It was a funny little habit that raised more than a few eyebrows of the newer staff, the studying of etymology for pleasure; of course, if one would consider the duration and evolution of languages and were willing to take a few liberties by bringing to life those aspects, for one of her age it ceases to be a labor and instead becomes closer to a masquerade, where old friends wear new masks.
Yet another instance in which Twilight had taken after her teacher, Celestia supposed.
This sort of analysis honestly wasn’t too dissimilar to what her little sister did, trying to make up a thousand years worth of advancements, from literary classics to filmography to music, in the span of a few months; the only difference, as far as Celestia could tell, was the specificity of the examination, a trait she was lax to admit carried over to both sister’s work lives.
Her little sister had always been a bit more . . . big picture, and tended to not quite sweat the smaller details; the fourteen different arrangements of stars over the course of the last month was a testament to that fact.
I think she was up to the Romantics, a stray thought seemed to engrave upon her mind before she flicked it out of her head with a shake.
Meanwhile, she could spot the twisted meaning of a word from twenty paces and, more often than not, had found herself cheerfully exploiting this particular knack whilst wading through the vast seas of minutiae that constituted legal drudgery. That being said, her capacity to see how all those little parts interacted had deteriorated into what the generously truthful might call ‘utter trash,’ if some of her more recent forays into conflict were any indication.
But enough of that. Today the word was ‘History’, and it thrummed with a sort of honest vivacity that few of the aristocratic types she interacted with could hope to imitate. It was like a pony with a thousand pasts, but, unbelievably, all of them were simultaneously true.
A yawn, suffocated by something, echoed through the room even as various tomes were cracked open to spill forth knowledge.
Perhaps an hour passed before Celestia broke her out of her admittedly cursory study, if only because restraint was something to be practiced; a trait, admittedly, she wished she could elucidate her student on, but who was she to judge others for their minor foibles?
Another garbled yawn, and she finds that while, as a princess, she isn’t the sort to criticize her subjects for their flaws, as a sister she is quite capable of pointing out the myriad reasons to not fall asleep on a book; furthermore, a rapidly more flustered voice in her mind observes, one should not be drooling on. . . is that a first edition?
A great many scientists (and probably quite a few guards, servants, and an assorted assembly of random Canterlot inhabitants as well) would have cheerfully traded beloved worldly possessions simply to witness the seemingly impossible rotational speed generated by what should have been a basic torque spell as it physically propelled the moon princess upwards, snoring all the while, even as an aura of magic snatched the half-drenched book from its location atop a pillow and hurled it to the ground. Then, a great deal more gently, the aura caught the smaller princess and set her where she originally lay; not that it’s too different from dunking her in water, the older princess thought to herself wanly as the pillow softly squelched under the weight.
Finally, Celestia glanced at the cover of the book she had so heroically saved. A mildly irritated moment passed as she contemplated putting it right back where she had found it.
Didn’t even get the name right, an errant thought pointed out with more than an edge of bitterness, before she squashed it with logic. After all, if the story is entirely inaccurate, then, surely, the individuals who are within it should be as inaccurate or fictional as well? She tossed the idea around for a few moments, testing it, before she nodded and said aloud, “That’s not going to work.” Then, “Wake up, sister; the sun sets soon.”
In the harsh chill of the ever-present white light she was very nearly invisible, as was all else that dared enter the blizzard; but for the steadily growing pillar of black stone and the gentle red flicker of candlelight that emanated from the windows, there would have been no direction, and, for the two guards flanking her and walking together in the sort of step that proceeds frostbite, no hope of survival. For the first time in three hundred years, she felt the grasp of mortal desperation, but paired with it was an unsettling irritation that caused her nigh-indestructible molars to grind against one another; to ask for assistance from an exile, even if it wasn’t for herself, was a disgrace, as her sister would no doubt remind her of.
Luna’s gone, murmurs a thoughts she quickly shakes out of her head, even though it causes the saddlebag filled with frozen letters to crackle slightly. And yet, not quite removed swiftly enough; a chill spreads, albeit tenuously, to her chest, and it is enough to tell her that this is the echo of an Old Winter. To have allowed the original courier on this journey would have been to send them to their death, she was now certain.
She redoubles her pace even as her wings stretch out, fighting the wind to half-carry and half-guide her two guards closer to her.
It is with a brutality not seen in three centuries that she carves a swathe through the multitude of wards a Celestia three decades younger had put in place, roughly slams her shoulder against the door of the tower, and when that fails to open the ancient gate, smashes it inwards with only the tinkling of ice and a departing blast of heat to herald her arrival.
The wind howls as the Alicorn immediately locked eyes with a withered yet proud looking unicorn, who, if the book and cup of tea beside him are any indication, had been reading prior to her arrival; it is a short-lived challenge, however, as his gaze flicks downwards at the two shivering guards and he let out a sigh of . . . honestly, she isn’t even sure if it could be called consternation, as it has a great deal too much poorly hidden delight in it for that conclusion to make sense.
“Honest Cup,” she says, half in greeting, half in warning.
“Your majesty, I’ve not, mhm, got a tub for two, but I’ll see if I can make do. If you can, mhm, heat some snow or ice, maybe that’ll suffice,” he mumbles half to himself and half to her; she nods shortly in reply, and the old unicorn trots over to a set of downward sloping stairs even as she seals the entrance against the chill, scoops a nebulous lump of intruding snow with her magic, and begins converting it to water with sheer magical will.
In a quiet portion of her mind that is still operating on cold logic, she is simultaneously reassured and disturbed at the stallion’s cutie mark. On one hand, he literally has a pony skull and crossbones for a cutie mark. On the other. . .
She spends a moment trying to justify her initial feeling of reassurance only to conclude that it was entirely unfathomable. She glances at the book he had been reading to try and stifle the ‘worst case scenario’ her imagination is already cooking up.
“Zebra literature?” she says aloud, the bemusement clear on her voice.
“Supposedly, mhm, the rhyming does the mind good, at least for learning languages and such,” the stallion replies, as his wavering magic struggles to carry a stone bowl that looks to be twice his own size, at least. He pauses, breathing heavily when he finally manages to push it vaguely underneath the lump of now steaming water the princess has contained in her magic, and mumbles, “Darn it. Been, mhm, trying to rhyme everything I say for the last few days.”
“Oh?” She replies, as she gently sloshes the water into the bowl; briefly, she sends a tendril of magic to peel the armor off her guards, but the old stallion vigorously shaking his head causes her to halt for a moment.
“May have, mhm, frozen onto them. Storms are colder than they ought to be when they get like this, but, eh, it happens. Something to do, mhm, with the fragmented magic of the Wendigos, perhaps. Dunno if you wanna have them nicknamed Patchy and, mhm, something-something-pithy-remark, but I suggest we dump ‘em in, as is.”
“C-c-can’t,” mutters the Pegasus guard (Cirrus Shield supplies one of Celestia's tangential thoughts helpfully), even as lumps of ice literally crackle off her wing-feathers in sheets, “M-might m-mess up the armor. M-make it rust.”
“Mhm, thankfully you’re not allowed to make decisions right now,” replies Honest Cup cheerfully, even as he turns to Celestia and whispers, conspiratorially, “Snow madness, messes with their brains something fierce. Just dump them in the water. The armor’ll rust, but, eh, better that then losing the wings. Or other bits,” he concluded darkly, as he gestured towards the other, younger, stallion unicorn who seemed dead set on not ruining his armor.
For not the first time in her life, and for what she was suspecting wouldn’t be the last, Celestia grasped two softly pleading ponies and gently dropped them into the water.
She hadn’t expected the screaming.
Clearly, neither had Cup.