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// 18 - Hitting the Books 
// Story: Fading Suns: A New World 
// by David Silver 
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Cheerilee set down the letter. "You read that quite well. I'm glad to see our lessons are paying off."

"I'm in a better place for them." Laud clasped his hands together a moment. "Do you know Princess Luna?"

Cheerilee shook her head slowly. "I only met her, mmm, twice come to think of it." She reached out with a hoof and pulled over a small book. "I'd like you to read this. It will be informative as well."

Laud accepted the book from the pony that seemed to be utterly devoid of any magic, psionics, or other supernatural gift but that of education. He put his new equine reading talents to work on its cover. It appeared to be a book of myths and fables. "Why would this be relevant?"

"You should start on page one hundred and twenty two." She pointed at the book with the end of a hoof. "It is quite relevant to you."

He flipped quickly towards the target page. "Tell me, how far back does your history reach?"

"Oh, that is a pointed question." She frowned with the thought of it. "I'm no history expert. I teach enough to get the foals on their hooves and not making fools of themselves... Mmm, the oldest thing... maybe a few thousand years?"

Another mirror! His own people had trouble recalling much that happened more than a few thousand years prior. "I see..." He did not feel the need to share his discovery. He found the named page. "The tale of the Mare in the Moon." He hiked a brow at it. "I don't recall seeing any such shapes in the moon."

"There used to be." Cheerilee pointed up at where the moon could be. "It was quite obvious. Twilight knows about it if you doubt me, but it was part of the sky for a thousand years before it stopped being so. Read the story. That's your homework." She made a little dismissive wave of a hoof, signalling an end of their lesson.

Laud rose from his seat, which didn't seem like it would be that comfortable for the ponies that usually enjoyed it. "Thank you. I will have to pause our lessons while I go to see the princess."

"Just let me know when you come back." She was trotting over to the chalkboard and picked up a bit with her mouth. She began dutifully drawing with it.

Laud couldn't help but watch her work. She was much more how what he would expect, if that word could be used, an intelligent horse to behave, like the ones he had actually seen behaved. She made do with her limited biology. "Miss Cheerilee?"

"Mm?"

"May I assist?"

She set down the chalk and turned to him, looking perplexed a moment before a smile appeared. "If you'd like."

Laud got in some more penmanship training in the equine language and assisted the teaching pony. It seemed an efficient use of his time for the moment.

He emerged from the schoolhouse later, confident that the chalk fit more comfortably in his fingers than it did clenched between her teeth, even if... it meant he had to pretend to not notice it had been slightly dampened for the time it had spent in her mouth. He had his book to read, or at least one tale in it. He wondered what it could have to do with the current Princess, even if her name seemed to be related to moons.

"Hey." A calm voice brought his attention down to where Maud stood beside his path. "I want to show you something." She turned away from him and walked as if completely confident he would follow her without further prompting.

She was, in the end, correct. He did want to see what she was offering. He hurried to reach her side and matched her pace. "What have you managed, Miss Pie?"

Her lips twitched faintly, as if considering a smile, but it never came. "Not many call me that. Maud, or Doctor, or Rocktor, will do. Pinkie will be happy if you use that last one." She led the way to her cavern that rested just outside of town. She was a bit of a hermit, preferring solitude much of the time, but she liked company as well, in controlled doses. "I decided to start at the beginning. Before I can understand the nature of your metal, I had to master its creation." Ah, mineralogy. It was one of the only things that could get her talking energetically. "So, I built a forge for the project." The heat of the forge could be felt, warming the caverns noticeably.

It also wasn't silent, like a slumbering dragon, breathing softly but so loudly. She turned the corner into what was clearly the forge room. "Look." She trotted right past the burning metal oven and plucked up a length of metal and swung it around towards Laud. It had no edge. It was literally a long bar of metal. "It matches your sword."

Laud crouched down to have a better look at it and he reached for it much like Maud had once done to his own blade. It felt firm, but it would take more than a casual touch to know the quality of steel. It appeared right. It glistened in the light, but how could he properly test it. "May I?" She released the block and he stood up fully with it in his grip. It was roughly the size of a sword, but it was a simple length of metal. It was not made to serve the purpose. He was no smith. He could only think of one test. He stepped towards the closest wall and gave it a swing, wincing in preparation. There was no way the collision of metal on stone would feel nice on his hands.

The sound was a great crashing clang. He was forced to drop the length to the ground, his fingers throbbing from the violent impact. The bar was mostly intact for the effort. Some damage had occurred, but that was hardly a mark against it. No sword should be used against stone. It hadn't cracked or bent, simply scored with where the stone had refused to give up to the approach of entirely blunt metal. "Very nice, but can you actually make things with it?" He nudged the bar with a foot. "Bars will only get you so far."

