PONY Legacy

by RBDash47

00 Prologue

Author's Note:

This story was originally outlined and drafted during the S1/S2 hiatus. It is verrry much a product of its time.

“You’re taking what?!”

Twilight winced at the involuntary shrill tenor of her own voice and focused on the cup of tea in her hooves. When did they get so shaky?

“A sabbatical, my dear Twilight.” That’s what she’d thought she’d heard. “It’s nothing to get worked up about,” Celestia added, levitating her own cup to her lips—to hide a motherly grin, Twilight was sure. She knew she was reacting poorly, but the self-knowledge wasn’t helping her maintain control.

“And really, in many ways I have you to thank for the opportunity,” Celestia continued.

“You’re leaving because of me?” Instant regret, even before she saw the shadow of pain flit across her mentor’s face. Twilight decided it was in her teacup’s best interests to set it down on the table in front of her, before it vibrated to pieces. She tried to count her breaths but they were coming too erratically to keep track.

Celestia set her teacup down too. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said sternly. “Look at me.” Twilight reluctantly forced herself to look up into the princess’ eyes. Celestia’s face softened, and she reached out a hoof to rest on one of Twilight’s. Warmth instantly suffused the unicorn, who managed to draw in a deep, shuddery breath. “You returned my only family to me with the Elements of Harmony. For that alone, I will be forever grateful to you. But then you did even more starting this past Nightmare Night, and began helping my sister in adjusting to this new millennium after her… after her time away.”

“Of course, Princess,” Twilight murmured.

“And because of your efforts, I think we have reached a point where it is safe for me to take a little time to myself. I’ve discussed it with Luna and she agrees: she can manage things for a time on her own. Of course, she won’t be on her own, will she?”

After a moment, Twilight straightened and shook her head. “No, of course not. I’ll help her however I can.”

A smile lit Celestia’s face, and Twilight’s heart began to slow. “I’m so very glad to hear you say that, Twilight.” The alicorn leaned in conspiratorially, and Twilight found herself mirroring the motion almost subconsciously. “Do you have any idea how many centuries it’s been since I’ve had some time off?”

A rueful grin tugged at Twilight’s lips. “You know, I never thought about that.” They both chuckled, and Twilight felt the last of the tension drain out of her limbs. This would be fine. Just a temporary thing. They’d be fine. “What will you do? What does an alicorn princess do on vacation?”

“Oh, I have plans, my faithful student. Something I’ve wanted to do… to finish, really… for a long time.” Celestia settled back on her overstuffed cushion and reached for her teacup again with her magic. “I think I’ll be gone a few weeks. Perhaps a month at most. And when I get back”—her eyes twinkled over her cup—“I’ll have something very special to show you indeed.”

“She told me she would be working in her sub-basement office that night, and she didn’t wish to be disturbed,” Luna said. The younger princess led them through the lower levels of Canterlot Castle. Mildew crept up the rough stone walls, kept at bay by torches flickering every few feet in dusty sconces. A cobweb landed on Twilight’s snout and she sneezed, the hard sound echoing up and down the corridor.

“Ah… excuse me.”

Luna waved it off as the pair came to a heavy oaken door that creaked open for them when Luna ignited her horn. “After a day, I began to worry. I could sense her presence within the castle yet she had not joined me for meals and did not respond to my summons. I came down to check on her and found her room empty, as you see it now.” The door swung wide at Luna’s touch, and Twilight stepped inside.

She had spent many an afternoon in Celestia’s private study in the castle proper: a luxuriously appointed chamber filled with art and artifacts collected during centuries of overseeing Equestria. Plush rugs, comfortable chairs, a beautiful slab of a desk. Twilight was particularly fond of a tapestry—historically inaccurate, Celestia had pointed out once—depicting the princess presenting the gift of magic to the ancient ponies of Equestria. She had spent hours admiring it, analyzing the artistry of every last thread and stitch.

But this room? Twilight looked around, frowning, trying to reconcile it with the regal image of Celestia in her mind. Bare walls carved from the living bedrock. No adornments. A large, utilitarian desk—Twilight recognized the maker; she had similar worktables in her own basement laboratory back in Ponyville—with some scrolls and parchments neatly stacked on it and a map of Equestria hung above it. A lone bookcase on the far wall, filled with well-worn tomes. The only concession to comfort was a cushion on the floor before the desk, large enough for an alicorn.

