Apotheverse drabblething · 9:03pm Jan 21st, 2016
Mostly just some thoughts I had when discussing artifacts.
The Crown and the Mirror
The Crown looks like a simple iron circlet, dull and dark, but upon Celestia's brow it flares to life, with a sound like a thousand hammers on a thousand anvils. Then it becomes a wreath of solar fire floating above her head, with drifting prominences, filaments drifting in a slow, circling spiral, mirroring her mark. Each filament is tiny piece of sun that cuts through steel like so much dense fog. It is her weapon.
The Mirror looks like circle of polished silver, but upon Luna's brow it awakens, with a sound like the hush of falling snow. It looks like nothing so much but a slice of dream, until one looks within. It reflects love, hate, vice, virtue, desires, fears. Everything that a person is, it casts back at them. It is her weapon.
...And The Book.
The Book looks like a simple volume bound in canvas, but when held in Twilight's magic its pages become infinite, and she can always find what she's looking for. Written in the book is everything Twilight has ever known or experienced, everything read, heard, tasted, or breathed, as well as everything anyone wants her to know, always accurate, always current. It is her weapon.
And Twilight's?
3702951 Haven't gotten that far yet.
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The Wand looks like a simple length of turned yew the length of an alicorn's horn. When grasped in Twilight's magic, it flows into a new shape like putty, with a sound like rumbling thunder--a gemmed staff surmounted by a halo of crackling lightning trapped in the shape of a six-pointed star. Spells waste themselves upon the star, enchantments unravel, and shields part at its touch.
It is, as one might guess, her weapon.
3703162 I came up with a different possibility but I absolutely endorse people coming up with their own versions!
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Dunno. Given what I've seen in Daetrin's fics, I'd see Twilight's 'weapon' as a book. Plain, cloth binding, unlabeled. But in her magic, it becomes an exquisitely-bound tome embossed with gold leaf glyphs and silver filigree holding a single purple star on the cover. Within, countless pages of writing in an unreadable language. It in fact has written within all that has been, but responds only if one knows the question to ask. The page glyphs then arrange themselves in the most clearly understood script possible. It is HER weapon, for knowledge is power.
Dangit, Daetrin, you're making me feel creative.
Twilight is the Element of Magic, a Scholar, a Sage. A Book of Books, a wellspring of immeasurable knowledge as her "Weapon" is just too perfectly fitting.
...the fact that it would probably contain several dozen thousands of different combat spells of any conceivable kind has nothing to do with it.
3703224
Hah, I was a few minutes slow on that I guess. :3
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That also works very well.
I went with the Wand because I was keying on her identity as Magic, because the Crown and the Mirror felt to me like they were keying on Celestia and Luna's identities as Sun and Moon, respectively, rather than an aspect of their personalities. I was shooting for something that would feel appropriate for any holder of the attached title, as if the artifacts are maybe even more ancient than their wielders. The Book does work on that front if you conceptualize Magic as knowledge, rather than a force.
I briefly toyed with a Mantle, but then I realized you'd have to alicornify Trixie to wield it.
3703384 Or right on time!
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That makes sense, from that perspective, yes! I was going off how Daetrin's fics were portraying Twilight's focus in the fics, in particular her effect on books and scrolls and how quickly she absorbed new knowledge. Also, the artifact dichotomy he set up for Celestia and Luna seemed to be a sword and shield pairing, a bit more in-line with their roles in Equestira: Celestia as the leader and the one more inclined to lay plans or attack to protect her ponies, Luna as the guardian more inclined to react to threats as they arise and return like-with-like -- be honest and forthright and she will be so in return, lie and she will shove those lies right back down your throat.
Dude. :D What does Cadence get?
3703742 Honestly, Cadence already has the Crystal Heart - an entire city powered by love that is also, taken as a whole, an unimaginably potent magical artifact.
3703816
Yeah, but what can she do with it? :V
3703844 My thought would be it's like her signature spell but on a massive scale. She can make entire races remember why they shouldn't be fighting each other, and defuse that sort of brewing conflict before it starts.
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It would be coolest if she can raise the castle up like it's the central spire of a giant dish array, pointing it at a city and then ZAP :D
So, basically, Twilight gets her own personal Internet. Seems fitting. Wonder if she can leave pages strewn about, or would they lose their magic when removed from the book proper? Or, appear as ordinary parchment until retouched by her magic. Getting a Claire Bible image now.
The Book reminds me Destiny's book from The Sandman – and thus I am reminded of that one time I thought about a Sandman/MLP crossover.