Chapter 14 - Canterlot
Emerald was in one of the art room of the Scroll manor. This one has a direct access to the garden to offer nice lighting in the afternoon. It was also one of the rare room of the whole manor that was quite messy since the servant were instructed to not clean it. He had not been in this room for a while. It was a noble tradition to pick up an artistic activity at the age a unicorn foal show the first premise of his magic. The goal was to refine your mastery of basic telekinesis via a somehow interesting activity. He himself chose to sculpt things and he stopped some years ago like many of his noble peers.
But he was mostly just relaxing, enjoying the simple motion of fooling around with clay, not with his hooves as most commoner could think -something that just made the clay dry faster- but with nice wooden and metal tools. It was a way to try to forget his doubts and worries of letting Spike and Twilight alone.
“Emy!” Interrupted the cheerful voice of his sister. She quickly found a way to lock her legs around one of his legs.
“How was school today?” Emerald simply ruffled her mane with a hoof.
“Hey! Not the mane!” She released the hug and pouted while spending time straighten her mane back on a proper way “Well it was school.” She stated and climbed on a nearby chair to be at eye level with the sculpture. “Is that Twilight Sparkle and a weird… thingy on her back?”
Emerald finally took a look at his work, he chucked to himself seeing clearly the outline of a unicorn mare. For some reason, he drew her cutie mark and the straight and plain mane style you could find in most portrait of Twilight Sparkle. It was a bit strange because when he left Twilight and Spike, she had a more lax mane style.
“The thingy as you said” On the mare back Emerald had started to do a small ball with spike and he struggled to make it look like a sentient thing “is Professor Spike.”
“That does not look like a dragon” stated Pearl “But why would you want to put your Professor with Twilight Sparkle?”
Emerald cursed internally himself for this slip “Can you keep a secret?”
The filly replied with excitement “Of course!”
“Well. Don’t tell father but Twilight Sparkle is Spike mother.”
“No way! That does not make sense. He is a dragon. Ponies don’t do dragon.”
Emerald smiled at the formulation of his innocent sister “You are right. But she adopted him when he was a baby.”
She poked him with a hoof “Are you making fun of me Mr. Scroll?”
Emerald does not like when he was called Mr Scroll, but it was the way her sister found to show him that she wanted him serious. “No, No. Do you want me to tell you this story after dinner?”
The filly smiled and removed her hoof from the stallion chest “I guess it’s okay then.” then she looked at him “So did you find me a mommy on your small towns?”
“Pearl… That’s not funny” he replied with a small laugh.
Emerald spend a large part of the week with his sister, telling her story about Twilight Sparkle. But the rest of the time he was feeling bored and guilty. He tried to lose himself in story books when not sculpting. After some days he decided to attend to some class at the Celestia School for Gifted Unicorn, It was still weird seeing most of the other student younger than him, but he had long stop caring about that
On Saturday night, he decided to meet some of his friends at their usual bar.
He was greeted by a red unicorn wearing a small tie “Hey, Emerald long time no see.”
“Hi, everypony.” Emerald took a seat at the table.
An earth pony with a white coat hit him on the shoulder “So how is life on country towns, how are the mares?”
Emerald sighed and smiled, it was nice to have some form of normality in his life, but his friends were always teasing him about either finishing school or found a mare to wed “...pretty boring, you just need to tell them you are nobility and they stick to you like crazy.”
The unicorn replied, “You are still doing that?”
“Well, I stopped, it’s...annoying.”
The earth pony raised an eyebrow “Hm, did you meet a mare you care this time?”
Emerald stopped, did it do? He did not even tried to meet one of his mares friends since he was back in Canterlot “maybe...”
His unicorn friend teased “Oh, who is the lucky mare?”
Emerald paused, wait, What I am doing here, it’s easy to lie to stranger, but there is no way I can hide thing to my friends, they will bother me to no end.
“Hey, I started teaching foals alone.” he tried to change the subject instead while making a sign to a waitress to approach their table.
“What? The dragon leave you alone with foal, he must be crazy.” snorted one of his friend.
“I told you, his name is Spike, he is not just a dragon.” angrily responded Emerald.
