Lyra got out of the coach, back in Canterlot.
Not a week since Twilight and Flash’s wedding, but where she went there as a guest, well now she visited on a mission. In her saddlebag, her prized possession. The book from the Trottingham Library.
She did some small progress on the book as its translation, she found the names of figures and words she knew, like Human, hands, and such, she did work out a got chuck of the language, syllabic, meaning a phonetic writing system consisting of symbols representing syllables. A syllable is often made up of a consonant plus a vowel or a single vowel.
So, this meant she needed to determine not only one possible letter for each character, like in the Equestrian Alphabet, but a pair of one consonant and one vowel, she also needed to determine what these consonants and vowel were, if they matched Equestrian or any ancient pony language, or perhaps a modern one not commonly heard, like Saddle Arabic or Stalliongradian, or the language of the east as reported by Macro Pommel.
But before this, she needed to get a better understanding of the stories, before she could try a translation. And to do this she needed to look for any book, in any library with any information she could use. She already exhausted all the books in the Castle of Friendship, and while Twilight did like the company of an old friend, she even showed Lyra the mirror portal into the other dimension where humans existed and got into a written conversation with Sunset Shimmer. Lyra wished she could someday talk with her human counterpart, did she have an interest in Equestria and its ponies as much as she did with human? If so the hours they could spend just sharing information.
But, as for the reason she went to Canterlot, her father found the story in a book in the Canterlot library with some information which could help her.
Her father, Nelson Shrouds, worked for the Royal Navy, he first learnt about a mythical island continent with a race of bipedal creatures while severing on the high seas. Later he received a desk job and while browsing the library found a little more info on the legend as well as a link to the story of a great maritime disaster befalling one of the greatest figures in Equestrian maritime history.
Initial she didn’t want to research the navy, mostly because her father never stopped going on about the Navy, his toils and struggles in stormy nights against smugglers and pirates. His experiments in projectiles. She got sick of hearing about the never all the time growing up, she sometimes stopped him midsentence by speaking outload what he would about to say, having heard it half-a-million times already, it made her wonder if Bon-Bon felt the same way about her and her constant interest in humans, she did have the feeling of yes.
But her interest could help with formulate a much better ancient history of Equus. And being fair, her father’s work in the Navy did help improve it greatly.
Before Nelson and his colleagues came along the battleships of the Navy used crossbows to fire heavy spears like highspeed battering rams. Nelson and his colleagues developed fireworks munitions. Fired correctly they could see a set of sails on fire, and in fact set the enemy ship on fire.
Initially the Navy rejected to plans for being potential threat. All this red tape, he used to say, kept the Royal Navy stuck in the rut if made for itself, not advancement, troublesome when pirates managed to build their own weapons.
After receiving his desk job, and starting his family, Nelson moved up the ranks and made it to the head table of the Naval command, a Vice-Admiral of the Fleet, thus with the authority he could restart the munitions plans and get them approved, almost overnight the pirate problems more than halved, but as pirates got craftier, so did Nelson, he developed the Naval Surveillance and Espionage Corps to infiltrate, obverse and cause sabotage if need be.
On a side note when Lyra said she entered a relationship with Bon-Bon, or rather Secret Agent Sweetie Drops, her father told her a secret, to start the NSEC he worked with both the Third Regiment of Hoof, due to their history with the Commandos and the secret agency Sweetie used to work for, he’d even met her once or twice at meeting, and the pair of mares’ relation, while unorthodox, he approved.
Lyra would want to talk with Bon-Bon when she got back, how many secrets did she keep? Right now, she focused on finding the book her father referred to as holding required secrets. She took out a load of book on maritime disasters and look at the indexes of great figures, she decided to look at pre-naval history, since her father insistently said maritime, not naval, so a disaster happened over two-hundred and fifty years ago, and presumably the older the better. She found a couple of great figures but only one matched her father’s brief discussion.
Other disasters included one of the greatest shipwrecks, the Medusa, captained by Vis-countess Castlemane, a mare with previous maritime experience, but not actually been to sea for twenty prior to her appointment, she and her crew went on a trading port in Saddle Arabia along with several ponies wishing to make a new life in the exotic country. However, Castlemane misjudged the maps and sailed the most direct route, dangerously close to the shore, where there were many sandbars and reefs, a month into the voyage the ship ran aground, and the weather conditions made it impossible to re-float her.
