Shade of A Crystal Empire

by igotastewgoing

Memoirs

Chapter Nine
Memoirs

"Twilight, is "Worm Hole" filed under W or is it filed under H?"

Rarity called out her question from the top of the ladder propped against one of the numerous bookshelves filling the library which functioned as Twilight's house. It was the third time she had asked for help as to where the books on that subject were located, and she was beginning to come to the conclusion that this particular volume she had been sent to fetch fifteen minutes ago simply could not exist in this realm of reality. Nothing could be this bothersome to find. Then again, she had no idea what Twilight even wanted with books on that subject. It was another thing that, like Twilight's plan in general, was quite beyond her grasp.

Twilight's head didn't raise from her desk as she furiously scribbled away with the quill magically levitating before her. She had zeroed in on a possible lead in an old book by noted physicist Niels Burro, and she didn't want to lose her train of thought. It had been a week since she had returned to her home in Ponyville, and in that time this was the most promising sign she had found. Her eyes were a blur as they darted back and forth between Burro's book and another giant tome of magic she had spread out before her.

"Twilight?" Rarity's voice again rang out from across the room. "W or H?"

With only the briefest grunts of annoyance she curtly answered "W."

At her hooves, Spike walked past the desk, looking more like a walking stack of scrolls than a baby dragon. The only thing visible were his stubby arms wrapped around the pile of papers he carried over to the mountain that was already built up behind Twilight's desk. Dropping them with a small "Oomph," he dusted his hands off and craned his neck upwards to Rarity.

"Hold on," he called. "I'll help you find it."

"No, Spike," Twilight said without looking up. "I need all the scrolls on sensory enhancement you can find. Keep working on that."

"ALL of them?" Spike whined. "Seriously? There's like a thousand."

"NO!" she snapped. "Just the ones that are registered Class Five and above." Her voice had gotten sharp, but her head remained inflexibly downwards as she continued. "Anything less most likely wouldn't hold up when subjected to an event horizon. I already told you that."

Distinctly recalling that several papers in the stack he had just spent the last half hour collecting were Class Three or less, Spike gazed upon the massive pile with dread. It was so tall that it reached over Twilight's head, and he did not enjoy the thought of having to dig through the entire thing all over again to sort out his mistakes. Desperately looking for any reprieve, he wrung his claws and tried his best to avoid having to look at one more dusty scroll.

"You've got plenty to go through right now," he said. "There's no way you'll get through all of them in the time it'll take me to help Rarity. Why don’t I go help her and then when I'm done—"

Twilight didn't have time for Spike's nonsense. She was making music in her mind: The merging of magic and theoretical science. The scrape of the quill was the wave of her baton as she conducted the mad choir in her head as it clawed and scraped together what she hoped would be her grand symphony. And all of the whining was making it impossible for her to concentrate on it.

"Spike!" Twilight spat. "Don't argue with me. Please."

Spike dejectedly hung his head and waddled back to the mound of papers that had consumed his life for the last few hours, and now promised to devour several more. His soft grumbles of protest drifted to the curved corners of the room to be lost among the dust motes and emptied out shelves.

Twilight went back to work. If the curve of space-time was, as Burro's theory stated, something able to be physically felt with the right equipment, perhaps if she used a highly concentrated enough pocket of sensory enhancing magic in keeping with Star Swirl the Bearded's basic Laws of Spellcasting, then maybe—

"Twilight, you know I hate to be a bother," Rarity called out once more, "But I really could use Spike's help. I just don't think it's here, darling."

Her concentration was shattered again. Twilight's head whipped around, sending her mane that was already tussled with both lack of sleep and grooming flying over her shoulder and across her eyes, which momentarily burned with red-hot irritation.

"W, Rarity! It's W! Always W!" she snapped. "W. O. R. M. H. O. L. E. S! WORM HOLES!"

Rarity bristled at the condescension. She lifted her nose in the air and gave a indignant huff.

"I know how to spell, dear," she said. "But I'm trying to tell you: It's. Simply. Not. Here."

Twilight's eyes rolled. "That's not possible," she said through gritted teeth. "It's there."

"Well, unless you or Spike knows something that I don't," Rarity retorted, "I can only tell you what my eyes tell me. And they're telling me that books on Worm Holes aren't here. I've been over the name of every single book in this section at least five times."

