Chapter 1, It Started with a Book... (like that's a surprise)
The rustle of parchment. The scratch of a quill. These were some of Twilight's favorite sounds. Studying had always been one of her favorite activities, even if she had been pegged as an egghead for it. The sun was barely rising and she had already begun her studies on zebras and their homeland. She had read a bit about zebras before, but she never took the time to start an in-depth study of their culture and home country.
She had worked her way from A General Guide to Quadrupeds to an entry in Lesser-Known Magics about Zebra crafts to Black N' White: A Guide to all things Zebra, and now rested on a page from A Beginners Guide to Elsweyr. Neatly scripted notes were scattered around Twilight in a state of organized chaos while she lay comfortably with the book open in front of her. A fresh quill hovered over a piece of parchment already filled halfway with notes. As she dotted the final period she scanned over the words. Satisfied, she returned to her book and began a new section. Almost giddy with the amount she's already learned and eager to read more, she allowed herself to read aloud.
"Chapter three, article four: Migration of Elsweyr Natives Across the World. Centuries ago it was very common to find natives of Elsweyr all across the globe. However, since the dramatic decrease in the Khajiit population and the fall of ancient Tamriel, one seldom encounters the unique individuals of the desert nation. Today, the nations of the world have adopted mostly isolationist policies, with little to no export or import shipping operations and even littler immigration rates. Equestria, home to the common Equine, is a good example of this, its population being mostly pony with small percentages of griffon, zebra, or other races.
"As stated before, it was commonplace to see khajiit and zebra roaming the streets of the Imperial City in Cyrodiil and other settlements. The sand-dwellers could even be found in the harsh, snow-strewn land of Sky...Sky-rim...."
Twilight stared at the word. Skyrim. The name didn't look familiar. She quickly ran through her notes, but the name was nowhere to be found. This was the first time that the book had ever mentioned it. She turned back to the book.
"Skyrim," She read to herself again. "What a pretty word. But what is it? Some kind of country probably"
Could it really be there was a whole country that Twilight didn't know anything about?
"That's not a big deal," she said unconvincingly to herself. "There are loads of countries in the world. I can't be expected to know all of them..." she trailed off.
She gently traced the letters with the tip of her now dry quill. It was written plainly as any other word on the page, but somehow it beamed with a whole world of hidden knowledge.
"Skyrim," she said once more.
She searched the deepest recesses of her memory, finding only a ghost of recognition. She must have heard it once, long ago. As she thought more and more, memory returned to her. She felt as if she had heard it mentioned in myth or pony tale. But it wasn't a myth. It was there, clear as day. A fact upon a non-fiction book. How could Twilight argue?
"I've never read a book on it. I've never even seen a book devoted to it at all."
She stared at the word a while longer, knowing that she should get back to her study on zebras. She looked at the clock. It was still quite early. Spike wouldn't be up for another hour or so. She had time.
"ooh....fiddlesticks."
In one quick surge of magic Twilight's notes stacked themselves neatly on the desk at the end of the room and all Zebra-related books closed and did likewise. The book on Elsweyr remained open in front of her.
"I won't spend too much time on this. Just a few minutes. That's it. Won't take too long."
She began to scan the page for any further references to Skyrim.
Several hours later, the floor of the library was more book than wood, and the shelves vise versa. Twilight had torn through the library, scouring almost every shelf she could possibly think might have information on Skyrim, but to no avail. She had started by looking at the references used by the author of the Elsweyr book, a lot of them being interviews of various creatures. Any books he had used were in Twilight's library, but none of them had anything on Skyrim, not even a mention or footnote.
Eventually she figured the author had learned the information unofficially without the help of references, so she threw the tome aside. It now lay beneath piles of dusty books, each of them deemed useless after a thorough scouring and tossed to the ground. She had even broken into a few of the myth and supernatural books in desperation, but found nothing. Twilight remembered Spike trying to help or asking something, but she had been so absorbed in her search that he eventually gave up and left her to her lunacy.
"Hmpf." She let a copy of The Lich King's Wrath drop to the ground in frustration. "Forget the fiction," she said sternly to herself.
She turned to one of the bookshelves that hadn't been completely rummaged through yet and still held many of the books it was assigned, but many were tilted and stacked wrong. Some bindings faced the wrong way so all she could see of them were the ends of the pages. She let out another huff of frustration.
"This shelf is a mess. Honestly," She levitated a few of the worst offenders from the shelf. "Can't ponies put books back where and how they got them?"
She replaced the books neatly, so at least one shelf was tidy. She scanned the bindings. No wonder she hadn't fixed this shelf earlier; most of it was fiction. Or at least, she thought it so. It could have been entirely non-fiction before ponies de-organized it all. She spotted a volume of old poems, songs sung by bards generations ago.
"Well," she said hopefully. "It's not... too fiction I guess."