Plans were proposed to use the ship’s launches to ferry the passengers and crew to the shore, about 30 miles away, which would have taken two boat trips. Instead a raft got built, hastily and poorly with not steering, Castlemane and her crew got into the launches and would tow the raft with the passengers to shore. But, the crew of the boats soon realised towing the raft proved impractical and began to fear being overwhelmed by the desperate survivors on the raft. They decided to cut the ropes, leaving the raft and its occupants to their fate.
Stormy weather threatened, and only the centre of the raft was secure. Dozens died either in fighting to get to the centre, or because they got washed overboard by the waves. Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day only sixty-seven remained alive on the raft when they were picked up and brought to the very port they initially wanted to go to.
When news reached Equestria it became a scandal. Castlemane and her crew got ordered back for trial, conducted be Princess Celestia herself, found guilty of incompetent and complacent navigation and of abandoning the Medusa before all her passengers left the ship, and abandoning the raft, life imprisonment, minimum of ten years, maximum of twenty. And Castlemane got striped of her titles and since being without children and an only child the Viscount Castlemane became extinct, the lands belong to it became property of Princess Celestia, as per the rules of Equestrian nobility, all extinct titles revert to the ruling monarch.
Lyra got side-tracked by this story but found the one her father talked about.
The book read ‘Sir Bold Star of Sagittarius Hall, the last captain of the ill-fated Alicorn. The ship left Bridle City Port in the year 676 of Celestia’s Reign to explore the waters and possible lands west of the South Luna Ocean. Possibly to find an alternative route of the legendary east settlements, such as the rumoured Stalliongrad and the lands spoken by Meadowbrook and Macro Pommel, without going through the contested Griffon and Dragon Lands, and the hazardous Bug Beat Territory. Others theorise the voyage was also to find any possible evidence the mythological island continent and, or city state of Metropolis and, or Utopia, sometime referred to as Paradise Lost.
‘The last voyage of the Alicorn has become one of the most ruinous and infamous journeys in maritime history. Ship never returned, attacked by pirates, all hooves lost expect for one survivor. When Sir Bold was rescued, after being stranded on an island for almost two years, and returned home, where he was convinced his name had been cursed.
‘The manifest Alicorn stated it was empty of cargo and Sir Bold kept up this claim. But, it has been long claimed the ship carried a secret cargo.’
Lyra narrowed her eyes at this, filing it away as something to ask her father she turned the page.
‘Historians have tried and failed to discover what happened on that fatal voyage. What the crew might have discovered. But Sir Bold’s last words “Only a true Star will discover the secret of the Alicorn.” To this day no descendent of the Marine Knight has ever decided to venture out and discover the secret, possibly out of the belief of the curse upon their name. Princess Celestia herself has banned any such endeavour to do so without a Star leading the voyage. So, the secret will remain hidden until a time when hearts and minds changed and courage, not fear with motivate a Star once more.’
Lyra shut the book, while it did give her three possible names to the island of her childhood dreams, her mind currently focused on this secret. Could the Alicorn have found the island of Metropolis, Utopia or Paradise Lost? And did the pirates stop them before they could return with evidence? It would be something to consider in the future.
She then tapped her hoof on her chin “Star? Star? Why does that name sound familiar?” She took out a notebook and wrote down her findings.
A noise came from behind her. She looked around. Nothing. So, she shut the book and put it back into place. As she put the other back she glanced up, and jumped back.
A pair of glowing yellow eyes stared at her, they widened and disappeared. Lyra turned to where they went and saw a shadow of a pony, without a figure travel down the edge of the shelves. She gulped and followed, she could sense unusual magic coming off the thing, not dark magic, just nothing she ever came across before. She ran to keep up.
The shadow slide onto the floor. Lyra made out the billowing of a hooded cloak. Her eyes widened ‘Is this the Pony of Shadow?’, why in Canterlot? The myth said it roamed the ruined Castle of the Two Sisters.
The shadow turned and Lyra saw the shape of a horn, a Unicorn, and the more angular muzzle suggested a stallion. The shadow disappeared under a wall. Lyra stopped and peered down, a small, almost unnoticeable gap between the wall’s bottom and the floor, she then traced the gap into the masonry up long the wall. A secret door.
Now Lyra began to wonder about the history of Canterlot. The capital of Equestria used to the be the royal capital of the Unicorn Kingdom, but not the largest city, Whinnychester, seen for several centuries by the Unicorns as the de facto capital, and by the Pegasi during their occupation two-thousand years before, Whinnychester got destroyed after a failed rebellion. After the Pegasi Empire, no real name for it existed, collapsed, Canterlot become the capital of the Unicorn Kingdom, the home of King Bullion, father of Princess Platinum, one of the Founders of Equestria. Platinum in her own castle during the Great Winter.