“When I attempt to perform a locator spell on her, I am drawn here,” Luna continued from behind Twilight, “but as you can see, there are no signs of her. The results of the spell are unusual, as well. I get a generalized sense of her presence rather than a specific location, and no direction to guide me to her. Perhaps worst of all…” Twilight bit her lip at the barely concealed tremor in Luna’s voice. “I have been unable to find her during my nightly dreamwalking, and I should be able to visit anypony in Equestria.”

Twilight moved to the desk and began leafing through the papers there, Luna hesitating at the threshold before following. The parchments were riddled with bizarre language and complicated diagrams labeled with unfamiliar symbols, but she thought she could make out the basic idea. “It seems like she was trying to design some sort of… machine?”

“That is the best I have been able to determine.” Luna sniffed and cleared her throat, glancing around the room. “My sister had not involved me in this work. I do know she started it long ago, while I was still, ah, imprisoned. I... lack the relevant knowledge or know-how to be able to understand her notes, and I have been reluctant to share them with anypony. It seems clear my sister wanted this kept secret. Stars above, for all I know it could be dangerous to the wrong pony.”

Luna took a deep, steadying breath and touched Twilight’s shoulder. “I believe you may be the right pony.”

Twilight turned, startled. “Princess?”

“Celestia spoke of you often. I know how impressed she was with your abilities and accomplishments, how proud she was of your progress. She trusted you without question and thus I do too.”

Luna bowed her head for a moment. Twilight’s breath caught in her throat when Luna looked back up at her, eyes gleaming with steady resolve and a tear tracing down her muzzle. “I brought you here to ask if you would take Celestia’s notes and attempt to follow in her hoofsteps. You have been a true friend to me in these past months, as I navigate this new life and catch up on what I missed, but I am a thousand years out of date. And here, in these arcane arts?” She gestured to the strange blueprints and shook her head. “You are knowledgeable, bright, and more familiar with my sister than any other pony alive. It’s my hope you may be able to shed some light on where she has gone, or what has happened to her.”

Twilight bowed her head in turn, frowning to herself. It could take years, decades even, to figure out what she was doing down here, she thought. Can I keep a secret from my friends for so long? She thought of everything Celestia had done for her, meant to her.

She met Luna’s gaze, her eyes burnished with tears, her brow furrowed with determination. “Of course I will, Princess Luna.” She hesitated just a moment before admitting, “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Luna smiled, a small sad thing. “Nor do I, Twilight Sparkle. See if you can find her.”

Twilight waited on a hastily erected stage before a large crowd of ponies in the courtyard of Canterlot Castle. Her Element of Harmony weighed heavily upon her head. Rainbow Dash had ended up on her right along with Pinkie Pie, their Elements around their necks. To her left, Princess Luna stepped up to a lectern embossed with the Equestrian seal. Beside the princess, her brother Shining Armor stood resolute in full regalia, bookended by the other Bearers with their own Elements gleaming in the sun.

“Citizens of Equestria.” Luna’s magically enhanced voice echoed around the courtyard. Twilight took a deep breath and schooled her expression into compliance, hoping her face didn’t betray the roiling anxiety in her gut. She glanced right and Dash caught her eye to give her a reassuring smile.

“I am afraid there is no easy way to say this. Princess Celestia is not, as has been reported, on an extended sabbatical. In fact, she is missing.”

Dead silence. Almost immediately, a swell of murmured concern, bordering on shouted panic, surged through the crowd. To her credit, Luna was a steadfast rock as the wave of dismay broke against her and receded, subdued by her poise and her next words.

“You need not fear. As my sister did for so many years, I will continue to watch over both the night and the day, and the Equestrian Guard”—she nodded to Shining—“and Elements of Harmony”—she swept a hoof over them all—“will continue to keep you and your homes safe. And Princess Celestia’s most accomplished student will lead the search for our beloved Princess of the Sun.”

Twilight set her jaw, strengthened by the hopeful faces staring up at her. And I’m going to get her back.

Sparks skittered across the library basement’s floor before burning out at Rainbow Dash’s hooves. “Uh, Twilight?”

Twilight jolted and slammed her head into the ceiling of the large metal box she was crouched in; her galvanic welder slipped from her magical grasp and clattered to the floor. “Ouch! Ahhh, Rainbow, hi.” She rubbed at her head and inspected the half-completed weld through thick, dark goggles. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Dash winced and took a half-step forward. “Yeah, sorry about that… Spike let me in, said you were down here. Everything going okay?”

