Chapter One
If there’s one thing I’ve come to despise in my career as a student, it’s a question without an answer. Such a thing just rubs me the wrong way, like an itch I can’t scratch. Of course, a question without an answer is absolutely instrumental in our development as a species. It’s these insatiable itches that cause the great thinkers of pony-kind to make great discoveries and think great thoughts, whether it’s Archimaredes’ discovery of density or Galihayo’s heliocentric theory.
Sometimes my mentor thinks that spending too much time trying to answer questions is detrimental to my well-being. As much as I respect her, I think the notion is ridiculous. After all, the more decisions we make about something, the more we remember it. There’s nothing that helps my studies more than figuring things out. Of course, that’s not her chief concern, but her insistent obsession about the nonsense of friendship is, in my opinion, the princess’ biggest flaw. True, every thinking pony needs colleagues, but that is the extent that I will ever acknowledge the importance of anything pertaining even remotely to friendship.
Anyway, I’m getting off-track. I tend to do that a lot.
It was a fateful day shortly after I became the princess’ student that I stumbled upon a book that changed my whole outlook about magic and philosophy. It was a Xenopone treatise on Classical history, but the actual history wasn’t the interesting part. What really raised my curiosity was the short summary of Starswirl the Bearded’s final work.
You see, he stumbled upon something incredible. Something so elementary, yet so absolutely essential. He discovered the Meaning of Life.
Now most ponies would think of the Meaning of Life as some philosophical mumbo-jumbo that has no effect of anypony’s lives that pretentious ponies use to make themselves sound smart. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, discovering the Meaning of Life had far-reaching philosophical implications. It is the reason why ponies exist at all, but arguably more important, it is the single unifying element of all magic. It is the fundamental constant that shows up in every theory on magic, whether pegasus, unicorn, or earth. It would open up a vast new avenue of understanding of such a basic element of our lives. It would start a revolution.
However, I have no idea where to start looking for it. Xenopone didn’t go into any detail, except that Clover the Clever claimed that Starswirl found it shortly before he passed. Yes, the idea pervades my thoughts, but it’s just in the background. It’s an itch in my mind.
An itch I’d give anything to scratch…
“Twilight, it’s like, ten o’clock at night. Is the library even open?”
“Spike, I told you before, the princess said I could use the library whenever I needed to, that the guard would let me in.”
“I bet the guard would like to go to bed, too,” he grumbled.
I looked at him as empathetically as I could. Spike may be a sleepyhead, but he would never consciously let me down. “The princess has scheduled an oral exam tomorrow. If I fail…” My heart skipped at having to utter the word, and decided to continue skipping and resonate panic through my chest. “…I don’t know what will happen! She might have to give me remedial lessons, or send me back to magic preschool, or s-stop being my teacher, or…”
“Twilight,” Spike said reassuringly, “It’s okay. I’m sorry I complained. Just calm down—your number one assistant is here!”
He thumped his chest with a proud smile. I couldn’t help but smile back at him. I had three friends in this world, friends I’d begrudgingly admit shared utility outside of academia—the princess, my brother, and Spike—and I trusted them all to the bottom of my heart. Three friends… Most ponies would find such a prospect patently ridiculous. We are, in that most primal base of our minds, herd animals after all. Social interaction is in our nature. Well, the way I see it, such primitive drives faded out of practical use when the ingenuity of the pony mind brought forth agriculture and civilization from the fog of the unknown. Why we need to continue to…
“Twilight! Watch where you’re going!” Spike warned.
Too late. I collided with another pony, the break in concentration causing all of my magically levitated study notes to scatter to the expanses of the hallway. I cursed under my breath while forcing an apologetic smile onto my face. My easily-distracted mind got the better of me again.
“I’m so sorry!” I said to the pony I had run into, “Sometimes I just think about things and then I lose track of what I’m doing.”
“It’s not a problem!” she replied, just a little too happy to have been knocked on the floor, “In fact, I’m glad I ran into you!”
