Lessons in quirks

by Mike84

Epilogue

Twilight and Spike had finished breakfast and Twilight was making up her mind to decide whether to head for the hospital, as Spike insisted she should to have her wing checked, take the time to study the mysterious book of Dr. Quircs which Princess Celestia had left her, or if she should pay a visit to Town Hall to see after Frank and check out whether or not she might be of any help to Mayor Mare when it came to laying out the events of the last night to the ponies of Ponyville.

Before she had made up her mind, there was a knocking on the door. Twilight appeared to be almost relieved about the interruption and magically pulled the door open before her number one secretary had any chance to reach for the doorknob.
Frank Blanket was standing outside. He was carrying a strange looking bundle on his back and only at second sight and with the memory of what had happened in the attic storeroom of the town hall did Twilight recognize that he had apparently stuffed his belongings into his spare wraparound as a makeshift replacement for his destroyed saddle-bags.

"Good morning", he said, looking somewhat sheepish and nodding at Twilight as well as Spike and Owlowiscious. The later didn't notice since he was fast asleep on his perch at the opposite end of the room.
"Frank, come in!" Twilight called with a wholehearted smile. "Would you like a tea?"
"Thank you", Frank said and looked rather surprised, much as if he hadn't expected such a warm welcome.
Spike hurried to the kitchen, knowing that however competent Twilight was with magic, her magically boiled tea was much worse than any that he would prepare in the more traditional way.
"How are you today?" Twilight asked.
"I'm fi—", Frank began, but stopped short. Given the events of the previous evening and night, he realized that Twilight's question had not been mere formulaic smalltalk and politeness.
"Better", he corrected himself. "Better than I was in Town Hall last night. One should never underestimate the recreative effects of a night of good sleep."
"You hear that, Twilight?" Spike called from the kitchen. "You want to remember that!"
"Hush, Sir Sleepsalot!" Twilight bantered in return.

Frank put on a smile, but it looked rather uncertain. Better he might feel, but still he seemed surprised at the whole lightheartedness and uncertain about what to make of it.
"How are you yourself, Princess? How is your wing?"
Twilight rolled her eyes a little, mildly annoyed about Frank being apparently the second one today to remind her of having her wing checked. "I'm okay and I will see the doctor later on, thank you… did you call me 'Princess' again?"
"I… I am sorry… I didn't mean to... Twilight." The colt was looking rather fidgety and reminded Twilight a bit of a foal after a stern lecture. He was probably still more rattled than he was trying to let on. Twilight chuckled reassuringly and beckoned Frank to the table.

"Mayor Mare held a little speech earlier today", Frank said as he settled down at the table at the very place where he had settled down at their first meeting three days ago. "She gave everypony who was up already a summary of the events and asked them to pass it on."
"Did she?" Twilight asked surprised. "Whatever she told them is bound to be changed, exaggerated and turned into all kind of stories and rumors if left to the ponies to pass on by hearsay."
Frank nodded. "The mayor thinks so too. When I left Town Hall, she was working to word an official bulletin which she wants to hang out so everypony can check it out. With Inkhorn and Featherscribe both on sick leave today, she really got an awful lot of work on her hooves."
"I think I should go there and offer some help", Twilight said and was looking for the door.
"Twilight, your wing! You promised Rarity that you would see it checked!" Spike insisted as he was returning from the kitchen, carrying a tray of tea cups.
"I will", Twilight said, slightly irritated while she levitated three cups from Spike's tray and he joined them at the table.

"I actually offered to help her", Frank said. "Mayor Mare, I mean. But she refused any help. She only said that she wouldn't mind having one of those 'writer horseshoes' on days like these", Frank said, holding up his left hoof which Twilight noticed bore some strange coloring marks, as if it had recently been dipped in differently colored ink and soot.
"What did she tell the ponies?" Twilight asked.
"She was kind enough to put special emphasis on the fact that I didn't steal Mr. Rich's money or attack anypony. She told that a changeling kind of attacker was behind it but that there was no more danger coming from it. Obviously she didn't want to cause any panic and she didn't go into any detail about switchlings or the like."