Groaning, Twilight got up from the desk and walked across the room and over to the ladder to stand underneath her well-meaning but somewhat burdensome friend. Her aggressive steps sent loud clacks echoing around the circular house filled with stacks of books organized with her own mode of chaos. Looking up, Twilight quickly realized what the issue was. For a moment that was not the first since Rarity had dropped in to offer help, she had second thoughts over accepting her assistance.

With a hoof to her forehead, Twilight shook her head back and forth in exasperation.

"It's not there," she said, "Because you're in the Nature section. Worm Holes are in the Science section. Under W."

"Well, why would Worm Holes be there?" asked Rarity, perplexed. "I suppose it could fall under Science, but it would seem to me to make more sense having Worm Holes listed under Nature."

"Because they're not proven yet," she explained. "It's a theory. A scientific one. Hence the Science section."

At that Rarity scoffed. "Well, I happen to know for a fact that's untrue. They're most certainly proven. I may not be as book-smart as you, and I don't enjoy dirt, but I am not a simpleton. That's where they live."

Now it was Twilight's turn to be bewildered.

"What in Equestria are you talking about?"

"Worms," Rarity said. "Dirty, icky worms. They make holes in the dirt. That's where they live, the filthy things."

"NOT EARTH WORMS," said Twilight, clenching her teeth and mentally counting to ten. "It's a theoretical tunnel in the geometry of space-time that could connect different parts of the universe!"

"Well, I don't even know what all that means," Rarity said, "So how would I know where it's filed?"

"Uggh!" Twilight groaned. "Why would I even being looking for books about worms, Rarity?! Why?!"

"Don't ask me," she answered, "It's your plan. I'm just doing what I'm told, and you told me to find all your books on Worm Holes. It wasn't my place to question you. The last time I did so, you become rather cross and said, and I quote, 'Rarity, just find the book and stop asking me a hundred questions about it.' So here you are. I found you a book. It's about birds. There's probably something about worms and their holes in there somewhere."

With that, she tossed Twilight's first edition of "Ornithology Equestria" down from the shelf to land on the wooden floor below with a mighty whoomp and a plume of dust. For a moment they didn't say anything. Rarity remained on the ladder, chin thrust out and defiant. Twilight stared at the cover of the thick book on the ground, its hardcover exterior faded and grimy with age and little use. A rather chipper looking little bird was on the cover, mockingly beaming its happy smile.

The corners of Twilight's eyes started twitching involuntarily. She was about to say something that would probably have been crass and uncalled for, but Spike managed to step in before she had the opportunity. Putting one claw on Twilight's shoulder and deliberately gesturing with his other, he started negotiating.

"Alright," he said with as much professionalism as he could manage. "Clearly there's been some miscommunication. Rarity's found plenty of books before now, Twilight was doing her usual really smart stuff, I was doing an awesome job, it was all good. Rarity just didn't know as much about science-y stuff as Twilight does, so she missed one. Honest mistake that could happen to anypony. Agreed?"

"Yeah, but—" Twilight began.

"SO," he continued before she could, "How about we all take a break, yeah? Twilight, you've been going pretty hard. Maybe it's time you reset that big brain of yours? Those books'll still be there later. Rarity, you've been helpful as well as unfairly lovely as always. Let's give those beautiful blue eyes a rest. Me? I've stacked scrolls to the ceiling, having in no way made any mistakes during the sorting process because I'm awesome. For that I think I deserve a break, as does everypony."

"Spike, once again you're the voice of wisdom," said Rarity as she daintily hopped down the ladder. "I think that sounds like a marvelous idea. I've been holding my neck like this for so long that I think I'm getting a cramp!"

To illustrate her plight she tilted her head to the side as if reading the spines of books and gave a tiny yelp while she did so, rubbing her neck and pouting slightly. Twilight took a deep breath and prepared to have a word about that, most likely to say something about priorities, but Spike once again interjected before she could do so. With an arm draped around her neck he escorted Rarity past Twilight and around the piles of books littering the floor.

"Well then let's break for lunch!" he said, leading her to the door. "Rarity, get a heat pack on that, get some grub, some coffee, a pamphlet on science to brush up on your knowledge, or whatever else you need. Take your time, don't feel rushed. Let's all just relax and meet back here in an hour or so, okay?"