“Roh you know I am teasing” the stallion narrowed his eyes and move closer to Emerald “but you are avoiding the question. Who is this mare?”
Great, now I need to get out of here “Oh I forget I have some studies to finish.” lamely said Emerald.
“Emerald talking about studying. is that a joke?” laughed heartily the unicorn and was joined by his friends.
“He must really care about this mare.” chuckled the other stallion while Emerald was rushing to the exit of the bar.
Actually doing some studies isn’t a bad idea, why I didn’t think of that sooner? Emerald left the bar and rushed back to his house. The scroll manor was close to the Canterlot Library. He went to his father’s desk and start searching the drawers If I remember the key is...here. It was the key for a private study place in the Royal Canterlot Library, Emerald had his own key but his father had removed him this privilege after failing the last year of his studies again.
He walked to the Royal Library, getting greeted from the receptionist at the front desk. Even of Saturday night, it was still open to the public.
“Evening Mister Scroll, it’s a rare sight to see you here a Saturday, well any day.” The mare behind the desk joked.
Emerald forced his own Canterlot accent “Evening Miss Ink, as crazy as it’s sound I find myself in the need to study.”
“You talk like you father” replied the mare and they both start laughing. Emerald almost knew all the staff of the library. They’d grew to know him when he was following his father around the place at a young age. They also knew that, after his teenage years, he almost never come here unless his father needed him.
The stallion then makes his way to the most esoteric places of the library and some restricted areas he has access, he remembered using them for less noble purpose than studying.
He was already past midnight lost in fruitless research when a soft voice moved him out of his focus. “Quite the interesting subject to study mister Scroll.”
“Hu? What?” When he saw a tall dark blue alicorn staring at him, he get up his chair and bowed. “Princess Luna, Your highness, What I have done to get the honor your visit?” does...she knows who I am?
The Princess smiled “A fine gentlecolt. But may we ask you why choosing to study these peculiars subjects?” She watched the many books on magicals creature that was laying on the table amount books of history and some studies on changelings.
Emerald was holding his breath, his mind racing to find something to reply “Err, I had some free time and was curious, your… highness.”
“We already meet many students that were curious about…” She lifted a book about magical creatures “let me guess alicorn?” She took another book on her magic “but none were also doing research on changelings” She fixed the stallion “It’s quite a particular combination, don’t you think?”
Emerald froze and gulped.
The alicorn mouth formed a straight line “Did we make yourself uncomfortable? We apologize for toying with you, we knew exactly why you are here. So Tell us, how is she?”
Emerald released his breath “You...scared me, your highness”
The princess looked behind her at the entrance of the study “You should be. You are lucky you are doing your study at night. You see our dear sister and we placed some wards on book related to alicorn, we tried to know who is trying to study us.”
Emerald was choked “You...what?” He nearly blurted, but he excused himself immediately “Sorry for the outburst your highness.”
Luna sighed “We saw you are a well-educed stallion and you are from a Noble lineage, but we appreciate if we refer as us as Luna.”
Emerald tried to wrap his head around the idea of addressing a pony in a higher position than him by something else by his title. It already took him a while to stop calling Spike ‘Professor’ “As you wish Pri...Luna.”
“That better, now where we were, yes, we don’t mind our curious subject trying to learn about alicorn, but we try to acknowledge their motivation.”
“I don’t want to be rude P...Luna, can you talk more...” He trailed to not offense her.
“We suppose we…” She smiled “I mean I can do that, How to say that, I think Discord will say “What is the fun in that?””
Seeing the stallion was not reacting at her tentative of a humor she simply continued “But more seriously, be careful with your research, even if I doubt anypony can find out why you are doing that. You should try to not bring too much attention on you. But enough about that. I want you to tell me. How is she doing?” Luna asked taking a seat at the table of the stallion.
Emerald get back in his seat, he cleared his throat “Well, it’s not always easy, she can be sad one hour and be happy the entire day, she probably take that much better than I will do.”
The princess rested her head on one of her hoof “Hm, tell me more.”