“Fine,” Twilight said absently. She judged the weld satisfactory and picked the welder back up in her magic. “Did you need something? I’m right in the middle of this.”

“No, I just wanted to see if you needed anything. Help with, uh, whatever it is you’re doing there, or picking up supplies, or… I don’t know... getting some lunch? Have you eaten?”

“Spike made daisy sandwiches earlier. Shield your eyes.”

“Wha— ah!”

Twilight channeled her magic back into the welder and it ignited with a searing brightness. She would have seen stars if not for her protective goggles. A few crackling moments later, she killed the welder and pushed her goggles up on her forehead to squint at the finished bead. “Okay! That should do it.”

Dash peered at her from behind a wing. “Is it safe to come out now?”

Twilight laughed. “Don’t be silly, it’s only dangerous when the welder’s active.” She waggled it in midair and Dash eyed it mistrustfully.

“Uh huh. So, anything I can do to help?”

“Rainbow…” A sigh, and a twisting feeling in her gut. “We’ve talked about this. You know what I’m doing here is a secret, for the princesses.” Twilight blinked in realization and frowned. “You shouldn’t even be down here. I’ll have to talk to Spike.”

Dash waved a hoof at the basement. “It’s not like I have any idea what any of this is, yannow.” The room was filled with more large metal boxes, some half-assembled like the one Twilight had been working on, some stuffed with glowing glass tubes and rat’s nests of insulated wiring. Furniture and storage boxes had been shoved against the wall, and high-gauge cabling snaked everywhere, some ends attached to metal boxes, some ends coiled in wait. A workbench with a magnifying glass on an articulated arm was covered in electronic components.

Twilight looked around proudly. “It’s coming along nicely.”

“But what is coming along nicely?”

Twilight spun and glared at her friend. “You know I can’t tell you! I explained this yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that! You can’t be here! The others understand!”

“No, they don’t!” Dash shot back. “They’ve just given up on trying to help you, and I’m not gonna do that! I’m gonna be right here every day until you get it through that egghead skull of yours that you don’t have to do this alone! We can help you. I can help you!”

Twilight’s mouth twisted. Egghead, huh? “And how exactly can you help me? I don’t need you to pick up supplies or get lunch—I have Spike. And you said it yourself. You don’t have any idea what any of this is.”

For a moment, Twilight could have sworn that Rainbow looked a little crestfallen, but she blinked and it was gone. Dash stood up straight and puffed out her chest. “You could teach me!”

“Teach you?” A selection of Celestia’s notes, and her own annotations, spun through Twilight’s mind. She couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Rainbow, I can barely get you to read a foal’s chapter book. How could you possibly expect me to teach you about a com— about what I’m doing here?”

Immediately, Twilight knew she’d made a mistake. Dash shrank, looking absolutely stricken. Her mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. She shut her mouth instead and swallowed, blinking.

Twilight took a step forward. “Rainbow, I… it’s just that this is so complicated I barely understand it, and I’ve been working with it for months. I know you want to help, and I really appreciate the thought behind that, but any benefit from having a partner would be vastly outweighed by the time it took to get you up to speed in the first place. Does that make sense?”

Dash had taken a step back, and her face was tight. “Yep. Sure. Perfect sense.” She turned, her wings drooping. “I’ll get out of your mane.”

Twilight reached out a hoof as Dash trudged toward the stairs, but hesitated. Should she reconsider? She had definitely been a little too blunt. And it really would take forever to teach anypony else all this… least of all Dash, who wasn’t exactly academic material… Was soothing her friend’s feelings worth delaying her work? Worth breaking her promise to Princess Luna?

“Rainbow?”

Dash paused at the top of the stairs and turned to look back down at Twilight.

“I… I’m sorry about… what I said. If you wanted...”

Her expression brightened a little.

“...I got the new Daring Do in yesterday. I know I usually loan it to you after I read it, but I don’t know when I’ll get to it. You can tell Spike to get it for you… if you wanted.”

Dash stared at her for a moment as the brightness leached from her eyes. Without another word, she turned and left the room.

Twilight bit her lip. She’d thought that would help—giving Dash first crack at a book they’d both been waiting for. Did it make things worse? Maybe after the comment about chapter books… She shook herself and pushed her goggles back down as she went over to the next empty metal box, summoning her welder again. She’d find some other way to make it up to Rainbow Dash. Rainbow would understand.