Twilight nodded. The existence of switchlings was probably not going to be any kind of state secret, but it would be best if public statements about them were based on what information the book provided that she had yet to study or perhaps on what further information she might coax out of Chrysalis whom she had yet to visit.
She took a sip from her tea cup, then she asked: "What are your plans now, Frank?"
"My plans", the colt repeated and Twilight wasn't quite sure if it had been a question, but before she could say anything, Spike suggested: "Maybe you want to join Twilight when she gets her wings checked?"
"Oh, I'm okay", Frank said hastily. "No twisted wings or the like."
Spike snorted: "I always thought this was just a Twilight thing. Are all you eggheads so scared of doctors?"
"Says the number one assistant who will put up an epic dragon fight each time I mention the next dentist appointment!" Twilight quipped, half touched by Spikes concern for her, half annoyed by his constant pestering about it and, turned to Frank, she said: "I meant your plans in general, what are you going to do?"

Frank took a sip from his cup, then he said: "I still have a book on cutie marks to write."
Twilight cast a short look at the unshaped bundle which Frank had placed beside the table. Apparently her look had been rather telling. Before Twilight could ask anything, Frank said: "It is not so bad as I feared. My saddle-bags are beyond repair, but other than that it is mostly some soot and spilled ink." He held up his colored hoof again. "Nothing lost that couldn't be replaced somehow."

"I'm glad to hear it. I feared that all your work had been destroyed."
Frank shook his head, but suddenly he seemed very interested in the bottom of his tea cup, took a large swig and finally, with a glance at Dr. Quircs book on the table, he said: "With all that happened I take it that royal business may keep you too preoccupied for any extensive interviews for a while. But I think there are quite a few cutie mark stories to be heard from the ponies here. I think I will stay a bit longer here in Ponyville. Actually, I also came here to pick up my tent."

"Maybe we should find something more than just your tent for you when you are staying here for a longer time, Frank…", Twilight began, but before she could finish she was interrupted by a choking from Spike. The little dragon hastily turned his face away from the table and the next moment a whiff of green fire erupted from his mouth, along with a scroll bearing the seal of Princess Celestia. Twilight immediately caught the scroll, broke the seal and began to read.

As she read, neither Spike nor Frank could miss how the smile vanished from Twilight's face and gave way to a deepening frown and look of concern.
"What's wrong, Twilight?" Spike asked when Twilight had finished reading the letter and her look jumped back to read a passage again.
Twilight didn't answer immediately, but finally put the letter down and said: "Princess Luna and her guards drove all the forest creatures back who ran away from Everfree last night…"
"But that's a good thing?" Spike said.
Twilight nodded in agreement but continued: "But Luna had sent Captain Crescent to the castle ruins to pick up the stolen money Rainbow had found in the library. When he and some other guards arrived there, they didn't find a single bit even though they searched everywhere. The stolen money has been taken away!"

It took a few moments for this piece of news to sink in.
"You mean that thing is still about and carried the money away?" Spike called.
"Can't be!" Frank shouted, shaking his head. "Now I don't remember anything directly anymore, but I do remember that I did remember that she had been utterly weakened by the time your spell hit her, Twilight! She was in no shape to carry away anything; she was in no shape whatsoever anymore! Hay, I don't even know if she was anymore at all!"
"Somepony else must have taken the money away then", Twilight said.
"Yeah...", Spike said with a voice dripping with sarcasm, "...I'm sure many ponies other than you were flocking to the haunted castle that night amidst the creepy forest while it was burning."
"Oh Spike, don't you get it? The attacker may have had an ally who took the money when we were gone!" There were a few moments of silence before Twilight added: "And if that is so, this ally is still on the loose!"