After having gathered my papers haphazardly into my aura, I turned my gaze toward the mare. Mint coated unicorn mare, golden lyre cutie mark. I had an unpleasant lurch of recognition. I didn’t remember her name, but Celestia knows I couldn’t forget this mare. I went to magic school with her, where her favorite activity was hijacking our lessons to talk about some nonsense. I remember the report she did when the class assignment was “Races of Equus”. She did it on sea-ponies, a race that only exists in her head. Ever since I’d become the princess’ student, she found a new favorite activity in harassing me about conspiracies.
“Look,” I said as patiently as I could, “I know what you’re going to say, and there are no government secrets I’m hiding. I thought you would have already figured this out, Miss…”
“You don’t remember me, Twilight? I’m Lyra. Remember, we went to school together,” she said, a hurt expression slipping onto her face momentarily before shifting quickly back into a grin, “I’m real sorry about cornering you that one time, by the way. I was young; I should have realized that the princess wouldn’t share in the conspiracy so easily. I’ve come to realize that chupacabras must have gone extinct.”
“Chupacabra? What?”
“The princess wouldn’t tell a regular pony about anything like that, anyway. That’s why I think she’s secretly planning on mutating you into an alicorn, so that she’ll be able to tell you all about the humans!”
I facehoofed. It seemed like every time I met her, she was obsessed over some new fantastic beast or ridiculous conspiracy. “Look, Lyra, first off, it’s not possible to ‘mutate’ into an alicorn. There’s simply no spell that would allow one to consciously make that change, or else we’d all be alicorns.” I rubbed my brow, trying to coax away the headache I felt coming on. “Secondly, and I’m being absolutely honest about this, there’s no such thing as humans!”
Lyra continued to smile at me. I could hear Spike shifting uncomfortably beside me. He was always a bit wary when she appeared. It was probably the crazy. I continued to force my smile, which had by now become very lopsided in exhaustion.
“I’m not sure if you know this, Lyra, but the castle is closed to visitors after eight. So…” I drew out the last word, hoping beyond hope that she’d get the hint.
“How about guests?” she asked.
I racked my brain to recall the castle protocols that I had read a few years ago. “Guests are allowed as long as they are accompanied by the pony that invited them. And I don’t see…”
“Great!” She smiled and quickly moved to my side. “I’m with you, so everything’s good now, right? So where are you off to so late?”
I facehoofed again. Confound these ponies, they’d drive me to drink if I were old enough. As I was just about to explain, while strangling her very calmly, Spike yawned and sat against the wall, his eyes drooping. I sighed. I didn’t have long before he passed out entirely and I had to carry him back to bed. I was beginning to feel the fatigue of the hour as well.
“Alright, look, I have a lot of important studying to do at the library. If you promise to just sit there quietly, you can tag along. Okay?”
Grinning broadly, she nodded and gave a lopsided salute. I could help but smile and shake my head at her enthusiasm. She may be one of the most annoying ponies I’ve ever met, but that girl’s smile was infectious. Her search for the illusive and fictional human may be completely pointless, but Celestia knows she at least loves doing what she does.
I levitated Spike onto my back, his eyes still half asleep, and the three of us were off.
Celestia’s moon was bright tonight. I was thankful for that, because the candle brackets lining the walls never illuminated the castle corridors quite as much as I would like, and I never really enjoyed the dark. It was one thing to be studying under the warm glow of candlelight, but the marble halls of the palace, echoing with hoofsteps, were never very inviting. I looked over my shoulder at Lyra, who seemed to be thinking along similar lines. She stared up at the full moon, its welcoming light reflecting off her amber eyes. Before long, we had reached the ornate doors of the castle library.
“Good evening, Ms. Sparkle!” The guardpony at the door saluted. “Will you be using the library tonight, ma’am?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The guardpony quickly unlocked the door and stood at attention as we passed through, the door gently closing behind us. With a small effort, I channeled energy through my horn and magically lit the candles and chandeliers that adorned the massive library.
“Well he sure was a stick in the mud.”
“Lyra, I thought you said you would let me study in silence?” I replied with exasperation.
“Speaking of…” she trailed off.
Just ignore her, Twilight. She’ll shut up eventually.
“…what are you studying?”