When she glanced over her personal bookshelf on the way to bed that night, Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone was sitting there, untouched.

The days bled together as Twilight toiled below the library, building metal casings and rebuilding electronic boards and refining her understanding of Celestia’s work.

Once a week, she visited with her friends, for lunch or an afternoon at the spa. She tried her very best to pay attention as they talked about their lives, but Rarity’s issues with snooty Canterlot customers and Applejack’s issues with hardy root fungus were just… hard to care about when she knew what was waiting for her back home. She hoped they didn’t notice her distracted air. If nothing else, they were generous enough to not call her out on it.

Dash acted like her normal self at these get-togethers, animatedly discussing the latest Wonderbolts news or demonstrating the particulars of an aerial maneuver she’d been practicing with wild movements of her hooves through the air. She acted so much like her usual self that it took Twilight several lunches to realize Dash wasn’t engaging with her at all. They never sat together. Dash didn’t acknowledge her—admittedly infrequent—contributions to the group’s conversations.

Realizing this only intensified the mild guilt she’d been feeling over neglecting her friends. Twilight realized that she really had hurt Rainbow Dash’s feelings that day in the basement, even if she wasn’t sure what she could or should have done differently.

She vowed to figure out some way to make it up to Rainbow. She’d figure it out. But it could wait one more day—she was at a critical point in her work right now, and couldn’t interrupt herself. One more day wouldn’t hurt anything any further than it already was.

She said the same thing to herself the next day.

And the next day.

And the next.

Before Twilight could quite figure out how it happened, she’d managed to go weeks and then months without truly addressing the manticore in the room with Dash, and it had been long enough that it felt… too late. Her guilt had calcified and smoothed over within herself, easier to ignore with every passing day, even as each day’s passing only increased its weight.

She had tried to address it by not addressing it, by just picking up where they’d left off and acting as though nothing was wrong. Twilight asked Dash a direct question during one of their spa days, one she couldn’t ignore or pretend was directed at someone else, and Dash had immediately and cheerfully answered as though nothing was wrong, and then immediately and cheerfully went back to ignoring Twilight unless she had no choice.

Twilight realized too late that she’d shot herself in the hoof with this approach. Now she absolutely couldn’t turn around and try to drag this problem into the light, not after she herself had glossed right over it.

And so it went. Twilight and Dash reached a new sort of equilibrium, going through the motions of friendship with one another—the birthday parties, the weekly visits, the Wonderbolts tryouts that gradually petered out without Twilight really noticing. To all appearances, they were devoted friends. And really, Twilight said to herself, their friendship was just as vibrant and fulfilling as any of the others, which is to say not really at all.

But that was only because she was so isolated by her work, and it was crucial work, as all of her friends agreed whenever she expressed doubt—even Dash. They all understood she needed to find Princess Celestia, not just for Equestria’s sake, or Luna’s sake, but for her own.

It was only temporary. She would find Celestia and then she could move on with her life, reconnect with her friends, catch up on the time she’d missed with them. She just had to prioritize, right now. They understood.

At the end of another day, Twilight stretched at her workstation in the basement. All around her, metal towers hummed warmly in the darkness. Cables snaked underhoof. Before her, one wall was glowing, and on it was an image of Ponyville, as though she were flying above it in her hot-air balloon and looking down at the town. Sixty times a second, magic updated the image with subtle changes, creating the illusion of movement.

It wasn’t actually Ponyville, of course. She wouldn’t need a roomful of arcane equipment to power a simple scrying spell.

It had taken her years, the better part of a decade in fact, but she felt she finally understood Celestia’s work, and looking around the room at the results of her understanding filled her with pride. And yet, in a more real sense, she felt that she didn’t understand it at all.

Celestia’s notes and diagrams were intricate, impressive, and frustratingly incomplete. She’d made some intellectual leaps as she’d worked through the princess’s research, purely out of necessity to bridge the gaps she encountered, and she agonized constantly over misjudging things the ancient alicorn had taken for granted. But even with said gaps, everything had been laid out before her. Twilight had followed the trail left by her mentor, until it abruptly ended.

She’d had nowhere left to go. Celestia’s notes spoke of a simulation, a sort of hypothetical reality, and described a means of creating one using a brand-new device she referred to as a computational engine. But that was all. Of course, there had been no reason for Celestia to commit her motives to paper. Why would she, when of course she knew them herself so well? But Twilight had no idea why her mentor had wanted to create this, what she wanted to use it for.