"But Twilight… Frank, you didn't tell anything about an ally", Spike said in what sounded like a desperate attempt to disprove the uneasy prospect.
"I don't think I remembered any ally of her", Frank said slowly and cautiously.
"There were many things you didn't remember for certain", Twilight pointed out. "Like who she was and what her overall plan was."
Twilight stopped. She suddenly remembered how angry Frank had become the previous evening when Rainbow Dash had complained about his memory.
The colt seemed quite calm though and just nodded. "Maybe. I cannot tell for certain that she didn't have an ally. In case she did, she probably didn't think a lot about that ally or I probably would have remembered."

There was a loud knocking at the door that let them all twitch.
This time Spike reached the door before Twilight bothered to pull it open with her magic.
"Oh, hi Derpy", he said with a tone of relief as he beheld the gray pegasus standing outside.
The mailmare gave Spike a broad, unfocused smile and said: "Good morning, Spike! I got something for the princess."
Derpy craned her neck to look past Spike and her smile became even broader as she saw her, waved to her and called: "Hello, Twilight!"
"Good morning, Derpy! Come in!"
As Derpy entered, she spotted Frank. "You are here too! Great! I was looking for you at the town hall, but Mayor Mare told me you had left."

"You were looking for me?" Frank asked utterly surprised.
"Yes", Derpy confirmed as she was stepping closer to the table while rummaging through her mailbag. She hoofed a folded sheet of paper to Twilight. "Featherscribe told me to give this to you." And looking in the direction of Frank, she said: "I have something for you too."
Derpy dived almost her entire head deep into the mailbag before she pulled up a sizable bag and dropped it onto the table with an unmistakable sound of clinking coinage.

Frank leaped back with a yelp and a look of horror. "I didn't do anything!" he shouted.
Derpy's eyes got focused for a moment in surprise at the unexpected reaction from a colt receiving a bagful of money. Twilight understood that recent experiences as well as the fact that they had been talking about the disappearance of Mr. Rich's stolen money just before Derpy's arrival probably put Frank more on edge about any bits of money than under different circumstances.
"Did I do anything wrong?" Derpy asked meekly and looking rather unhappy.
Twilight shook her head and gave Derpy a comforting pat with one of her wings.
"No you didn't, Derpy. This is just a little unexpected, that's all. Frank, won't you open the bag?"
Very cautiously Frank untied the strings of the bag, eying it as if he expected to receive an electric charge from it any moment. Sure enough the bag turned out to be filled with golden bits, but there was also a folded letter attached to the strings that Frank untied. He unfolded the letter and as he read through it, his jumpiness seemed to give way to perplexity. He scratched his head and put the letter on the table so Twilight could see it.

"It's from the academy in Fillydelphia", he said. "They thank me and it says that the bag contains the reward for finding and returning the…", he checked out the letter, "...the lunar orb levitation amulet."
Nobody said anything for some moments before Derpy bravely broke the silence: "That's the necklace you had in your bag yesterday, isn't it? That's very nice of them, right?"
Frank nodded but sounded utterly puzzled when he said: "Yes, but I didn't really do anything. I had no idea they had such a loose definition at the academy of what constitutes finding and returning. I did not find that amulet, nor did I return it."
He gave Twilight a rather helpless look. "I suppose I should correct that mistake and return this."
He pointed at the bag on the table.

Twilight was not much less surprised than Frank, but after a few moments she shook her head: "I don't think so, Frank. I expect Mayor Mare will have been accurate in what she wrote to the academy about how the amulet appeared and I presume Celestia made sure the academy also got a report about the developments since the amulet was returned. I guess for all that you did not do, you are more entitled to that reward than the attacker would be for returning it."
Frank goggled at her.
"And besides, we do not know where or if the attacker is. If we ever see her again, you can still decide whether or not you want to offer the reward to her, but till then I think you would be the best choice as a trustee of this reward."