The title was Official Songs of the World, 23 Edition. She opened the pages as scanned the poems. She had heard most of them before; traditional lullabies and pony-tales in song form. Some of them were classics, too old or un-popular to be widely known. She was flipping through the pages when a phrase suddenly caught her eye. She spent a moment trying to find the page again then read through it. It was a fragment of a song and went like this:
High upon The Throat of the World,
With blazing breath and wings unfurled,
The voice of destruction rings,
The voice of salvation sings,
Of dragon's soul, scales of coal,
The World Eater soars on death's wings.
The rest of the poem had apparently been lost over time. There was nothing spectacular about the it. In fact there was no real information in it at all. However, Twilight thought the phrases "Throat Of the World" and "World Eater" were rather curious. If they were purely a symbolic phrases, why would they be capitalized?
"This probably has nothing to do with Skyrim," she said. "But that phrase certainly is curious. I'll check it out later." She left the book open on a nearby desk and returned to the shelf.
Her head was groggy and her eyes were tired from all the searching, but she couldn't make herself stop. She began to exhaust the bookshelf of its treasures, finding most of the volumes not worth even opening, and leaving them unceremoniously on the ground with the rest. She finally worked her way up to the top shelf, having to stand hind legs on a stool and front legs against the bookcase to get close enough to just glimpse the dusty bindings. She had never bothered to give such a high shelf much attention until now.
Even when straining her neck to its limit she could only see the tops of the bindings. She looked around for anything taller to stand on. The table was too big to move over all the books, plus it was already covered in them. Her eyes rested on the books laying on the ground, but she quickly tore her eyes away.
"No, no!" she yelled at herself. "To even think of stepping on books!......."
She looked hopefully around, but there were no other options. She could always abandon the shelf altogether, but what if the answer to her search was up there? What if she tore the rest of the library apart when all she needed was one book from that high shelf? Twilight couldn't physically bring herself to leave it un-searched.
"ooooh," she groaned.
She carefully stepped down from the stool and levitated a few of the thickest books from the ground. Whimpering, she struggled with forcing herself to lay the volumes down on the stool, taking extra care to be gentle as if making up for what she was about to do. Why didn't she levitate all the books from the shelf in question to start with? The world shall never know.
Once in place she lifted her hoof to stand on the books stacked on the stool, but it froze itself before it made contact with the cover of the topmost one.
"oh...come on Twilight...quickly, like a bandage..."
With one surge of pure will she forced her hoof onto the book, quickly using it to lift herself on top of the stack. Despite herself she continuously muttered "sorry," with every distribution of weight.
Finally she had resumed her position, her two front hooves leaning against the bookcase once more. Despite her discomfort using the books, she could see the shelf rather well now, each binding perfectly visible. Needless to say the whole shelf was covered in dust. It would seem nopony else had bothered with the shelf before, either.
Twilight scanned the bindings. Most of them were out-of-date political theory or studies on whether or not worms had magical properties, that sort of thing. Even Twilight, a pony who gave mostly every book the utmost respect in every aspect, admitted these books to be completely useless both in her search and any other possible subject she'd ever study.
The thing she was most concerned about, of course, was the disorganization of the shelf. The books weren't placed neatly. Some jutted out, some were upside down, some were stacked and crammed on top of each other, and so on. She pulled out several of them but found none of them helpful in the least. She spotted a leather-bound volume titled Ancient Mythical Monsters, and decided to give it a look.
She pulled the volume out with magic, causing the books beside it to suddenly lean sideways, toppling some that were stacked on top. When they did, Twilight suddenly spotted an old book that was hidden behind the rest, exposed only after the other ones had fallen. It had been stacked parallel with the back of the shelf then buried. Only one of its corners were visible, but she could already tell that it was special. It was bound in very old, very dusty dark leather with unevenly cut pages and yellowing parchment.
Forgetting the monster book, she pulled the old tome from the mountains of dust and parchment, wincing as many of the books toppled from the shelf and hit the ground with an unhealthy-sounding smack. Quickly stepping down from her perch and navigating her feet to rest in places where there were no books, Twilight took a good look at her discovery.
The binding was very old, very worn leather with tiny holes and other small damages. 'Well-loved,' as Twilight sometimes put it. The title looked as if it was once painted with gold leaf which had chipped away so much over the years that all that remained were tiny, resilient flakes clinging to the letters. Lucky, the title had been stamped in the leather before it was painted, so Twilight could still make out: Commerce in Tamriel. Excitement made her chest swell and heart buzz like a million bumblebees in her ribcage. An unavoidable smile slapped itself across her face as she very carefully, and excitedly, opened the cover.
The book was so old that the ink around the edges of the pages had begun to fade, and Twilight knew that this book must be treated very delicately. Turning past the title page and acknowledgments, Twilight skimmed over the first few paragraphs. The book was written in Old Equestrian, a language not too hard to understand but still a hassle to read. Twilight brought the book back to the room in which her note-taking supplies were and started to summarize the pages.