Tiny pony-shaped figures moved about their business on the glowing wall, unaware they existed only in the heart of a machine. Unaware of anything at all, in fact: they were by no means sapient or even sentient, just programs following set directives.

Twilight didn’t know why Celestia had been trying to make such a system possible, but far worse, she had no idea whatsoever how it could be connected to the princess’s bizarre disappearance.

She’d gotten her own simulation up and running weeks ago. She’d programmed in everything she knew about Ponyville and the ponies living in it. A few false starts here and there, where she’d gotten parameters wrong, but with the kinks ironed out it had been very stable. At any time, day or night, she could poke her head in the basement lab, glance at the screen, and see Ponyville and its denizens acting exactly the way they did in real life.

And every time, she wondered, So what?

Of course, it was an incredible achievement. She could only begin to think of the papers she could write on this new technology, but hadn’t started any of them, not only because she had promised Luna to keep her work secret but also because of practical concerns: she wasn’t sure that any journals currently existed capable of peer-reviewing them.

This was a fantastical creation, something never before seen, heard of, or even imagined within Equestria, but Twilight was forced to admit that it also seemed utterly pointless. Why simulate Ponyville, or any other town, when she could just go outside and actually experience it?

Sometimes it made Twilight uneasy, seeing her friends and neighbors moving about up on her wall. None of them knew this existed, which made watching their virtual counterparts—acting as realistically as Twilight could manage—almost voyeuristic. But it wasn’t real. Just because Twilight could stand at the top of the basement stairs and look back and forth between two Rainbow Dashes, one virtually snoozing on a simulation of a cloud and one physically snoozing on an actual cloud in the sky outside her window, didn’t mean that both of them were real.

Only one of them was real. Only one of them had been so completely and utterly failed by a friend.

Everypony had been counting on her. She didn’t want to admit to Luna that she didn’t know where to go from here. She didn’t want to admit to her friends that her years of distancing herself to work on this had not, in the end, borne any fruit. She was not any closer to finding Princess Celestia.

Twilight curled up at her basement workstation and wept.

She startled awake. The lab was darkened, lit only by the glow of the wall display, itself darkened by simulated night. She remembered snatches of a dream, something clawing at her face?

With an anguished groan, she forced herself to her hooves and gingerly traced the creases her control panel had left on her cheek. I have to stop doing this…

She climbed the stairs, emerging into a library lit by a lone candle Spike had left burning for her. A pinch of magic extinguished it and she kept going, up more stairs to their bedroom.

Spike’s snores reached her before she got there. He wasn’t allowed in the basement either, so she had no idea when he’d turned in for the night. Twilight nudged the door open and carefully stepped past him. Not for the first time she remembered when they’d first moved here, and how he’d slept curled up in a basket at the foot of her bed. Much too big for that now, he’d graduated to his own full bed alongside hers.

Twilight pulled herself into her own bed, settling beneath the star-patterned covers. Letting her eyes drift shut, she tried to recapture the sleep she’d already found accidentally two stories below, draped across her workstation. Pillow’s much more comfortable...

A sudden low rumbling snapped her eyes open and she pushed herself up. Across the room, Spike rolled over in his sleep and let out a fiery belch. Even in her half-asleep state, Twilight reflexively ignited her horn and grabbed the note forming out of ashes in midair, bringing it over for her to read in bed. Spike snored on, oblivious.

Seconds later, Spike sat up in bed abruptly, startled awake himself by a loud banging noise. He looked around wildly, saw Twilight’s bed was empty, the covers thrown back—saw the bedroom door had been blasted off its hinges—saw a singed roll of parchment laying on the floor between the two beds—heard hoofbeats disappearing in the distance. He jumped out of bed and picked it up, unfurling it to read, and his eyes went wide.

“No way.”

My faithful student,

I need your help. Please come to my workshop.

Princess Celestia

Comments

[tsaukpaetra]

Error: corrupted data. Restarting environment playthrough. Rebuild in progress.
Let's do this!

[RBDash47]

10883336
Hahaha, love this! Exactly.

[Ocean Waves]

Oh boy, oh boy! This looks promising!

[Caligari87]

This prologue hit like a ton of bricks. Every time a scene ended I was like "okay story starts now" and all of a sudden... 10 years later?

In retrospect I should have expected this, but it was jarring in a good way. Also sad, because as an adult looking back (as I'm sure you did to the original story) this is just how life sneaks past us sometimes.