He had gently shoved her halfway out the door by the time he was done talking, giving her barely enough time to say more than "Yes, that sounds fine" before he politely but firmly closed the door behind her. As he turned back around he saw Twilight staring at him, radiating suspicion.

"So we're breaking for lunch, are we?" she asked him with more than mild irritation in her voice.

"Hey I'm sorry," he said, arms extended before him as if to brace himself against the oncoming impact. "I know you were on a roll. But you've got to take it easy on yourself. And us!"

"What do you mean take it easy?!" she shouted, looming over Spike and on the edge of her hooves. "I am taking it easy! Nopony has ever taken it easier than I am taking whatever it is I'm taking right now!!"

"Yeah, you're a ocean of calmness."

The glare coming from her eyes could have melted ice as she processed Spike's sarcasm. Then, after realizing the clash between what she had just claimed and the intensity with which she had claimed it, she stopped as a moment of clarity rang in her head. She wasn't behaving much like a friend should, let alone a friend who was receiving help. In fact, she realized, Rarity had been the only friend she had seen since getting back home. Had she driven the others off? It wouldn't have been the first time she'd gone over the edge. Had she done it again?

The anger faded from her face, along with the tension that had been building up in her shoulders until they had been shaking. Like a rope unraveling, her body loosened up until it she couldn't hold herself up and plopped her flank down on the floor. Sheepishly she frowned and said "Sorry."

"Listen to me," said Spike, "We're all with you, and we want to help. But you know how you get when you're really focused on something. Sometimes you get a little extreme. Right?"

Twilight lifted her eyes upwards and started rapidly scanning the ceiling. She nodded begrudgingly.

"I guess so."

"And that can make it difficult to work with you. You know that, too, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And sometimes when you ask us to do stuff it's less like asking and more like—"

"Alright, alright," she said. "I get it. I'll…try to be less intense."

Pleased with his diplomatic skills, Spike nodded to himself and walked past Twilight and to the side nook that served as the kitchen.

"Good," he called over his shoulder. "We'll continue after our break. Then you and Rarity can make up and it'll be a fresh start! In fact, when we do, I'm just going to go ahead and redo that stack of scrolls. Not that there's anything wrong with them, of course. I sorted them fine. In fact they're perfect. But they were sorted under bad juju. Wouldn't want that rubbing off on anything else."

"What are you talking about?" she called back. As she glanced behind her at the pile, she noticed that it seemed taller than she had expected it to be.

"Nothing!" came his reply from the kitchen. "Absolutely nothing! I'm just a perfectionist! Now come on, it's time to get our grub on!"

* * *

Rarity was taking her time getting back. Neither Twilight or Spike wanted to continue while being short-hoofed, but if she kept them waiting much longer they were probably going to have to do so anyway. Twilight had already begun to sneak her way back to work as she and Spike sat at the kitchen table. Her spoon was in her bowl of oatmeal but her nose was buried in a book of physics as she distractedly stirred her lunch, not having bothered to take a bite since pouring it. It had gotten quite cold but it was extremely well mixed.

"Huh," said Spike around the mouthful of bagel he had shoved in his mouth. "Looks like they're finally starting on making those houses."

He was reading from the local newspaper. As had been the case for the last week, that morning's edition of The Ponyville Express had the front page dedicated to the new arrivals in town, and what was going to be done with them. The headline splashed across the top read "HERE TO STAY! PONYVILLE BECOMES PONYTROPOLIS?" In smaller print below was the secondary header "Population more than doubles as outcasts settle in." The middle of the page was taken up with a picture of a young filly with dirt-caked hooves sitting outside a tent, caught in the middle of biting a carrot. She had a strange, glassy look on her dirty face that made her look either exhausted or dim. It was a terrible picture of her. Behind her were a trio of other equally grubby ponies, presumably her family, all sitting around a meager campfire they had made in the middle of what had once been the road out of town, but was now a field of mud littered with tents. Over that small fire was a tin can. The photographer had actually managed to find ponies boiling something in a tin can. The top of the father's hat was even torn and flapping like an open mouth. If they had tried they couldn't have found more destitute looking inhabitants of the newly erected shelters.