“Magic,” I responded curtly.
“What kind of magic?”
“Teleportation magic.”
“Is that…”
“Lyra! I have a lot of studying to do!”
She at least had the sense to look abashed. “Sorry, I was just trying to make conversation.”
“There’s no point.”
“Of course there’s a point! I want to get to know you better.”
“Why? What purpose could that possibly serve?”
“You’re kidding, right? Getting to know somepony is a lot of fun. You were always too busy studying in school to ever talk to anypony, and I was kind of hoping we could fix that.”
“I don’t have time for fun, Lyra. I have an exam tomorrow.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know.”
I knew this was a bad idea. Flipping through my agonizingly askew notes, I found that I was scheduled to study the history of teleportation spells… twenty minutes ago! That meant I would either have to spend some time trimming time off of a few more subjects, or stay late. I suppose that it would just waste more time fixing the schedule, but that would mean I would have to allot time for schedule-fixing. Maybe if…
“So you get to come to the library anytime you want?”
I groaned. “Yes, Lyra.”
“That’s pretty cool. I’ve been banned for a year now. Something about ‘harassing the librarian’. I didn’t think I was that annoying though. So you can just read any book you want, too?”
“No,” I replied distractedly as I stood up from the table to head for the history section, “The princess said I can’t go into the Starswirl the Bearded wing until I become more experienced.”
Lyra’s eyes lit up. “Why is that?”
“She says that she’s looked over all the books in there, and she thinks that they’re too dangerous for most ponies to attempt. I agree with her,” I added sternly.
“But haven’t you ever thought about what’s in there? What she would want to keep from the rest of Equestria? What if she keeps all her clopfics in there?”
“I sincerely doubt…”
“Isn’t there anything that you had a problem with, but couldn’t figure out from this library? Something you’ve always wanted to know?”
I sighed yet again. I knew I should take her out of the library and have the guard escort her off the castle grounds. I knew that there would be no possible way I could get anything accomplished otherwise, but… well, it was a mixture of things. I’m not really good with talking to other ponies in general. I would have to say that I exhibit some signs of avoidant personality disorder, albeit a minor case of it. Anyway, I found it incredibly hard to confront other ponies. Some would say that it can lead to passive-aggressive tendencies, but…
“So what do you say?” she insisted.
…On the other hoof, as long as I didn’t try anything in those books, it couldn’t hurt, right? Knowledge isn’t meant to just sit on a dusty bookshelf. I looked over at Spike, who was leaning over a library table, asleep. There was just one problem.
“How are we going to get in? The door to the Starswirl the Bearded wing is always guarded, like the library.”
“And they won’t let you in? You are Princess Celestia’s personal student, after all.”
I rubbed my chin. “I’ve never actually tried that. I doubt it would work, though.”
“Aren’t there any other entrances?”
“That door over there connects to the Starswirl the Bearded wing.” I pointed toward an ancient wooden door, completely unassuming to all who didn’t know better. “But it’s always locked with magic-proof fittings.”
Lyra’s ever-present smile grew. She materialized a thin piece of metal in her magic and looked at me, as if I was supposed to be impressed.
“This is our way in,” she said, “I read an interesting article in “Cryptoanthropology Monthly” that there’s a theory that humans used small pieces of metal instead of keys sometimes.”
“Lyra, that’s a fork.”
“I always thought that forks were a bizarre tool. I mean, only unicorns can use them, and they could just as easily levitate the food without the forks, so why have them? Maybe they were actually human lock-picking tools that we mistook as eating utensils.”
Damn it, Lyra. I can’t believe I was actually going along with this plan. Maybe she’ll give up and be quiet when she realizes you can’t fit a fork into a door lock.
“Knock yourself out.”
“Alright! Let’s do this.”
With entirely too little delicacy to underline the sensitive nature of our intended actions, she attacked the door with the fork. I’m not really sure how she thought the humans supposedly opened doors without keys, but I was beginning to doubt they rammed forks against keyholes with little regard to physics. I was also beginning to doubt her sanity.
“Lyra, it’s not working. Come on, I’ll escort you out of the castle.”