"Ooh! OH!" Twilight hadn't really been paying much attention to the words she was reading at this point. She had worked her way through the first half of the book, and was pulled from her daze at the sight of a familiar word.
She read over the section a dozen times, scratching notes all the while. Then she modified the notes, scratching out lines and re-writing them until her page was an ungodly mess of ink. She scribbled the final draft of the summary on a new piece of parchment then bent over to give it a good read:
Amongst the most dangerous of countries in which to travel for trade is the province of Skyrim. The land is rugged and uneven, the roads surrounded by dense, unpredictable wilderness, and the possibility of an ambush by thieves and bandits around every corner. It is for these reasons that bodyguards were almost always employed to protect shipments and distribution of goods by land. The process by which guards are selected can sometimes be quite complex depending on the value of the goods being transported......
And that was all. The book went on to discuss the difficulties with getting a trustworthy guard and the different options a seller would have when transporting goods. Twilight sighed. She was disappointed that it didn't tell her more about Skyrim specifically, but she had made a major discovery. She knew that Skyrim was cold, rugged, and dangerous, and that was more than enough to make her feel just a little bit victorious in her search. But there was still so much to learn.
She looked around the library. She had made a bigger mess than she ever had before. Books carpeted the floor, and she decided to look at the situation as another chance at re-shelving day. She glanced at the clock.
"WHAT!?"
The day was completely gone. The face of the clock stared down at her, it's arms displaying the time as 6 o'clock.
"Oh-Oh no, what- what did I have to do today...."
Twilight quickly dashed upstairs and tore her planner out of a drawer in her room. She frantically read through her tasks of the day. Most of them had to do with her Zebra studies, others were minor errands to be done in town.
"Well," she said guiltily. "I suppose I can try to do a few tonight, but it looks as if I'll have to take care of this tomorrow-"
Her eyes suddenly caught on her midday plan: 12:30, Lunch with Fluttershy. Any plans for squeezing a few tasks in that night left her mind. Fluttershy had been unintentionally blown off and Twilight knew she'd be upset.
"AH! Fluttershy! I completely forgot-"
Twilight immediately put the planner away and dashed down the stairs and out the front door, closing and locking it behind her.
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interesting, lets see where this goes.
Morokei.
Very good so far, only one issue.
"The binding was very old, very worn leather with tiny holes and other small damages." Leather is made out of animal hide, including horse hide. Having a book bound with leather would be like having a book bound with human flesh. You might want to change the material, or at least have Twilight disturbed by the book.
... Zebra isn't a proper noun and shouldn't be capitalized every time you use it. Just sayin'
1104727 Thanks
1104898
No prob.
1104684 I never thought of that as an issue. I like to think they have an understanding with other animals regarding materials, like tigers donate their pelt to fashion kinda like we donate our organs.....ok well saying/typing it aloud makes it seem kinda gross. Let's just not think about what leather is and move on. :P
1104677 Thank you
Moarplzthx dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia.png
Brilliant! Is Doh Va Kin going to make an appearance?
"The poem also spoke of a land of rock and snow."
If you just showed us the fragment, and the rest of the poem was lost, how is this possible?
I'm intrigued. Please do more
1105772 What do you mean?
well fuck me a slight chance of khajiit in equestria lol i think i fav this since skyrim is awsome and this fic is good i give you a manstache
Liking what you have so far too, excellently written.
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, so....encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDkaoo0eyNet-8HT71DYRas7qOtVxADY31FhJkyKeSCQSbG8GX5Q
1104684
wears around his neck. (The name of which escapes me)
I doubt Twilight, or any pony in general, would be disturbed by leather. There's no precedent for one; plus there's a lot of things pony's have that are best made with leather. Like the thing
1106674
Actually, that "thing" Big Macintosh wears around his neck is a yoke. They're made to attach to a plow and are best made out of wood.
Twilight gets lost, uses Canterlot voice spell to call out.
Alduin comes out is is like, sup?
Twi is all like, hey i'm lost. wat do?
Alduin: its k, wanna rule the world with me?
Twi: k
1105901
You show us the fragment of the poem:
Then you write that the rest of the poem was lost over time. How can it also mention a land of rock and snow if it isn't mentioned in that fragment?
1108626 AH! Ok. I see. I changed the fragment. Originally there was a phrase in the fragment, but I re-wrote it. BLAH bit mistake. Sorry about that!! *shuffles off to fix*
My(Stara) with Skyrim instead plox.
I don't normally do crossovers... Too much about them seem... Forced...
But this? This has my interest.
~Skeeter The Lurker
As long as Twi doesn't manage to become Dovahkin (Passed on by blood... Yet her family is relatively high status? Sadly seen before) I'll probably stick around for the long haul.
ooh....fiddlesticks
fiddlesticks seriously?!??!?!?