"Which houses?" asked Twilight. She was barely listening.

"The houses for our new friends," Spike answered as he continued chewing. "Although you wouldn't know they were friends based on this. She's a jerk."

"Who's a jerk?" Twilight asked. She still wasn't paying attention.

"Ah, the mare who wrote this article," he said. "That Anna-whatever-her-name-is."

Twilight looked up from her book and blinked at him.

"Who?" she repeated.

"You know," he said, making little circles in the air with his bagel while trying to think of the name. "That one who said they should all find somewhere else to go. Says all those mean things about Princess Celestia all the time. She wrote that big article about how all those stupid protesters that left Equestria were totally right and that Celestia should be fired."

"Ann Canter?"

"That's the jerk," he said, swallowing loudly before taking another mighty bite of his bagel.

"She says it's not Ponyville's responsibility to care for those ponies," he continued. "Makes 'em out to be some kind of freeloading moochers. I mean, have you seen this picture here? Talk about getting your bad side."

Twilight had no choice but to get a good look as Spike shoved the paper in her face from across the table. He was certainly right about it being an unflattering image. The filly's lips were raised in a half-sneer around the carrot as she bit down, with her eyes half closed in mid-blink and tongue protruding ever so slightly. It was like one of those pictures that is taken right before the subject sneezes which makes them look utterly ridiculous. But the paper had slapped it on their front page right underneath the header that included that negative word "outcasts." They could have used "survivors" or "refugees," but Twilight had the feeling that, based on Ann Canter's track record, the word choice had been very intentional.

She gently pushed the paper out of her face. "Yeah," she said. "Not the best picture she's had taken of her, I'm sure."

"You know what she says?" Spike yelled as crumbs flew out of his mouth. "She says if the ponies of the Crystal Empire didn't want their city to disappear, they should have thought of that before they let Sombra cast the curse! Can you believe that? I mean, hello?! It's not like they wanted their home taken from them. Again! But then again, we're talking about the same pony who said that she would have left with those protesters if they hadn't kept where they went a secret."

"Really? She said that?" Twilight was surprised. Even for somepony as terribly biased against Celestia as Ann Canter was, she couldn't imagine leaving Equestria, even if they were really mad at its ruler.

"She wrote a whole article on it," Spike said. "Where do you think they went, anyway?"

Twilight shrugged. "I have no idea. Somewhere to the far south, I think. There's some rumors that they went across the sea.

"I heard they followed the dragon migration paths," Spike added. "They wish they were awesome enough to hang with dragons. Whatever, though. My kind wouldn't have anything to do with them. We don't like deserters. Even if Ann Canter seems to."

"Since when do you care about what Ann Canter says, anyway?" asked Twilight. She took a bite of her oatmeal and frowned at its coldness.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Ah, I don't. She just takes me there. At least the Mayor isn't listening to her. Looks like those houses are going up pretty quick. It says they're going to be all along the whole river bank."

Twilight abandoned her breakfast and returned to her reading. The book was a bit advanced for her current understanding of physics, and there was a lot that she didn't totally get. But still she plowed ahead, hoping that eventually it would all make sense.

"You know," Spike said as Twilight buried her nose back into the pages, "I'll bet Pinkie Pie could teach her a thing or two about those ponies. It seems like she's been over there a lot since they got here."

"She has," Twilight absentmindedly replied. "She's been staying in the camp the whole time."

"Is that where she's been? How do you know that? You haven't left the house."

"Rarity told me."

"Oh." Spike perked up slightly. "She's due back soon isn't she? What time is it?"

"She's already running late."

"You know," he said, putting down the paper and rubbing his chin, "Now that I think about it, I haven't seen Applejack lately either."

Twilight shook her head. "She's busy at Sweet Apple Acres, apparently." There was a note of cynicism in her voice.

"Uh huh. Have you seen Fluttershy?"

"Spike, do we have to go down a list or something?" Twilight asked as she pulled her face out of the book. "You know I haven't seen anypony."

"Okay, okay," he said before raising his eyebrow. "You know you had me make a list of all your friends once. We could go down it."

"Don't be a smart-aleck," Twilight mumbled. Her nose had returned to the pages.

Spike tossed the rest of the bagel in his mouth and plopped down from his chair, taking the paper with him. "I'm throwing this garbage out," he called over his shoulder as he walked to the trashcan.