“Hold on, I think I almost have it.”
“Lyra, it doesn’t fit.”
“That’s what she said. Also, yes it will,” she replied without looking away from her work, “Maybe if I get rid of some of these stupid…”
“What is all that racket?” a sleepy voice questioned from behind me, making me jump. I had forgotten that Spike was still here.
“It’s nothing, Spike. Why don’t you go on back to the room and get some sleep? I think I can handle the rest of my studying.”
“I can see that,” he responded sarcastically, “Where does that door even go to?”
“Oh, you know…” I said, smiling unconvincingly.
Spike shrugged. “I guess I will head off to bed. Let me try something first.”
Pushing past an increasingly frustrated Lyra, he reached up and gripped the door handle, deftly turning it and pushing the door open.
“But that door’s always locked!” I exclaimed.
Spike shrugged again. Without another word, he traipsed off toward the library exit. Lyra stared down at her very bent fork, an uncharacteristic frown on her face.
Yeah, maybe humans aren’t quite as smart as you think, huh?, I thought. Wow, that was mean. I really needed to calm down.
“Come on.” I beckoned.
As quietly as we could, we crept into the restricted section of the library. It was very well maintained for a room that was only accessible to the princess herself, at least from what I could see in the dark. I contemplated for a second whether I should light the candles as I did in the main room, but decided against it. If for some reason a guard heard a noise and came in to investigate, a fully lighted set of chandeliers would be a dead giveaway that something was amiss. I levitated an already lit candle from the other room. It floated beside us, casting unnerving shadows on the shelves of ancient books. Every time I looked away, a shadow would move in a way that would cause a fleeting stir of panic to rise in my chest. I began to doubt my decision to come here more with every step we took.
“What is it exactly you were hoping to find?” I asked, trying to get my mind off my own nervousness.
“I was looking for anything by Clover the Clever dating from after Starswirl the Bearded’s death.”
“Really? Not humans?”
“Well, actually, I was actually looking into the mythology of humans…”
I should have known.
“…and the first mention of humans in literature was a short except from Critias, a play Clover wrote shortly after the death of her mentor. It was only like, a paragraph, though. I was hoping there might be something in here that went into more detail.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.” I raised my eyebrows. “I wasn’t expecting anything so… intellectual.”
“Hey, just because I enjoy the weirder side of academia doesn’t mean I’m not smart. All knowledge is worth attaining, no matter how obscure.”
“That’s… wow, that’s pretty cool.”
“Um… glad you like it?” Lyra grinned, her cheeks reddening slightly. She turned to scan the array of paper and papyrus on the shelf next to us. I obligingly held the candle over her shoulder.
It’s not often I meet another pony so interested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake, that is, besides Princess Celestia. Even the rest of my fellow students from the magic academy were just trying to get something out of it—credentials to get a good job, learning tricks to impress less talented ponies, et cetera, et cetera. Even if Lyra just cared about mythical creatures, at least she was using that interest to learn about great thinkers like Clover the Clever. Maybe someday she’ll outgrow this strange obsession and really expand her scholarly horizons. I guess everypony has some surprises hidden under their glaringly obvious exterior, just waiting in store for someone to care enough to look a little closer.
“These are all some sort of time-spell scrolls,” she noted with disappointment, “Where would the Clover stuff be?”
I looked around distractedly, once again being rudely jerked from my meditations by the mint mare. “Perhaps there’s some kind of section on the Classical Era?”
“Yeah, that would do it!” she exclaimed.
I followed her as she pranced through the library, grimacing at the noise her hooves made against the marble floor. Her eyes were afflicted with an acute case of hyperactivity, never resting on any one thing for longer than a minute fraction of a second. She often spun around in a complete circle, trying to reread signs she had missed in her impatient exuberance. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself; she reminded me of myself the first time I had gotten to use the Royal Library. I might have been in the same state of ecstasy had I not been so uneasy about the trespass to begin with.
“I looked everywhere!” Lyra exclaimed suddenly, pouting and stomping her front hoof in frustration, “There’s no ‘Classical’ section!”
