The Hidden Truth

by Colt Catastrophe

Missing Foal: Part 1

Chapter 1

The moon was full and rounded out the entire sky. Luna had intended to keep this beautiful sight hidden for a couple more days, but she couldn’t resist her desire to let the ponies see its full splendor. The ponies were down in the town; most a sleep in their beds as they dream soundly in the night. The light of the moon peaks through their windows and eliminates their houses with the natural white light of the rock in the sky.

The light enters the room of one particular pony. Twilight Sparkle by name. She was wide awake looking through old content that had gathered dust on her shelves; a task she told her “Number 1 Assistant” to do, but was never done. Whether it was him goofing off or flaunting around her friend Rarity. Whatever the case, the point was now it was her task to complete. Slowly filing through book cases, carefully checking to see and checking if the books were still worth keeping. “Huh…” Twilight huffed as she sat checking. “The work, it never seems to end around here.” Her voice trailed off as she was feeling mass amounts of exhaustion. Long hours at both the castle and the library tired the pony completely. She wished she had some down time where she could relax and read a book, or go out with her friends. She’s just been so busy lately. With her job as the Ponyville librarian and her now proclaimed “Royal Duties” she hasn’t had a moments rest. “I gotta finish.” She said continuing on. “I need to finish. It my duty. My job. My responsibility.”

She went down the aisles, going through the content of each of her until she reached one that seemed to be different from the others. Covered in dust from being on the self for so long, Twilight bin a single huff blew the undesirable content off to reveal the cover. Family Album It read on the front, and in an instant Twilight remembered what it was. Back when she was a filly, her and her family would always have some sort of memorable moment. They would always snap a picture of the time to remember the fun and special events they had. “I haven’t this in years.” She said in aw looking at the book. “I haven’t seen this thing since-“ she paused to recollect the last time she took hold of her book. “-since I moved in. I guess I just placed somewhere until I was situated and forgot about it. I wonder what the last entry was?” She opened the book to the last page that had any content on it and saw it was a picture of her and Spike and the rest of her new friends standing in front of Twilight new home in Ponyville. “Wow. It seems like only yesterday.” She said looking at the fond memory of coming here. “That was years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I went through this thing.”

Now engrossed into the rather large book, Twilight carried it with her as she decided to just finish the rest of the organization tomorrow and go to bed. She crept of each stair step, carefully trying to make as little noise as possible so she wouldn’t wake Spike. Behind her followed the family book levitated in magic. As Twilight got into bed and relaxed herself she brought the book by her side and began rustling through the pages to see just how many things were inside. With each page turn came a new memory and happy feeling that made her appreciate everything that has happened. Thinking to herself she thought that her life would have never succeeded like this if it were not for the help of her family and her respected teacher and mentor Princess Celestia. Everything in my life I have because of the support of my family and teacher. She thinks to herself as with each page brought happiness and a bit of laughter.

Spike rustled around in his bed until he finally was awoken by the laughing mare that was next to him. “Twilight?” he said wearily, rubbing his eyes to get a better view. Twilight turned and saw him lying up, seeing that her attempts to be quiet had failed. “What are doing?” He asks, still trying to get up. “It’s nothing Spike. Please, go back to bed. We have a long day tomorrow and I don’t want you dazing of in the middle of the day.” She say back. “What are you reading?” he asks looking at the book. “It’s just an old family photo album that I had lost in the clutter of all the old books, which you were suppose to take care of.” She says staring at him. Spike, now getting starred down for not finishing the job quickly tries to change the subject. “So what kind of things are in there? Any pics of me?” he asks as he hops up and goes next to Twilight’s bed to see the album. “Of course there’s pictures of you in here. Like right here,” she points out “when we were moving in and you help me with the boxes." Spike looks over and sees the picture of them moving in. "Yeah, I remember that day. I also remember two hours later having back pains from all that heavily lifting." He said rubbing his back on the spot that pained him.

Twilight flipped a few pages back and showed another picture of them a couple of years before they moved in; back when they were in Canterlot. It was one of Twilight trying out a new spell on an overly nervous Spike. Then she showed another even further back, showing the time when Twilight was first introduced to her soon to be future partner. "I'll never forget the day Celestia introduced me to you." She says looking down at him. "You were really only a baby then. So cute and adorable." She said at him, while Spike just started to blush of embarrassment. “Yeah, well, what were you like when you were a baby? I’m sure you were a lot ‘cuter’ then I was.” He said trying to get Twi to move on. “Well let’s just see about that, shall we?” Twilight answered as she flipped the pages. She flipped passed the pages looking for a picture of her when she was foal. The looked and looked, but she couldn’t seem to find one. As the book started to reach it’s end, Twilight stared to question if maybe she had skipped over it in a rush to find it. She turned back a couple of pages and flipped through again, checking to make sure she didn’t skip over until she reached the beginning of the book. The first picture in there was of her going into her first day of magic training with Princess Celestia.

Nothing else showed past the picture, making Twi question why there weren’t any baby picture of her in her family album. “What’s wrong?” Spike curiously asked looking up at his friend. “Well, I-I can’t seem to find one of me as a foal in here. It just stops after the picture of me going to my first day of school. There’s nothing past that.” She says to him. “Hmm, that’s weird.” He said wondering on the situation himself, “Though I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure your parents of tones of those picture as memorable possessions. All parents do.” “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She said reassuring herself. “I’m sure mom and dad have tones of cute pictures of me when I was younger. Perhaps I can go tomorrow and ask them for some, but for now it’s time for bed.” She closes the book and places it on her nightstand. Spike go back over to his mat and curls up under his blanket. Twilight turns out the light and rests her head on pillow. “Goodnight Spike.” She says. “Good night Twilight.” He replies. They both fall asleep in the room now only lit by the white moonlight.

Author's Note:

Hope this goes well. First story; could use some criticism, just don't be so blatantly harsh.

Comments

[Secret_Brony]

It has potential. You do have some grammar mistakes tho.

Also there is another story titled The Truth you might want to consider a name change to avoided confusion.

[DarkBlueDreamer]

Popped in because I wanted to see what you were doing with this. Twilight's past being some sort of mysterious secret is nothing new, but it's always interesting to see what ideas an author has come up with for it.

Biggest issue I have is verb tense. The writing constantly wobbles back and forth between present tense ("The light enters the room of one particular pony.") and past tense ("She was wide awake looking through old...") and it's very distracting to the reader. Traditionally a story is told in past-tense, as it has already happened. It's perfectly legit to tell in present-tense as though it's happening as it is read, but you need to stick with one or the other.

Second issue is speech. When a new character speaks, there should be a line break. There's some very rare exceptions to this, but when Spike speaks to Twilight in the fifth paragraph, then again when Twilight replies, you should start new lines beginning with the quote.

I'm not a big fan of quibbling over spelling errors when there's bigger fish to fry, so I won't bother pointing those out. :) The story composition and sentence structure is otherwise good, and I AM interested in the subject matter, so definitely keep trying! There's a couple groups on Fimfiction that are good for finding editors, proof-readers and the like you should check out, though I don't recall which are the best, off-hoof.

[Poppyman65]

Not bad

[Edguy0009]

You want some criticism? Here have some. *hands over criticism*