"I'm just saying," he continued, "It might be good to, you know, see them or something. Considering everything that's happened."

"I can't control where they go. If they want to see me they're welcome to. But I'm busy. I can't go out and track them down."

Underneath the forced indifference, Spike could hear the tension in her voice.

"Uh, excuse me?" he said. "What did we just talk about? About you getting super intense and weird? I think seeing your friends would do you a lot of good."

She didn't reply. He couldn't tell if she'd even heard him. She just remained staring at her book with her brow furled intensely.

"You know it usually happens when you're by yourself."

She still didn't say anything. Spike had known Twilight for a long time, and he had survived enough occasions where she had gone over the edge to spot when another freak-out was coming. And while the situation they had found themselves in was by far more the most serious they'd faced, and Spike couldn't blame her for doing so, the last thing anypony needed was her losing her grip on reality again. But he could sense it coming, and his diplomatic skills could only take them so far. She had been on the verge of flipping out since their return, and Spike wasn't looking forward to another episode.

"How is that, anyway?" he asked, pointing at it. "Anything useful?"

Twilight groaned and leaned back in her chair, resting her head on the back of it as she stared upwards.

"Nothing that tells me how to travel through time, if that's what you're asking," she said. "I don't know. I just can't get my head wrapped around what to do. I'd need to study for decades to get anywhere with this. And even then I still don't know if it would work. It's all so incredibly advanced."

Spike tossed the newspaper in the trash. With a shrug of his shoulders he said "Well, you are trying to figure out time travel. I'd imagine it'd be tough. It's not like you're making a delicious sandwich or something."

He paused in deep thought, rubbing his chubby dragon belly.

"I'm gonna make a sandwich," he decided.

Twilight paid him no mind as he waddled past her and began raiding the refrigerator.

"I just…" she said dismally, still looking at the ceiling, "I wasn't prepared for this at all."

"Well, you'll just have to keep working at it," Spike said from the crisper drawer. "But maybe you should take a day off and see your friends. Maybe it'll help you relax. Being super stressed can't be useful."

"That's not going to get Rainbow Dash back any quicker," she sighed. "I need to keep studying. It's not like the answers are just going to be given to me."

A knock on the door drew her from her melancholy haze. Spike stopped in the middle of spreading peanut butter on the tomatoes of his already formidable sandwich and went to answer it with a spring in his step. Working his way through the center of the hollowed-out tree house, he dodged and darted in between the numerous piles of paper and pillars of books stacked high to the ceiling. He passed by Twilight's giant chalkboard, filled edge to edge with equations of both mathematical and magical persuasions. He had to duck under the mass of strings as he passed by Twilight's wall of index cards, with its dozens of lengths of multicolored yarn connecting all the different theories and connections and ideas that she was trying to make sense of in her jumbled mind. The room was a messy, breathing manifestation of the organized chaos within Twilight's head, but Spike nimbly guided himself through like a thread through a needle.

"I'll bet I know who that is!" he sang out as he made it to the end of the small labyrinth. After smoothing the crest on his head back to be at its most dapper for his hopeless crush, Rarity, he turned the knob and answered the door with a flourish and the deepest, most mature voice he could manage.

"Why if it isn't the loveliest pony in Ponyville!"

But it wasn't Rarity.

"Good afternoon, Spike," Princess Celestia answered with a wink. "Thank you. You're looking quite handsome today, too."

Spike was caught in between a bow, a backwards stumble and a blush as he scrambled to recover from the embarrassment of inadvertently flirting with his Sovereign. In the end he wasn't able to say much, but he did manage to stammer out most of the syllables of her name.

Poking her head inside, Celestia craned her neck over to look at Twilight, still sitting at her kitchen table.

"Hello, Twilight," she called. "Do you mind if I come in for a minute?"

Twilight rushed to get to her hooves, knocking the chair back with a sharp screech as its legs rubbed against the floor. The shock of Celestia's appearance overrode the memory of their less than friendly parting a week ago, and Twilight suddenly felt ashamed of the state of her house.

"Yes, of course!" she replied. "Please come in!"