The Unicorn Monarchy in Equestria soon became defunct with the coronations of Princess Celestia and Luna, in fact, little record of the Unicorn Royal Family the House of Rare Metal, name after its founder, disappeared in a few generation. Quite why no-pony knew, one of the great mysterious of Equestria, how the family of one its founders disappeared without a trace.
Canterlot being an ancient city, it constant got destroyed and rebuilt, so perhaps the older areas, and the secret passageways just ended up forgotten. Now the cliché of secret passageway is the book on a self, and Lyra currently stood in a library, hidden in plain sight. The next part to figure out his which book, if any.
Now the most obvious place to put it would be easily in reach, but, then whoever made the door would think of this so they would probably put it one shelf above or below the most accessible shelves, Lyra then paused, what if they thought of a double bluff? So, she started from the top down.
After about five minutes, she really needed to get a watch, in fact, what time was it? She looked about and found here area of the library empty, and she looked out a nearby window, catching the moon just raising, her eyes widened “How long have I been here?” she exclaimed, as quietly as she could. The old librarian here really did like peace and quiet, indeed the extension of the library took so long, because whenever the carpenter hammered in the nail every-pony shushed him.
Not seeing where her hoof went it touched a book and something clicked. Then another thing clacked and clattered. Lyra, drawn by the sounds turned around and found the secret door opening. She gulped, she didn’t know what would happened, but it she didn’t go in now she may never know, and she loved a good mystery. Maybe because of this, she found herself drawn to Bon-Bon, after she revealed herself and Lyra calmed down she found the mystery behind her friend quite appealing, and it would be her to bring out the answers.
The secret door opened to a fleet of stairs. She put on hoof on the step, then another, she braced herself as he placed her back hooves on the step. A momentary shudder and she sighed in relief. Gingerly still, she made her way down the stairs, winds blew passed her. A loud slam. The corridor went black. Lyra charged her horn for an illumination spell and looked back. No way back for now, only one way to go.
As she continued down, she felt forces against her. She heard whispers in the wind. She felt unnerved, but continued. The unusual magical presence grew the further went down, she knew she must be getting closer to the Pony of Shadows. She felt something under her hoof. She looked down. A scarlet thread and a gold rope travelled along the steps and continued up the way she came. She smelt incense and her heart started beating faster, her mind started wandering and wondering, she shook herself, it felt as if her very being tried to cleanse itself. She set her goal on reaching the bottom.
She did however look back up at the stairs again, she felt like she’d travelled her about a mile, and yet she didn’t feel colder as she must’ve entered the inside of Mount Canter, nor did she fell warming getting closer to the centre of the world.
Lyra began looking from left to right at the walls of her descending passageway. Filled with symbol she never saw before in her life, and she knew could never interpret even in her wildest dreams. In fact, the closer she looked at the symbol the more they seemed to shift and differ from what see originally saw, and indeed, fade into nothing but wall, trying to work out the out made her eyes hurt.
The bare stone gave way to panels of wood, it looked a lot like the wood of some of the oldest buildings in Ponyville, per sources the early citizen of the town used wood cut from the Everfree Forest, leading to quick getaways when Timberwolves arrived. Even after a hundred years the wood did not rot, and given the history of Canterlot, these panels must be far older, and yet they looked a to be in good quality, in fact, better than some of the types of wood readily available in shops today. Of course, she would suggest chopping the forest down, it would be suicidal given what lived there.
Yes, the restored Tree of Harmony meant a calmer Everfree Forest, Fluttershy stated she once searched the whole of it looking for Pinkie Pie, but given her position and being an Element barrier perhaps the forest gave her a free pass. So, you couldn’t be sure with the forest as it is.
The forces pushing her continued and grew, she slowed as she felt it, the winds became fiercer, the magical presence became more chaotic. Lyra felt more nervous, but she knew she needed to press on, she didn’t know if she could go back the way she came, plus if she did discover the Pony of Shadow, she needed to know what threat it might have on Canterlot.
Thinking about the Pony of Shadows she suddenly looked about act the dark areas of walls, not easy when her illumination spell literally brought light into the matter. But she realised the shadow pony could be anywhere, she kept a look out for those glowing yellow eyes and the hooded cloak.
Thunder crashed. Lyra jumped. Light flashed. She squinted and looked ahead. A small storm cloud hung over a closed down. Lyra took a step forward. The lightning cracked. And hit the floor before the door at the bottom of the stairs.
