Twilight's journey

by Skarsnik

Chapter 4 - Blank Scroll

Spike didn’t send a letter to Princess Cadence immediately. Instead, he waited for Emerald’s return. The stallion’s saddlebags were quite full when he entered the room. There was some bread to make sandwiches, some cereals for breakfast, and a lot of fruits and vegetables.

After catching his breath, Emerald said, “Sorry it took me so long. I had to go directly to some farmer barn, and I didn’t know what to pick up.”

“Let me help you,” Spike answered, while Emerald levitated his saddlebags to the back of a chair.

Both of them sorted the goods. The bread and cereals went into a cupboard, while most of the fruits and vegetables were put in the fridge. There was nothing to make real cooking but that would be enough, mainly because Spike didn’t really need to eat pony food -still, he enjoyed a good meal once in a while for the taste- and Emerald wasn’t really demanding on everyday meals.

Sadly, this time the sound they made managed to wake the sleeping alicorn. She was up on her own again but was shaking nervously. Emerald noticed her while Spike was sorting out the fridge content.

“Something wrong, Lady Sparkle?”

Spike rolled his eyes hearing Emerald calling her ‘Lady’ but said nothing. It was better to let Emerald get comfortable talking with her, one way or another.

A small blush formed on the alicorn’s face, “Little...filly...room...”

“Ho, this way.” Emerald used his magic to open the door that leads to the bathroom.

The alicorn rushed in the bathroom, and Emerald closed the door partially to give her some privacy. Spike and Emerald finished their sorting and waited for Twilight’s return.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” asked Spike after hearing no sound from the bathroom for some time.

The door of the bathroom burst open and revealed a confused mare with her wings open. She was uttering a single word, “Wings…wings...wings, wings, wings...”

Spike swore he would have expected to see Twilight run everywhere, but visibly, she lacked the strength for it and was just talking while shaking her head horizontally. He put a claw on her shoulder before saying firmly:

“Calm down, Twilight.” Surprisingly, that managed to stop the muttering.

“Why do I have...wings...Oh...” she looked Spike in the eye before her own eyes shut and her legs gave up. Once again, Spike and Emerald put her on the couch. This time they had to fold her wings.

“Should we put her in your bed instead? The couch isn’t really comfy,” Emerald asked while putting the blanket in place around the sleeping mare.

“You are right, but it’s easier to watch her this way.” Spike opened a cupboard and grabbed a quill and some blank scrolls. “Anyway, will you help me write a letter to Princess Cadence?”

A frown made its way on Emerald’s face. “Wait a minute, this time it doesn’t look like she was just falling asleep, and you aren’t worried?”

“Listen, it’s not unusual for Twilight to faint like that when she’s shocked, and I’m actually very worried about the memory loss now, seeing her reaction, -” Spike sat on his chair at the table “- but until she wakes up again and can stay conscious more than five minutes, we won’t have any more answers, so I am writing to Cadence.”

Emerald relaxed, figuring Spike knew her better than him. He looked over Spike’s shoulder. “Ok, but why do you want my help?”

Spike soaked the tip of the quill while answering, “I don’t know if her husband, Shining Armor, knows about Twilight.”

Emerald brought a chair to sit closer to Spike, “He’s her brother if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, as I was saying, if he doesn’t know about Twilight, I can’t have the risk of him finding out via a letter I sent to Cadence. He may be around when she gets the letter. So I need to find a story to tell her, you know... about Twilight... without raising suspicion.”

“Wow, you really thought a lot about it. So tell me what you usually write her.”

Spike didn’t really send many letters to Cadence. They were usually just casual letters where he described a new town he found interesting enough or when something unusual happened. Spike saved the whole story of his travels for family meetings like Hearth's Warming Eve.

Dear Cadence and Shining Armor,

I am in the typical country town of Littlemare. It’s a town with a lot of farms, especially pear orchards. The ponies are nice, and I am very surprised that most earth pony farmers do not mind having unicorns helping them at their farm. It is not very common, especially in towns distant from larger ones.

Yesterday, my friend and assistant, Emerald Scroll, met a mare that wants to travel with us. I don’t really mind my assistant having a relationship, but I would appreciate if you could give me some advice to determine if she is truly interested in him or just in his noble heredity. The Scroll are nice people, and I don’t want to to be responsible for something I can prevent that could be bad for their son.

She is an odd unicorn claiming she was a pegasus in another life. Emerald wanted to cast the wings spell to impress her, and she was really surprised that a spell like that existed. It’s easy to forget that the common unicorns don’t really know that much about magic, but I digress. Sadly, Emerald didn’t have the strength to complete the spell and has been sleeping all this morning to recover. It was kind of cute but I had to do my class alone.

I hope next time we meet this issue will be sorted out.

Sincerely Spike

P.S. I prefer that Cadence gives me advice, I don’t want to perform a royal guard interrogation on a poor, young mare.

“Really, you think the mare going after your title isn’t too big of a lie?” Spike asked Emerald after finishing the first draft. It had taken them ten minutes to come up with it.

“No, it’s really a big issue for most noble families. That’s why you don’t see many weddings between commoners and nobles. I often met mares that were only interested in me as a noble. I don’t care when it’s just to spend a dinner or a night with me, but it’s annoying trying to not think about it when you want a proper relationship.” The stallion sighed at a bad memory that was coming back to him.

“Yeah, I think I understand.” Spike put a claw on the shoulder of the stallion.

There was an awkward silence after Spike removed his claw, but Emerald looked at the letter on the table and spoke. “When do you think we will have an answer?”