As she stepped inside, Celestia took stock of the place. Upon seeing the madness within, concern briefly glided over her face before being replaced with a warming smile. Or at least, it was as warm as she could make it given the uncomfortable tension between the two of them that had yet to be addressed.

Stepping over a pile of scrolls closest to the door, Celestia carefully made her way over to the kitchen. On her back was a small, leather-bound saddlebag. It looked old beyond reason, and even from across the room it looked incredibly soft. It was so faded from the sun and time that whatever color it had started off as had turned to a dull grey. Embossed upon it was Celestia's cutie mark. Twilight noted that despite it clearly being Celestia's personal bag, oddly, it did not bare her royal sigil.

After traversing the hazardous minefield that was Twilight's living room, Celestia stepped into the kitchen. Spike was at her heels, scrambling to pull out a chair for her. With a bow, Twilight greeted her princess.

"Please sit down," she said as kindly as she could. She felt the same nerves she had during their last meeting returning to sit in the pit of her stomach like a ball of ice.

"Thank you," Celestia said as she took a seat across the table. Spike was still at her side.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. "Coffee? Tea? Water? Sandwich?" At that last offer he half-glanced over to his half-made monstrosity still sitting on the counter, fearful that she'd say "Yes."

"No, thank you, Spike," she replied.

"Well, I'll just get back to making mine then, if you don't mind," he said, returning to the fridge and proceeding to assault his creation with the contents of his bottle of Astral Blaze Hot Mustard. There was only half the container left, Twilight having used some of it some weeks earlier to dissolve the grout from the bathroom tiles when she had been remodeling. Even from across the room the smell was apocalyptic.

"Just let me know if you want some!" Spike called out before putting on the topping of bite sized sapphires and chocolate syrup.

"Will do!" Celestia called back with a smile. As she took her seat at the table again, Twilight tried to get a read on her. She couldn't tell if Celestia was genuinely in a good mood or if she was simply trying really hard to appear as such. She didn't seem to be forcing it too much, but there was an underlying sense of apprehension in her mannerisms.

"So Princess," she asked, "What brings you out to Ponyville?"

"I was checking on the situation here," Celestia answered, still looking around. "Making sure the Mayor has everything she needs. Making sure everypony has food and a roof of some kind to sleep under. And making sure my good friends were doing alright. Which brought me here."

"I've been…busy," Twilight said.

Glancing back at the main room, Celestia nodded. "You certainly have," she said, almost to herself. There was a note of admiration in her voice, as if she were quite impressed by the madness. For a time she remained silent as she regarded the house, full to bursting with the works of a pony on the verge of obsession. Then she turned to Twilight and, with a smirk escaping despite her best efforts, came right out and asked:

"Time travel, huh?"

Twilight was momentarily flustered. Was Celestia mocking her? Was she still hard-set on making sure she didn't go through with her plan?

"Yeah," she said quietly. "It seemed the most…"

"Most what?"

Twilight cast her eyes downwards towards the table. "Logical," she finished.

"Most ponies wouldn't exactly call that logical."

"Most ponies haven't ever run into themselves from the future," Twilight retorted with a shrug, raising her head to look Celestia in the eye.

"Touché," she said with a small chuckle. "At what point did you come up with that idea?"

"I'd say…I don't know. Maybe the day after it happened?"

Celestia shook her head and smiled again. "It took me years before I gave time travel any serious consideration," she said. "I always thought it was too outlandish."

"Well, it is," Twilight agreed. "It's absurd."

"But you made a case for it all the same."

Twilight lowered her head again. "It was silly," she said. "It is silly."

"And yet, you convinced me."

Twilight blinked rapidly, certain that she had misheard.

"What?"

With a heavy exhale, Celestia asked, "Twilight, there's nothing I could ever say that could make you change your mind about this, is there?"

Twilight shook her head. "I'm sorry. No, there's not."

Celestia nodded knowingly, having clearly expected that answer. "Well, in that case I have something for you," she said. Using her magic, she levitated the saddlebag off of her back and placed it on the table.

"What's that?" Twilight asked.

Celestia smiled. "It's my old saddlebag from when I was just a filly," she said. "I've had this for quite some time."

"It's big for a filly's bag," Twilight remarked.