I frowned and looked around briefly, before pointing to a sign not twenty feet away.
“Atticus,” she read, turning to me in confusion.
“Atticus is Latin,” I explained with relish, “It’s referring to an area of the ancient world where philosophy was born. Starswirl the Bearded was from there, as well as Clover and her apprentice, Aristrotle. In fact, the ancient…”
“Got it!” she said.
I sighed. Some ponies just don’t have any patience. She ran to the shelf as fast as her legs could carry her, eyes dancing happily back and forth. I brought the candle’s meager light a little closer to the shelves (not too close—these were very old books, after all!) I saw a whole range of topics sitting on the shelf before me, ranging from theories of ethics to geometry. Some were written in Equestrian, some in a dead tongue. Some were modern rewrites, some looked older than Equestria itself. My eyes settled on an old tome, and the title on the cover almost made me drop my candle in shock.
Mirror of the Mind, XII
Starswirl the Bearded
New Equestrian Translation
I have, of course, read the entire Mirror of the Mind series. It is Starswirl’s quintessential anthology. All eleven of them. There’s only eleven! Every paper by every scholar I’ve ever read have referred to his famous eleven part collection. But sitting right here was number twelve. It was possibly the only one in existence.
“I can’t find anything by Clover… Hey, what’re you looking at?” Lyra asked, trotting over to my side and reading the title. “Starswirl? Why would one of his books be in the Starswirl the Bearded section? I mean… Damn it, that sounded stupid. But this is the restricted section! I may not be an expert, but I never thought Starswirl was into black magic or anything like that.”
“He wasn’t,” I replied, my eyes still glued to the mystical tome, “Maybe it’s in here by accident! There’s another whole volume to ‘Mirror of the Mind’. We have to publish this; ponies need to know. Can you imagine how excited everypony would be? There will be debates about this book for decades to come!”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it up!” Lyra hopped with uncontrolled excitement, her previous quest completely forgotten.
“Okay, but calm down. Somepony might hear us,” I chided, smiling in spite of myself. I tenderly grasped the book in my telekinesis, giving it every bit as much reverence as a book of such monumental importance deserved. I floated it over to a nearby table and laid in gently down. I opened the bound leather cover, which emitted a satisfying squeak. I lowered my head to the yellowed pages of wisdom and breathed in that beautiful smell of ink and paper, closing my eyes to better enjoy that deliciously fragrant scent like a fine wine.
“Okay, uhm…”
Oh, yeah, Lyra was right next to me. Blushing and coughing slightly, I turned toward the book, desperately hoping she wouldn’t ask. Damn, she probably thinks I have a book fetish or something.
Thankfully, she didn’t say anything else, although the smallest smirk was detectable in her smile. Not knowing what else to do to break the awkwardness, I read aloud from the book—
“Life is, in its very essence, a pursuit. It is a pursuit of happiness. Everypony desires happiness; it is logically unsound to assume anything different. Sometimes a pony may catch it, other times a pony has it only to have it slip away on a day full of misery. Nopony knows how happiness can be achieved, but everypony wants it.
“The conventional means that most ponies utilize to pursue happiness is to seek power. Power is, essentially, that which allows one to gain control over an aspect of their life in which they are powerless. Power can come in many forms, from political power to money to the dream of eternal life. However, power can never truly equate to happiness, as power is fleeting by its very nature.
“However, happiness can be achieved quite easily. Virtue—all virtue—is knowledge. And virtue is sufficient for happiness. Happiness can come from a belief, a thorough basis of all thought, that is, in itself, a sliver of knowledge. Knowledge brings happiness. Ignorance brings despair. It is that simple.
“Of course, life is never that simple. In fact, the very statement I have just made is a paradox. If knowledge in general is all that is required for happiness, then nopony would be unhappy. We would all live in a paradise of cognitive and emotional bliss. Therefore, I posit that it is a very specific knowledge that brings contentment, an answer to a very specific question—
“What is the Meaning of Life?”