On the floor appeared a bunch of letters, ancient Unicorn, abandoned after the invention of the modern Equestrian alphabet, based on Pony Latin. Ancient Unicorn, straight uniform, virtually no curves, written as if in blocks. Some letters repeated but with other markings like a group of dots or a line, and sometimes a combination.
Lyra looked at it confused ‘Secret passageways, powerful forces, voice in the wind, mini storm clouds, floor with ancient letters, this is like Daring Do meets the Silver Enlightenment.’ Lyra never once read the Holy Books, but a classmate in the School for Gifted Unicorns, Minuette, used to lecture her on the powers of God, a lot of what she just witnessed match the powers as seen in the Old Testament.
But how did the Pony of Shadows get passed this? Surely if what Minuette said about her God, he, or whatever this god happened to be, should have seen the shadow pony. Still she needed to get across. Too wide to jump. So far, she seemed to be within a Daring Do novel, so most like she would next to step across a certain number of these letters to make a word. But what word? In one of Miss Yearling’s novels it would probably be a name.
Lyra blinked “A name, the name of God.” If she understood Minuette correctly there were three aspects of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. She looked at the letters on the floor, they wouldn’t make Silver Light, so it must be the name of the Father, Minuette said no one knew the true name, but the Father carried a title, the name he used when he spoke to the Patriarch, supposedly the common ancestry of the Unicorns, indeed they took their race name, Unicorn from the Patriarch’s grandson, to whom God also used this title or name, the word Elohim.
Lyra looked at the letters of ancient Unicorn, she didn’t know a lot about the old written dialect of Unicorns, but Minuette did make her spell out Elohim in the language, much to her own annoyance. First, she needed to find the letter, Alpha.
Alpha in ancient Unicorn is different from Alpha in Pegasolopitan. In ancient Unicorn, it is merely a long vowel maker, used for pronunciation, such as the A in mate, or the I in twine. So, since Elohim started with a long E she needed an Alpha, and if she remembered she needed to small dots above the letter, as vowels are written over the consonant which follows them, and it being the last letter of the word under the letter before it.
The letters were spaced out, generally, in a grid of five across and roughly ten down. She the Alpha with the two dots, on the stone second across, three up. Just large enough for her the stand on. The letter Lambda for L next, she found it one row ahead and in the fifth column. She looked for an H, Heta with the markings for an O, something which looked like a tiny capital T, three up, the seventh row. One final letter, Mu with a single dot for a short I, on the fourth column, on the ninth row. However, too small for her to stand on all fourth. She reared up. Leaped. Her right hoof just hit the back edge, almost touching the letter behind it. She sighed with relief and she jumped to the door. The door opened.
Lyra walked into the next room. A prefect cube of 20 feet in length, width and height. The room shone with golden panels, Lyra let her spell go and looked for the score of light, a small window near the top, letting in the light of the moon.
The most immediate feature, a tree growing in the centre, not an unusual tree, just a tree. The distinguishing feature, a deep cut, as some-pony put a long blade into it.
“So, thou have arrived.” Said a baritone voice. Lyra turned around.
Sitting in a corner of the room the hooded figure poured out some tea “Please, refresh thyself, this Ruthenium is dined such pleasure in one’s current state.”
Lyra blinked with tilted head and a raised eyebrow, the figure, named Ruthenium she assumed spoke as weirdly as Princess Luna when she came for the Nightmare Night after her restoration from Nightmare Moon. She did feel thirsty so she walked up and took the cup, she glanced up the hood and noted what little of figure she could see.
As before, a male Unicorn. Dark coat, his neat mane and tail, black with cobalt blue streaks. His eyes, while mainly a greyish sap green carried the glowing amber around the edges. His cloak also looked refined, a rich red with ermine around the edges.
Lyra suddenly dropped her tea. The light amber magic caught it before it either spilt or splashed “Do try to back careful, it is hard for this Ruthenium to create fine ceramics in one’s present state.”
Lyra simply back up “But, your, you look like, Twilight…”
Ruthenium sighed “Thou are correct, for a time, this Ruthenium was, and is known as Sombra.”
Lyra back up to the tree. Out of the crack in the trunk an arm of magic, black engulfed in a vivid violet haze with a light brilliant green edge. It turned to Lyra underneath it and lowered itself.
From the table, Ruthenium’s eyes widened. His horn charged.