"I was tall for my age," Celestia said with a slight blush. "But it's what's inside the bag that is a bit more important." After unlatching the well-worn straps, she opened the flap and reached inside. The musky smell seeping out from the bag was of ancient tomes, wet soil and oiled leather.

She pulled out a heavy book almost as thick as Twilight's leg. The pages ran the gamut of colors from faded cream to deep plaque-like yellow, interlaced with bookmarks and other small pieces of paper of every color and style attached to them in numerous, somewhat inelegant ways: Tape, glue, dog-ears, even sewn with heavy string. The simple black leather cover, flayed with use and stained with dust and grime was plainly adorned with an embossed outline of a castle with five towers. Even on the cover of an old book its profile was unmistakable.

"The Crystal Empire," Twilight whispered as the book was placed in front of her. "Princess…what…what is this?"

"A few hundred years," she sadly answered. "It's pretty full, but it's a big book, and there's still a lot left to fill in."

As she opened the book, Twilight felt the age of it creaking in her hooves. It was still solid, but it seemed delicate—an ancient suit of armor that was so old you dare not wear it. Inside the pages were filled with Celestia's elegant script as it flowed in tightly packed clusters from edge to edge and top to bottom, with barely a wasted inch. Turning the pages she saw sketches and charts along with the occasional mathematical equation and magical incantation interspaced throughout, all of which were clearly and dutifully footnoted whenever further reference had been needed. Every entry was dated, the earliest being roughly a thousand years ago. The pages and scraps added to the book seemed to be additional information attached after space had run out. Skipping ahead, Twilight saw the pages got less and less filled with writing as it went on. The scraps in the back of the book were dated as far back as seven hundred years. The last few dozen pages of the massive book were blank.

"This is your work, isn't it?" Twilight mumbled in awe. "Your work from when you were trying to get them back!"

"Yes," said Celestia. "It is the complete record of my investigation into rescuing the Crystal Empire. Every thought I ever had to lift the curse is in there. Every silly notion, no matter how ridiculous or impossible. Every answer I found. Every question with no solution. Every dead end. Every spell that could have helped. And every single bit of research I poured into it all. There are nearly countless hours of study inside. It would give anypony a good couple centuries worth of a head start. And now I'm giving it to you. I trust I'll see some answers written down in there before too long."

"Are you saying…" Twilight's eyes were gleaming wet moons, wide and bright as she clutched the book to her chest.

"I'm saying go for it," Celestia said, breaking into a smile as she beamed with pride, "You are the most intelligent, most wonderful student I've ever had the privilege to teach. And I can't think of anypony else I'd want working on getting Rainbow Dash and everypony else back. You have a gift, Twilight. Maybe you'll see something in here that I couldn't."

Twilight's smile couldn't be controlled. It threatened to tear her mouth away from her face. Vigorously nodding her head and squeezing the book hard enough to make the binding creak, she promised as solemnly as she could around her tears of happiness.

"I'll do my best!"

"I know you will," Celestia said. "I want you to understand that I will be with you every step of the way. Anything you need from me, any time you need help, any time you have questions, I will be there. All you have to do is say so. And together we can bring your friend home."

"Thank you, Princess Celestia. Thank you."

The princess stood and walked around to Twilight's side of the table. Kneeling down, she lowered her horn to her student's and gently rubbed it up and down. Twilight pulled back, then threw her hooves around Celestia's shoulders and hugged her. As they embraced, she felt the glowing aura that radiated off of the alicorn monarch. It filled her soul with light until it was fit to burst, and she felt her spirit lift high above her mess of a house. Even the smell of her mane, sunlight and spring, filled her heart with hope. And for the first time since making that promise on the train, she felt that maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to keep it.

Celestia whispered in her ear. "I have faith in you, Twilight. I just need you to do one more thing."

"What's that?"

"Show me up, okay?"

Twilight couldn't answer. She just laughed silently and nodded into Celestia's shoulder, embracing her a little bit tighter.

"Now I must leave you to it," Celestia said with a wink. "I am needed elsewhere, and you've got a lot of work to do."

* * *

By the time she arrived back at Twilight's house, Rarity was running very late. Even if the initial meeting time had been slightly ambiguous, she estimated that she was probably forty-five minutes past when she could have reasonably been expected. While not being punctual was quite unbecoming of her, there was little hurry in her step as she approached the front door. She and Twilight's parting had only been civil thanks to the intervention of Spike, and she had no intention of returning to an atmosphere of such abuse. It was almost more than a pony could be expected to take.