Emerald was surprised by seeing the princess make herself comfortable, but he did not say a thing and tell to the attentive listener his days with Spike and Twilight.
And the end of the tale, Luna finally spoke, “I see, you said she can’t learn magic a normal way?”
“Yes it’s very strange, that why I tried to search something on alicorn magic.” Emerald pointed on a book written by Clover the Clever.
Luna smiled “You will find nothing. And even if you find something, something true for an alicorn isn’t always true for another one.”
“Sorry?” said a confused Emerald.
“Yes, the only one true fact you will find on alicorns is: we have the attribute and magic of the three tribes, magic and horn for the unicorn part, wings and weather control for the pegasus legacy and strength and endurance for the earth pony part. Sadly the earth pony magic isn’t that relevant since we are not farmer and magic make a lot of hoofwork pretty useless and unpractical.” She concluded grabbing a book in one hoof after removing the horseshoes at the tip
She put back her horseshoes with magic and continued “Sadly for the nature of our magic is not easy to explain. It’s true we can learn any unicorn magic, but some aspect of our magic doesn’t work like this, it depend on the nature of our bond to the world and how we use it. How to explain? You can see my sister as the ultimate unicorn with millennia of knowledge of magic, she use mostly her bond to the sun to empowered her magic. Nightmare Moon and I had a very strong bond to the night” She lit her horn to make the room dark and stopped, then she made her mane spray across the darkness to display stars everywhere “and we use this aspect to create spells any other pony can’t do. It became rather confusing to do the distinction between normal unicorn magic and our own magic. is that clear?”
Emerald pondered while the alicorn was making the room and her mane back at a normal state “I think I understand it’s...like a special talent for gifted unicorn, It’s hard to explain how I do some things to another student, I… just do it.”
Princess Luna gave a genuine smile to the stallion “Yes, it’s quite close, but on a greater scale.”
Emerald smiled to himself for the praise but his smile quickly faded when thinking about his main concern “But what the issue with Twilight?”
Princess Luna brushed her mane with a hoof before looking at the stallion “The question is: what is magic for her? it’s not just a part of her magic that is different.”
They both stay silent for a moment until Emerald finally spoke again “Can I ask how you find about me, did Princess Cadance talk about me?”
“It’s not every night I can watch a grow up stallion having nightmares of a lavender alicorn being purchased by changelings.” she replied mysteriously.
Emerald shivered at the memory “Is she really safe? I mean do you really think Queen Chrysalis will do nothing to her?”
“You can call Queen Chrysalis a monster, a tyrant, a thief, but she is a ruler and not stupid. She has nothing to gain by harming Twilight. If she kills her nopony will know except us, if she chooses to expose Twilight, do you think somepony will believe her? Queen Chrysalis can decline to help her, but she is not in a position to refuse future potential leverage of us.”
Emerald could not understand all the implication but was happy to know that Princess Luna was in some way in control of the situation “I see, yes. I supposed you will not tell me what happened to her.”
The Princess rose from her seat “Sadly it’s only for her to hear this story. But I have a gift for her, maybe it will help her” Luna summoned a strange book packed in a nice dark silk with a silver moon embroidered on it.
“It’s rather personal so I appreciate if you don’t try to read it” She said leaving the room.
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*throws a lack-of-Chrysalis tantrum!*
That is a good question thought; what is magic to Twilight? I'd hazard that she needs friends.
6839345
It's possible that I did not track down much my errors on this chapter. Sorry for that :(
Honestly, I wish I could read this. I managed to read through a few chapters, and I have loved the premise and the characters, but the grammatical problems are too pervasive and attempting to parse what you meant to write from what is written is giving me too much of a headache to continue reading. If, after you get more practice with the English language, you were to go through and rewrite this story, I wouldn't be surprised if this became one of my all time favorites. I hope you keep writing so that you can improve and I recommend that you find or ask for an editor who is willing to both fix your errors and explain them to you. I wish you the best of luck.
6873001
I am sorry to hear that, but thank for already read that far. Can you point out construct that either make no sense or are just hard to read/understand?
7324286
Maybe next chapter (or the one after) will give you more hints on Celestia actions :)