A shield above Lyra in the light amber magic. On the shield a glowing box, above the box a crown. Lyra glanced up and her eyes widened. The box, rectangular, with rings at the corners and staff through then, on the lid two human-like creatures, she could make out the head, but their bodies concealed by a pair of wings extended out along the length of the top. The crown, a simple band, with three visible vertical stalks with three circles at the top arranged like a clover. One face directly forward, the other two visible from their sides.
The black magic smacked against the shield and dissipated.
Ruthenium stood up and walked towards the shield his eyes glowing like his magic “Be gone, then, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He moved his head and with the tip of his horn made the sign of the cross “Give place to the Holy Spirit by this sign of the holy cross,” he made the sign again “of our Lord Silver Light, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.”
The shield brightened further and the black magic disappeared in fire. The crack in the trunk smouldered with ash inside.
Ruthenium held his head up high “Amen.”
Lyra blinked “Sombra, Silver Enlightened?”, Ruthenium nodded and returned to his chair and table “This Ruthenium should explain.”, Lyra gingerly joined him, her eyes narrowed in thought “Wasn’t that crown the symbol of the House of Rare Metal, the Unicorn Royal Family?”
Ruthenium nodded “This Ruthenium was the last member, thou would be most familiar with this Ruthenium’s grandmother.”, Lyra looked down and tapped her hoof to her chin “The only Unicorn Royal I can think of is,” she blinked and looked up “Princess Platinum!”, Ruthenium simply nodded.
“But, that would mean, you were.”
“Born here in Canterlot? Yes, did thou assume this Ruthenium originated in the Crystal Empire, a nation predominantly populated by a variety of Earth Ponies?”, she blinked “Well, know you say that, I suppose not. But,”
“Yes?”
“How you did, a Prince of the Unicorn Kingdom…”, Ruthenium held up a hoof “By the time this Ruthenium was born, the Kingdom had joined Equestria and bowed to the authority of Princesses Celestia and Luna.”
“No need to be pedantic. Just, I’d like to know how some-pony, like you, Silver Enlightened became the monster known as King Sombra?”
Ruthenium sighed and looked down “This Ruthenium was corrupted.”
“By black magic?”
“By the one all black magic originates from.” He glanced around the room “Does thou know what this room is?”
“No, but it must be important.”
“This is room is what thee would call the Holy of Hollies.”
Lyra’s eyes widened “Minuette said…”
“No-pony but the High Mages may enter?”
“Yes.”
“Not since Silver Light. Baptism cleanses the soul, the piece of God within us all. Giving us the power to enter.”
“But,” Lyra said, “I’m not baptised.”, Ruthenium turned to the door “Then thou must have unlocked the inner sanctuary.”, Lyra turned to look as well “That floor thing was a lock?”
“Only the High Mages knew the name Elohim. Silver Light revealed it to his disciples and thus they passed it on in their letters. But that is beside the point. This Ruthenium has a tale to tell.”
Lyra held up her hoof “Can you stop calling yourself “This Ruthenium”, makes you sound more egotistical than Prince Blueblood.”
“Apologises, this, one was raised to say such, like Princess Luna and the Royal We, it was the way the Unicorn Kings and Queens spoke since the time of Rare Metal. But one’s story is most tragic. This one went searching in the castle, with no Kingdom to rule the House of Rare Metal simply became a ceremonial group, no power and thus a lot of free time. This one discovered the Holy of Hollies, much in the manner thou did, and one discovered the tree.” He glanced to it “Within the tree was a black scythe, it called to this one, and I believe it read in Ancient Unicorn, ‘Whoso pulls this weapon of this sacred tree in this most holy place of God, is right-wise King of’”
“King of what?”
“This one could not tell what it said. But this one now knows it was a trick. This one grew up with the legends of one’s great-grandfather King Bullion, how he pulled his sword from a stone and anvil to become King born of Canterlot. When this one pulled the scythe from the tree a great wave of black magic consumed and trapped this one. Mind no long in command of body,” he gritted his teeth “a demon possessed me.”
“That was Sombra?”
“As thou said, a monster. Sombra transformed this one, animated one’s body. Fled to the Crystal Empire used his dark magic to take over. Only the power of the Crystal Heart weakened him. Princesses Celestia and Luna in their fight with Sombra destroy this one’s body, but the black magic kept this one and Sombra tied.”
“But the Crystal Heart destroyed Sombra.”
“Thou are correct. But this one’s is now just a shadow of what this one used to be, but this one is not the Pony of Shadows, though this one is often confused as such. This one can only exist in places of powerful magic. Here in the Holy of Hollies now my home, where I pray for redemption, or in libraries and restaurants.