Frank laughed out loudly and it was the most thorough and unforced laughter Twilight had heard from him ever since his arrest two days ago. Derpy joined in, even though she didn't seem to be absolutely certain what exactly the laughter was about.
"I bow to Your Highness' judgment", Frank finally said with a mock bow and a mischievous grin. "Perhaps I may borrow a bit from the attacker's reward to get myself some new saddle bags, or maybe even something more solid than my tent for accommodation."
Twilight returned the grin.
"Until I make up my mind however, I think I'll set up the tent on the green again. Is it here?"
Spike pointed at a bundle leaning against a shelf at the other end of the room, consisting of the tent and sleeping bag. Frank went there and began to wrap up the bundle he had already been carrying into his sleeping bag. While he did so, Twilight cast a short look at the sheet of paper Derpy had given her.
She lent a hoof, or horn rather, for Frank to wrap up the fairly large package of the bundle he had already been carrying, the bag with the reward money, his tent and his sleeping bag and levitated the whole load onto the colt's back.
"Thank you very much, Twilight!" he said as he made for the door with slightly unbalanced steps under the ill-dispersed weight of the improvised bundle on his back.
Twilight opened the door for him, but before he left, she asked: "Frank, is there anything else you want to say?"
He gave her a confused look. "Err… is there? What do you mean?"
Twilight shrugged. "Anything I mean. If anything comes to your mind or if you remember anything…"
For a very brief moment Frank looked a bit sheepish, but then he shook his head. "Nothing I can think of at the moment. See you, Twilight."

He was about to perform another bow, but Twilight hastily shook her head. Remembering the awkward bow Frank had performed at their first meeting while carrying his perfectly balanced saddle-bags, Twilight thought there was a good chance that trying the same with the unruly load now on his back would result in disaster. With a last smile he turned around and walked down the road in the direction of the green. Twilight looked after him for some more moments. She couldn't help feeling a little disappointed and worried.

Princess Luna had told that she had a fair idea of whatever it was that she and Celestia had sensed Frank had not told last night and also that it might never be important for them to know. She had hoped for him to be confident enough to tell her whatever it was, but maybe it would take some time. In spite of everything, Twilight had to admit that she still knew very little about the hobo-student from Fillydelphia. She turned back into the library where she found Derpy spinning the sphere of her celestial globe as fast as she could and showing a filial joy at this little game that brought a smile to Twilight's face.

"Featherscribe gave you this, Derpy?" Twilight asked, holding up the paper which Derpy had given her. The pegasus stopped spinning the globe and nodded eagerly.
"He wasn't feeling well this morning, but he gave me a big stack of paper for Miss Cheerilee too, but this one he said was not for her because it is not from any of her school fillies. I did not really understand why Featherscribe kept Miss Cheerilee's school filly's papers, but he said that this one was not one of theirs."

Twilight nodded. She knew what this paper was. Frank himself had mentioned the previous evening that, when switched to him, the attacker had taken some notes on memories of him that could be useful for her during the trial. The page was written in Frank Blanket's unmistakable small script and it was headlined: Frank Blanket / Convenient dummy
The page was filled with random looking cues about things the attacker had used in the hearing, like the Robing Hooves book among Frank's possessions or his presence at the academy when the amulet had been stolen.
Twilight picked up the paper and folded it, but not without casting a last look at the final lines:
Disposition difficult. To be avoided if possible.

Author's Note:

Well, here is the end of what is (obviously) meant to be continued in another story. In the upcoming weeks I intend to reread and edit this story for mistakes, unnecessarily long winded sentences, more paragraphs etc.
Of course I am very interested in what everyone thinks not just about orthography, grammar and formating, but also about the content of this story.
It is the first MLP story of mine, but I got the outlines of how it will continue in mind though, as Discord pointed out the the final chapter:"You may fool yourself into believing that you are controlling us, but it is us who are controlling you much more!"...so whatever concepts I got in mind I got no doubts at all that developments in future stories are going to surprise me too.
When I started writing this story last january I didn't have this story ready in mind and many events in the story (and direction into which some characters developed) surprised me no less than they surprised characters in the story and this to me is a very important part of the motivation to write on.

Last edited on December 20th 2015.