My voice shook as I spoke that last line. It was as if Providence had chosen for this unlikely turn of events to bring me to this point. How many years have I been searching, fruitlessly, for even a hint as to the answer to that question? What are the chances that I would happen to bump into Lyra, who happened to be in the castle that night, to go through a door that just happened to be unlocked, and happened to find this book? If I believed in fate, I would have been quite shaken.
I was shaken anyway.
“Whoa, this is pretty deep stuff,” Lyra commented.
“This is… this is, just… wow,” I stuttered.
“Yeah, I know. We need to take this back and read the whole thing. Who knows what could be in here that ponies don’t want us to know?”
I was still in such a state of shock that I didn’t even groan at her craziness. Despite the oddball reasoning, I agreed with her completely. This was too important to be left sitting in a dark old library. I needed to…
“Doing some late night studying, Twilight?”
My heart froze. I spun around in utter panic. I looked up and gazed into the rose eyes of my mentor. Dear Celestia, this was bad. I sputtered. I didn’t know what to say. So I said the first thing I could think of—
“What are you doing here?” I spurted out. Realizing I sounded incredibly rude, I tacked on, “Uhm, princess?”
The princess wore a sly smile. She knew exactly what was going on; she always did. She was just going to use her usual tactic of forcing me to admit my own wrongdoing. I could see it as if it were written on a script in front of me.
“Am I not allowed to take a stroll in my library?” she responded lightly, “I find that the view of the sky from the balcony in the Starswirl the Bearded section really can’t be matched. I see I left the door unlocked, however.” She eyed me with fake suspicion.
“I, uhm…” Damn, why couldn’t I think of anything to say! Why was this so hard! “I’m… I’m sorry, princess!” I shouted suddenly, my eyes beginning to water, “I was looking for new books that I thought might be interesting, and then I checked the door, and it happened to be unlocked, so I thought I would look around for a few minutes! I wasn’t going to cast any spells, I promise!”
“Oh? You just happened to try the door?”
“Yes…” I lied. I don’t know why, but it would just feel underhanded to implicate Lyra in all this (even if it was her fault). I didn’t really think far enough ahead to answer Celestia’s inevitable question pertaining to the green unicorn behind me.
“I see. Then it must have been you who dropped this by the entrance.”
She levitated an object in front of my eyes. Automatically, I reached out a hoof and took it. It was a very bent silver fork.
“Uh…”
“That’s mine!” Lyra interjected shakily, “I was, uh, going to eat, but, uhm, Twilight said I couldn’t eat in the library, so I dropped it!”
I facehoofed. You can’t fool Celestia even with a good lie.
“And is that why it’s completely malformed? With matching scratches on the door lock?”
“I, uhm, I tripped and bent it against the door,” Lyra offered. Celestia said nothing, continuing to look at her. “Repeatedly.”
“Is that so? I don’t believe you’ve introduced me to your friend, Twilight.”
“This is Lyra—” Crap. What was her last name, again?
“Lyra Heartstrings, your majesty,” she finished for me, bowing with wobbling knees and a sweaty brow.
“A pleasure to meet you, Lyra,” Celestia responded kindly, “However, the castle is currently closed for visitors, I’m sorry to say.”
With a flash of gold magic, she materialized a silver bell and gave it a petite ring. Within moments, a guard dashed through the main doors of the restricted section. Breathing heavily, he saluted. “You called, your highness?”
“Yes, please escort Ms. Heartstrings to the entrance. Hospitably!” she added as the guard’s gaze grew hard.
“Bye, Twilight,” Lyra called glumly as the guard led her away.
“Goodbye, Lyra.”
The princess and I watched as the two left, closing the doors softly behind them. This was it. This is where I get chewed out, cussed out, and kicked out. I would be lucky to be sent back to magic preschool. What kind of fate was in store for me? The dungeons? The moon? Prince Blueblood’s new maid? I shuddered at the last one. I hoped the princess wasn’t that cruel. My heart pounded against my ribs, as it had been doing the past several minutes. I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable battery of disappointment.
“Come, my faithful student. Allow me to walk you back to your room.”