"Soooo, what exactly am I gonna be doing here?" asked Sweetie Belle from her side as they neared the house.

"You are going to be helping me with Twilight," Rarity explained. "We're researching, and I need somepony to keep her rational so that she doesn't fly off the handle."

Sweetie Belle crinkled her nose.

"How am I gonna to do that?"

"You know," Rarity said. "Use your charisma and politesse to keep her in good spirits."

Sweetie Belle thought for a brief moment before saying, "But I don't have any of those things. I don't think."

"Perhaps not," agreed Rarity, "But I doubt that she would yell in front of children."

"Wait a minute," Sweetie Belle balked, "I'm here just because I'm a kid?"

"It's a calculated risk. Try not to blow it."

Sweetie Belle was still bristling and mumbling under her breath as Rarity knocked. They heard scuffling from inside, followed by soft footsteps shuffling quickly to the door. As it opened, Spike was on the other side, covered with dust and out of breath. Rarity had been expecting to be greeted with his typical bad flirting, but the young dragon seemed to have little interest in that at the moment. He looked both exhausted and excited.

"Hey, Rarity!" he said, slightly panting. "Thought you'd never make it back. Hey, Sweetie Belle. You here to help, too? We sure could use it."

Looking behind him, Rarity saw that the room was completely changed. It was still a terrible, chaotic mess, but everything was different. The chalkboard had been erased. The notes on the wall with the strings connecting them had been taken down. The piles of books were on the other side of the room, and from the looks of it about half of them had been put back, replaced with others. The giant stack of scrolls was in the process of being totally reorganized, which, based on the dust covering him, was what Spike had been in the process of doing. The house pulsed with the energy of the creative process at work.

Sweetie Belle saw the towering stacks before her and paled. All she was able to get out was "Uh, I was here to, um, pol…politesse 'n stuff, I guess?" before Spike grabbed her by the hoof.

"Great!" he said with a sigh of relief. "Hope that means "sorting books" in fancy speak!" He dragged her into the house without another word.

Rarity followed them inside. She saw that Twilight Sparkle was sitting at the same desk she had been at earlier that day. The piles of books that had surrounded her before as if they had been the towers of a castle were gone. Instead, she had only one book in front of her. It was quite large, bound in black leather, and packed with various other pieces of paper and bookmarks all throughout its heavy, ancient looking pages. As she read it, she was using her magic to levitate books past her in the air. Then, after giving them a quick glance, she sent them soaring off to a shelf. It seemed as if she were cross-referencing them. There were still mountains to go through.

Seeing Rarity coming inside, Twilight perked up.

"Rarity!" she said with a smile. "Great news! We're starting over!"

The blood rushed from Rarity's face.

"Wha...wha…what do you," she stuttered, uncomprehending. "That work. All that work. Days of it! You mean we're starting again from scratch?!"

Grinning from ear to ear, Twilight held up the book to show Rarity. She could see Twilight's eyes peeping up over the top, closed in sly satisfaction.

"Not at all," she said from behind the book. "In fact, we just got a thousand year head start!"

Comments

[Europa]

Alright, lots of amazing stuff. From Rarity's confusion on Wormholes, the apocalypse-level sauce, Sweetie being a calculated risk and Spike's intro to Celestia. Your characterization is spot on - though I'd think Sweetie Belle, being the dictionary she is, would know what politesse means - and I can't wait to see what Twilight comes up with.

... maybe she can figure out how to cast the curse and then reverse engineer it?

[igotastewgoing]

4024059 Thanks! One of my favorite things is writing dialogue. I love getting inside the character's heads and making words come out, especially when I manage to crack myself up like I did in this chapter. The wormholes part makes me chuckle every time, as does the bit with Sweetie Belle. And yes, I thought about her knowing what politesse means, but I find the idea that her vocabulary isn't nearly as big as she or others think it is to be way funnier than if she actually knew the word. I have an actual Sweetie Belle = Dictionary joke in the next chapter that plays on that idea. (Also a LOT of jokes foreshadowing Season 4, too! )

[Starlight Nova]

It's been six months. Is this dead or what?