Comments

[Mike84]

Having posted the epilogue to this story here I am going to reread and correct the story from the beginning in the upcomming weeks.
I got to admit I was almost a little shocked at the sheer amount of mistakes I have found so far in the first few chapters which I corrected (on paper so far but I will apply the corrections here so far) and offer my grateful respect to the readers who weren't scared away by those flaws (poor use of tense, unnecessarily complicated and long winded sentences, and just plain out mess ups) but continued to read anyway. I am also going to add some more indented lines to help the wall of text issue addressed here before.
In the upcomming weeks I will always add a comment to the authors notes whenever a chapter has undergone those corrections and once those corrections are done.

[Chronicler06]

6704121 It is good that you are willing to go through the entire story to correct any errors you find. Although personally, I prefer to make such corrections before I publish each chapter. The reason is simply because most people will read a chapter as soon as they see it (either by a long-time follower on the day it's published, or later on by a newcomer who just stumbled across it), and (with the exception of people who become very enthusiastic by the story (which very rarely happens)) will be very unlikely to ever read it again, despite any later edits. I mean no offense to you in any way, but to be completely honest, I would probably be among that majority. (Mostly because the entire story is just so long, and I seriously doubt I'm going to find the time to go through the whole thing all over again.) I mean, it's still good that you're fixing all the issues that you can find, but I personally think it would be better to do the editing as you progress rather than put it all off until after you finish the story. (Probably something to consider for the future.)

[Mike84]

6710372
Hi Chronicler,

Although personally, I prefer to make such corrections before I publish each chapter.

Each chapter published here had previously been reread by me and by one friend of mine before I put them up here. However, even after one such correction runs some mistakes may remain. My intention now is to get rid of as many as possible of those mistakes before I may post in some groups to "advertise" a little (which I haven't done so far).
It is not like I just published chapters here totally unchecked, but with a certain distance in time from having written them it may be a bit easier to spot mistakes (I got to admit that the first few chapters were really bad when it comes to the amount of mistakes). Another important point is of course that I posted the story here in the very hope to get some feedback and corrections that would help to improve it (as I did. I already applied a number of corrections and suggestions you gave me previously).
The changes I am making now are really mostly about grammar, spelling mistakes and breaking down some sentences etc. where I came up with unnecessarily long winded formulations or the like. I do not plan for any major changes of content (just corrected a small continuity error I had spotted and documented the changes in the author's notes).
I don't think it is so uncommon for authors to check out their work once again after completing it, yet also publishing it before these final edits to get the very feedback and constructive criticism that may help them to avoid some mistakes from being made in later chapters in the first place.

[Mike84]

I noticed that since I started with the rereading and correcting several of the thumbs down for my story have been withdrawn. I want to express my gratitude for that. I had feared that a thumb down once given was very likely to be like set in stone for all eternity and that it would be highly unlikely for someone unimpressed with the story (and especially with the amount of mistakes in about the first ten chapters there was a lot to be unimpressed about) would continue to read and give it a second chance. Thank you for proving me wrong there
I still don't know how the first chapters got through with the sheer amount of severe errors I found there when rereading it. I'm afraid somehow I must have posted them before they had undergone any correcting / editing and I am sorry about that and thankful to those of you who were not deterred by those chapters but continued reading it.
Once I am done with the whole editing and rereading (almost three quarters of it are done by now) I may try to submit it to Equestria Daily once again and do a little advertising in the groups (which I haven't done at all so far) before I am going to start with the sequel.

[Mike84]

6785742
Thank you very, very much for your feedback! I appreciate this a lot

You're not the first to come up with the idea that some ponies change their names after receiving their cutie mark.

