried about possible suicide attempts at this point, if I didn't believe that anyone who would kill themselves over not being a good enough racist should be left to go about their business.
I just finished reading through this whole thing. That was a wonderful read!
I really love the "villains" for how un-villainlike they were. In any other story trying this same plot it would have been irredeemably evil sociopaths raising a poor, helpless victim to be their test subject. Instead, the leader is a genuinely nice, loving person who genuinely cares for two of the protagonists (and visa versa) and devotes his time and effort to "his" scattered children, and seems to genuinely love the test subject as a father-figure rather than just trying to control her. Who nonetheless apparently dabbled both dark magic and chaos magic (stealing essence from Discord?), but it's unclear if he did that to help people and then turned it to The Great Work or if he did it for The Great Work and then decided to start saving lives as long as he had it. And his second in command is a nice, personable guy who seems eager to buck most of the snobbish jerkiness of his ancestors and really likes the main character (and visa versa). They're both wearing masks, but even the people they are under the masks seem to be good people.
It's a shame that the story appears to be dead (or at least comatose) because I really, really would love to see how this was going to play out, and what the goal of the "great work" really was.