“Libraries and restaurants?”
“They have special features which cause them to act differently to the rest of the Universe. L-Space and bistro-maths, this one discovered these concepts while visiting far of places and time, beyond any ponies understand.”
L-Space is short for library space, and is a fantastic phenomenon. It has been said by many wise men, that ‘Knowledge is Power’, though such men usually had a lot of knowledge and very little actual power. Men in power tended to follow a different equation; ‘Power is Power’.
It has been said by certain other wise men, that ‘Power equals energy, equals matter, equals mass.’ And mass distorts space, and time. Equally, it is commonly known that knowledge resides, in a permanent, fixed form, in books.
The resulting L-Space is a pocketed, quantum dimension both superseding and superseded by the ‘true’ universe, as the common layman knows it. L-Space is present wherever an L-Field is being transmitted, say by a vast and uncountable number of books. A good bookshop is just a genteel black hole able to read.
Furthermore, as data (that is; knowledge) cannot be destroyed (for an idea cannot be killed once it has been created), it defies all laws of physics and entropy, and extends beyond the reach of both. Beyond the reach, even, of grey-cloaked beings who, for lack of a better word, delight in the slow, inexorable thudding of one electron into another, as the great wheel turns.
To travel through time personally, to see libraries under different skies, one needs the secrets. As this is a form of interdimensional and time travel, there are strict limits on its use, and the Librarians of Time and Space, those who have access to L-space, have developed three simple rules to ensure abuse is kept to a minimum: Rule one: Silence. Rule two: Books must be returned by the last date stamped. And rule three: Do not interfere with the nature of causality.
“This one would like to visit Stalliongrad, however their library is so small it could only make a portal in L-Space big enough for a mouse.”
Lyra’s head hurt and Ruthenium did not start on Bistro-maths yet, what kind of maths specifically came from a restaurant?
Bistro-maths is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behaviour of numbers. Just as Surround Stone observed time is not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in space, and space is not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in time, it is now realised numbers are not absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in restaurants.
The first non-absolute number is the number of people for whom the table is reserved. This will vary during the first three telephone calls to the restaurant, and then bear no apparent relation to the number of people who turn up, or to the number of people who subsequently join them after the show/match/party/gig, or to the number of people who leave when they see who else has turned up. The second non-absolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now known to be one of those most bizarre of the mathematical concepts, a recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything, other than itself. In other words, the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive.
Recipriversexclusons now play a vital part in many branches of maths, including statistics and accountancy and form the basic equations used to engineer the Somebody Else's Problem field. The third and most mysterious piece of non-absoluteness of all lies in the relationship between the number of items on the check, the cost of each item, the number of people at the table and what they are each prepared to pay for. (The number of people who brought any money is only a sub-phenomenon in this field.) The baffling discrepancies that used to occur at this point remained un-investigated for centuries simply because no one took them seriously. They were at the time put down to such things as politeness, rudeness, meanness, flashiness, tiredness, emotionality or the lateness of the hour, and completely forgotten about on the following morning. They were never tested under laboratory conditions, of course, because they never occurred in laboratories - not in reputable laboratories at least.
And so, only with the advent of pocket computers, something yet to be invented in Equestria, did the startling truth became finally apparent: Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took the scientific world (which is far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy where there lies a small un-regarded yellow sun. The scientific world orbits this at roughly ninety-two million miles, an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.), by storm. It completely revolutionised it. So many mathematical conferences got held in such good restaurants many of the finest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure and the science of math got put back by years.
Lyra head hit the table hard. Ruthenium chuckled “Perhaps it is time thou returned to where thou began.”
Lyra jerked a wake at the table in the library. She looked around, silence, she then turned to the window to see the lower edge of the moon ‘It’s getting late. Mom and Dad will be worried.’ She paused and check her notes. The three possible names Metropolis, Utopia and Paradise Lost, and the name of the ship the Alicorn. She smiled and put her notebook back in her saddlebag.
She felt a pain in her head as she moved it, somehow, she got a migraine. She tried to think, something told her she should speak with Minuette about the Silver Enlightenment, another thought about the power of words and the weird numbers involved in restaurants. She shook herself ‘Must have been one weird dream, may be Bon-Bon was right, you might have been working too hard Lyra.’
Slowly she got up and walked away. Not noticing the shadow forming behind her and a pair of glowing amber eyes, and a small chuckled in the air.