I would have been extremely surprised if that had been a new idea. There are quite a few ponies whose names refer so strongly to either their cutie marks or their professions that it seems very plausible to either assume that their names were changed after they received their marks or took on their jobs or else that it is just "cartoon logic" that the names sort of predestine their wearers future from the very beginning.
Without their cutie marks or their professions names of characters like Lyra Heartstring, Bon bon/Sweetie Drops, Vinyl Scratch or even Celestia and Luna (the list could be continued...) wouldn't make much sense.
I have not given this point much thought, but there are human cultures (among other a number of Native American cultures) in which name changes at certain stages in life are quite common. Perhaps it is similar in Equestria.

The dream sequence was pretty weird which is normal for dreams and plausible as a dream.

Writing the dream sequences (there are two in the story) was a lot of fun. While there is a strong random element there, the dreams are not "nothing but randomness". There are some alusions, indications and premonitions in them which become clearer later on

Pinkie Pie's knowledge of parties likely comes from her granny Pie.

Granny Pie taught Pinkie the smile song that earned her the Element of Laughter.

Until now I hadn't heard about Grannie Pie (and the story I wrote therefore follows a different canon), but after reading your post I researched and found this really beautiful comic by KTurtle. Thank you very much for drawing my attention to it

[Mike84]

>>redmar
Thank you very much for all your comments
I'm happy to see that the story keeps you guessing. I laid out some false tracks to keep the readers in a similar situation as Twilight and perhaps share in some of her frustration about the elusiveness of...

[redmar]

This was a very interesting story to read and I will look forward to more of your stories.

[Mike84]

6805924
Thank you very much
I am working on the sequel to Lessons in quirks (which sets in very shortly after the epilogue of this story) and I will start posting it once I got a couple of chapters in stock. Also, I still need to figure out a title for the next story. I got some 28 or 29 titles but most of them cover just one aspect of a story of several threads ("Lessons in Quirks" may not have been a title to cover this story very well either, but it goes to show that by the time I picked it I wasn't aware of some directions into with the story would develop).

[Mike84]

6818942
Excellent, thank you very much! That's one mistake less in the story
When doing the editing I checked out for "typical doubles" like "and and", "of of", "the the" etc. but apparently I missed out not just on the "were" you pointed out, but also on the "was" (could correct one instance there in a later chapter).
Thanks a lot for the help!

[Mike84]

6819585
Thank you very much, another mistake corrected
Luckily I got her name right in all the other instances

[Kichi]

Well... I finished the story and I have to say... Congratulations for a very good story... How the little pieces begin to get together at the end, how the false villains seemed to be, and everything that happened, for a moment I even tought that Frank was really the villain acting like the victim so that we could not suspect.

Not only that but also how you put Discord and other characters was brilliant, CONGRATULATIONS

Now to wait for a sequel if you decide to create it.

[Mike84]

6822468
Thank you very much for your feedback! It can really make an author's day
This is to be a longer story arch and if I manage the way I hope to there will be more than one sequel to it before the arch reaches its end. Work on the sequel is already in progress, but so far I got 7 pages only and I hope to accumulate a bit of a buffer of completed chapters before I start posting them so I can hopefully keep them comming in regular intervalls
Also, I still got to find a fitting title for the next story. I got 29 options so far, but most names refer to just one of several threads in that sequel, so I haven't yet settled for one.
Lately I have also done some drawing of scenes from Lessons in Quirks which I may link here once they are completed.

[PonyStemCell]

I'm going to read this story sooner or later... Hopefully I'll soon have some time on my hands. Also: It could just be my computer, but the cover image isn't displayed. I can however see it by clicking on the "source"-link.

[Mike84]

7377437
Indeed, thank you very much! I'm going to correct this right away

[Mike84]

7380057
Nice to see you here PonyStemCell
I uploaded a PDF File of the story to my Deviantart account (and just updated the PDF there so it is the version in which the mistake I was just allerted to is corrected). Maybe that one won't cause any of the picture troubles. It should also allow for one feature that fimfiction does not allow, namely the use of different font types in some parts of the story to signify different hand- / hoofwriting from different characters.
In the Deviantart folder are also a few illustrations I made for some scenes of the story.

[Mike84]

7672520
Thank you very much
I hope it will continue to be intriguing to you.