“Probably not now. I don’t know Cadence’s exact schedule. Some days can be very busy for her, but knowing her, she will try to answer soon.”

Spike copied the letter on a new scroll, rolled it, put his own seal on it, and burned the scroll with his dragon fire. Spike had already told Emerald how his dragon fire worked while writing the letter.

Emerald brought a hoof behind his neck before looking at Spike “So, Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadence sound like your family the way you talk about them, but what about Lady Sparkle’s parents?”

“You should call her Twilight. She will probably freak out or be very annoyed if you call her Lady Sparkle since her parents are not a noble family in the first place.” Spike watched the expected shocked expression on Emerald’s face. “And to answer your question, it’s kinda weird, but I was with Cadence and Shining Armor at Canterlot Castle more than Twilight’s parents when I was younger. After Twilight’s death…” Spike paused.

“Sorry if it’s too personal,” interrupted Emerald, filling the small pause.

Spike let out a yawn. “No it’s fine, I am just tired; so to give a quick answer, I still see them as very close friends. It already took me a while to see Twilight as my mother.”

After another yawn, Spike continued, “I promised to tell you more about my past, but now I will take a nap so I can keep an eye on Twilight tonight. Don’t mind waking me up if she wakes up before me.”

Emerald watched Spike get up his chair. “And the letter?”

“That’s a sad part about dragon fire: that will wake me up,” said Spike with a small chuckle. He went to his room, taking with him the letter he received the previous night, put it back in his drawer, and hopped in his bed to sleep.

Emerald was alone again with the sleeping alicorn. I need to find something to do. At this rate, I will have nothing left to read. He levitated a pot of ink, some paper, and a quill in front of him then put a title on one page.

Twilight Sparkle, Savior of Equestria, Element of Magic, personal pupil of Princess Celestia...

“Hm, I think I missed some, let’s see,” he muttered to himself.

...Savior of the Crystal Empire

“Does she have some kind of title from that? Being the sister of a Prince Consort ruler of the Crystal Empire?”

Emerald proceeded to write down all he had learned from Spike and what he already knew, then started to do the same thing with Spike, but before finishing, he stopped.

What am I doing? Ok, Spike is a national hero and his mother is too. It can be interesting to have the whole story of their life written somewhere, but Spike is my friend, right? What kind of pony writes the whole life of his friend like that?

Emerald took the page he had written on Twilight, pondering at all the blanks he had left and the fact that one page had been enough to write all he knew. Wearing a sad look, he cast a fire spell to burn the page.

I hope her memory isn’t like this page.

He proceeded to burn Spike’s page in the same way, and stayed five minutes, staring at Twilight sleeping. Still quite the mare, she did so many things and ended up an alicorn. Hm, alicorn. He took another piece of paper and started writing again.

The Story of a Lavender Alicorn
Journal of Emerald Scroll

First day:
I met her in the morning. I first saw her as a unicorn. She was eating breakfast and was surprised at seeing me. That was the first time I saw her wings. She fell asleep afterward. She was very famished. I think I will describe her when she is in a better condition. For now, her colors seem faded, and her mane and tail are all dry.
She woke up in the afternoon. She presented herself to me as Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia. After sleeping again, for something like an hour and a half, she took a bathroom break and barged out of the room realizing she had wings, and then she fainted.

Emerald went to his room to hide the page in his belongings and grabbed one of the books Spike had given to him before leaving Canterlot. Emerald was just happy being Spike’s assistant. He didn’t have to deal that much with the fillies and colts, and he was mainly there to show the spell Spike was teaching and to give Spike more credit to the fillies and colts’ skeptical parents. The sad thing was that most parents believed it was the other way around: Emerald was doing the teaching and Spike was only taking notes or something.

Can’t delay this anymore now I guess.

Getting back in the main room, he sat in his chair and started reading Methods for Teaching Magic to Young Unicorns. Emerald liked reading books: books about new spells, small novels, or even books about some great noble house, but purely theoretical books like this were utterly boring to him.

He read for the rest of the afternoon, taking some pauses to drink. He only got interrupted by a small voice.

“Interesting... book? Mister... Scroll?”

“Not really.” Emerald turned his head toward the voice, facing two purple eyes. Thanks for a way to escape this book. “Oh good afternoon, Lady Sparkle.”

The alicorn had backed a bit away from the table, a small frown on her face. “Don’t… call me that...”

Spike said she could be mad, hm “Sorry. Do you prefer Princess Twilight Sparkle?” Emerald said with a small smile.

Twilight blinked once before answering, “Huh?... what?”

Emerald pointed at Twilight’s horn and wings, “Horn and wings, like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” Emerald sighed, his smile had vanished ”Sorry, it was a bad joke.”

The alicorn sat on her rump and closed her eyes “Huh...it wasn’t a dream...”

Emerald looked at Twilight, who seemed lost in her thoughts. I hope she doesn’t faint again.

She slowly opened her eyes, her gaze wandering everywhere in the room. “Where is...Spike? and… who is Princess Luna?”

Spike, I have to wake him, and what was his question? “Oh, I’ll get Spike, do you want something to drink or eat?”

The thought of food was acting like a switch on the alicorn. Her confusion disappeared and a big smile replaced it. “Yes”

Emerald put two apples and a glass of water with a straw on the table before heading to Spike’s room. She doesn’t remember Princess Luna? That doesn’t sound very good.

Comments

[pendrake72]

6185952

A friendly point-out for you, in reference to your Author's Notes and Comments here.

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[Kairee]

This is a very interesting premise and I hope to read more.

[Skarsnik]

6215934

Thanks for this pointer. I just posted a request :)

[Anzel]

Wings, wings, wings!