Of course, she was going to make sure I didn’t try to escape. Not that I would try, but it only cemented in my mind the horrible fate in store for me. The princess paused briefly to levitate Starswirl’s book back into its place on the shelf. With that done, we walked back through the door from which Lyra and I entered. The princess paused to seal it with a burst of golden magic, before continuing on. I had to trot to keep up with her casual stride.
“Curiosity is not a bad thing, Twilight. Many of ponykind’s greatest inventions and discoveries were accomplished with nothing more than a healthy curiosity from a single pony. However, when it gets to the point that you attempt to break open a locked door with an eating utensil, you should really reevaluate your priorities. Not to mention getting poor Lyra into trouble as well—”
Oh come on!
“Do you know why I instructed you to stay clear of the Starswirl the Bearded wing?”
“No, your majesty.”
“Twilight, please calm down. You don’t have to stand on ceremony with me, you know that. The reason that that particular section of the library is restricted is that many of the spells there have either proven to be dangerous, or are untested. The specific book you were perusing, Mirror of the Mind, part twelve, how far did you read into it? Were you able to determine why I might have placed it there?”
“I only read a few paragraphs. It said something about knowledge and the Meaning of Life. I don’t know why it’s restricted.”
“Had you read the entire volume, you would have noticed Starswirl’s logic getting increasingly nonsensical. Clover the Clever noted several times in her writings about his insanity. Not that I believe that madness is catching, but he also included several spells of his own creation in that volume. To be frank, I have no idea what they do, but given his mental condition, I’m hesitant to allow them to be experimented with.”
“Didn’t he say what they did?”
Celestia smiled wryly. “It’s been several centuries since I’ve read Volume Twelve, but if I remember correctly, he said it had something to do with discovering the Meaning of Life.”
My heart skipped. “The Meaning of Life?”
“Yes. Starswirl became obsessed with it in his later years. Just before he died, he told Clover that he discovered it. He said ‘the Meaning of Life cannot be explained, it can only be experienced’. She didn’t take him very seriously, considering, and you shouldn’t either.”
Princess Celestia stopped, and I noticed that we had arrived at my bedroom door. I had been so entranced with the conversation, I had not been paying attention to the progress of our walk.
“Twilight,” she continued seriously, “I understand your curiosity, and I promise that when you’re ready, I will allow you to conduct research on the tomes in the Starswirl the Bearded section. However, you still have much to learn. You are not to go back in there without my express permission. Is that understood?”
I internally cringed at her stern tone of voice. “Yes, princess.”
“Good. I expect to be impressed at your exam tomorrow. Good night, my faithful student.”
“Good night.”
Crap. I didn’t get any studying done. If I ever saw Lyra Heartstrings again, I was going to throttle her.
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I am surprised at how amazing this is! This should be on the front page l, far better than a lot of the stories I have read that appears on it!
Though for a story this good, I think you need better cover art. I like it for what it is, but people will pass this story by just by looking at how simple the cover is... sad but true. And this deserves attention!
I hope to see an update soon! Because I'm loving it!
6181112
Thank you for the praise.
Cover art's always been a problem for me. I can't draw that well myself, and I can't afford to commission any. While I did draw some art for the story, I thought it was too dark and might put some people off.
{Image redacted}
If you can think of anything better, please let me know.
6181738 hmm, I'll look around and see if I find anything that could be good.
Your image is good but, I think it may be a little spoiler heavy....
Hmm...
A Lyra and Twilight ship?
You have my attention sir.
6182080
I suppose you're right. I don't think anyone could guess the direction the story is going, but I don't want them to feel spoiled.
Interesting start, I'll be keeping an eye out.
And of course, in the FiMverse, it's just a theory disproven by Sunflanks, right?!
She was going to do a report initially on Changelings, but her teacher rejected that as being too ludicrous
'Accident', eh? Sounds like Twilight logic in the pursuit of reading forbidden knowledge.
I absolutely adore Lyra here, mainly because she's just the right combination of adorable, adorkable and the bearer of insane troll logic as the tropes would call it.
6352347
Oh I can just picture that conversation.
Oh Twilight, you silly mare. If you only knew...
Knowledge for the sake of it is completely and utterly pointless.
That's because you do.