Maud approached and picked up the bar with a hoof in the unnatural way that some ponies did without effort. With a casual toss, she lobbed it into a bin. "I am not a smith. I will get other ponies to do that. The other rocks I found are more... particular." She reached for a second block and set it down in front of Laud.

Laud had no idea what metal it was... It looked far more like a brick than an ingot. It was stone-like but had a bit of shine to it. It had a rough texture. "What manner of rock is this, and why did you make it?"

"Your ship used a lot of this." She sat just in front of it. "Especially in the parts Twilight thought were magic." She rested a hoof on it. "I couldn't say exactly what purpose it served, but knowing how to isolate and create it was the first thing I did. Much of the other parts used obvious things: gold, copper, and other simple metals. Some parts I am still working to decipher." She tapped at the block in front of her. "This is one thing, silicon. I had thought it might be an alloy, but it wasn't. Its natural form is an alloy, and it must be refined to get the silicon out." She blinked her large lashes. "Do you understand?"

He didn't. He was no metallurgist by far. "You've come a remarkable distance in a short amount of time."

She pointed at him. "You have too."

"Mm?"

"You learned our language quickly." She nodded her head as she rose up to her hooves. "That's all I have to show right now. I will continue working. With luck, I will build you a new ship to replace the one that broke."

He wanted to say that that was impossible. He wanted to. He couldn't. She just might do it. "I look forward to seeing what you manage. Do you know Princess Luna?"

"Only a little. Why?" She lifted the metal cube and set it down in the bin where the steel had gone.

He gave his hands a shake, the ache fading from his, perhaps foolish, test. "I'm to meet her to discuss a grave matter."

"Good luck." Her voice didn't rise or lower, which was normal for her.

He would get no help on that non-metal issue from her. It didn't involve rocks, so was beyond her immediate knowledge. That was fine, she was a specialist, and good at what she did. "Thank you, Rocktor, for showing this to me." He waved towards the flaming beast of a machine. "I look forward to seeing what else comes from your efforts."

"Rocks." She turned to the machine and trotted over to begin using it, as if she had answered the question admirably. "See you later."

He left the place of warm humidity back into the crisp air of the afternoon. What season was it? He guessed it was late summer or early fall. The sun felt nice, and the wind was cool. It was a good time of year, by his estimation. He set his sights on taking a short walk through the town. After learning, a little time to unwind seemed the right course of action.

The ponies he saw seemed to be warming to his presence. They waved when they saw him instead of avoiding eye contact. Some even called out his name in greeting with varying levels of success. He did not hold their stumbles against them. Even hearing their equine throats trying their best was enough to please Laud. Besides, he was a source of equal awkwardness with every single word of their language. It would not do for him to be overly expecting in return.

He thought of his translator, left to collect dust in Twilight's castle. If he had any programming skill, it would do quite well to reduce his stumbles over the inhuman sounds.

"Hey!" It was the same word Maud had used, but used in an entirely different way. Lyra had found him and looked happy to see him. "You're not running to or from anywhere, are ya?"

"I am enjoying the day." He smiled at the perky unicorn. "Is something on your mind?"

"Only my horn," she said in a joking tone. "What's that?" She pointed a hoof at the book he held even as her horn began to glow, forming an image of a human hand, a finger extended at the book.

"When did you learn this sorcery?" Laud's eyes were fixed on the spectral hand that pointed in his direction.

"Oh this?" She reached up and the hand came down, balling into a fist and giving her a hoofbump. "You inspired it! Isn't it great? I mean, I didn't invent it or anything, if that's what you meant, but I asked Twilight and she found it for me. Turns out this was just laying around without anyone using it. Now that's a crime if you ask me."

"Twilight has... many sorceries then?"

Lyra gave a short half-laugh. "You don't know the half of it. I mean, I did ask her, then she pointed me to her student, Starlight. You know her? Well she dug this up really quick and we learned it together. Turns out Starlight loves learning new spells." Lyra sat and tapped at her chin as the spectral hand moved to tap at the other side of it. "Oh, wow, that feels weird. Anyway! What's in the book?"

Before that unnerving hand could get to pointing again, Laud showed the cover of the book to Lyra. "A book of fables and myths."

Lyra clapped her hooves together and the hand snapped its fingers in unison. "Oh, right! I remember that one now. We all read that back in the day. It's practically a requirement for any foal. Wow, it's been a long time. You're a little old for that though, aren't you?"

"One is never too old to learn." He tucked the book away. Then, an idea, a delightful idea hit him. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you, but I need to talk to Starlight."

"Can I come?"