//------------------------------// // 67 - Goodbye Summer, Hello New Friends - Part Four // Story: Letters From a Little Princess Monster // by Georg //------------------------------// Letters From a Little Princess Monster Goodbye Summer, Hello New Friends - Part Four Princess Luna was a big fan of getting to work on problems at the earliest opportunity, and not schluffing them off on her sister, like some other unnamed ponies she was considering at the moment. After all, Trixie had stood up to take responsibility in Ponyville in a way that had cost Luna five hard-earned bits to Celestia’s well-planned bet. Luna had taken it as an example of how well Celestia understood her former student, and how little Luna actually understood about Trixie, right up until the point where Celestia admitted a disconcerting fact. For the last ten years, Celestia had to constantly watch her language around Trixie to keep from calling her ‘Luna’ by accident. Luna had objected. Celestia had countered by running down a list of shared personality characteristics that made her seriously wonder if perhaps there actually were some relations to the Lulamoon genealogy in her family bush⁽*⁾, despite the improbability of it all. In any event, Celestia explained how Trixie passing along her issue with the stuck dragon and the zebra Imetabiriwa, was a ‘big deal’ because of how rare it was to have Trixie admit something was beyond her abilities and ask for help from her friends. It was mostly because up until this point, Trixie did not have friends, and much like Luna had discovered when trying to ride Celestia’s unicycle yesterday, simply having something did not give one the ability to use it correctly. (*) The visual terminology of using trees for family relationship diagrams struck Luna as irrational. Bush bifurcation and branch tangling resembled proper pony relationship diagrams much more accurately. The afternoon flight to Ponyville, although short, gave Luna some time to think about serious topics that had been disturbing her recently. As infantile as it sounded, she missed having Miss Smarty Pants to talk with on topics of great importance, such as the one that was bothering her now. Over the last few days as Luna had checked, all of the ponies in Canterlot, from the most noble down to the lowest floor sweeper in the castle, had been universally accepting of her dark past. It brought up a more serious concern that would become even more important over the long term. The ponies of Equestria, as well as her newfound friends, and… somewhat more than friends, were all mortals. Memory being what it was in mortals, the dark legacy of Nightmare Moon would eventually fade into a holiday for candy over the centuries until none would remember the true meaning of it but herself, and perhaps not even that. Without the unbreakable sentinel of memory, Luna could find herself sliding back into her previous dark habits. Forgetting mistakes was easy to do, which is why Luna had been… researching some of the same forbidden spells she had used to create Nightmare Moon. Not seriously, of course. Just to explore a theory about creating a persistent dream-essence which would remind her of the consequences of the poor decision she had made so long ago. Celestia would become all upset if she found out, which was why Luna had not told her. Cadence, likewise. Twilight Sparkle might find a way to bring such a dream-creature to life, so Luna had no intentions of telling her either. Trixie, however… As Luna approached Ponyville, she put the idea behind her for the time being. It would wait for now. She touched down outside of the library, which as the letter had explained, had most of a dragon sticking out of it, and when she went inside, the rest of the dragon. It was indeed an impressive female drake, just as different from every other dragon that Luna had ever met, but she always had appreciated the ones that were both furry and scaled. The dissimilar features made for such an impressive contrast, and this one had a flowing green river of long pale hairs like both a silky beard and a mane along her soft golden scales, making her look beautiful in the dim light of the library and quite graceful, despite being stuck. “Luna!” squeaked Twilight Sparkle, jumping to her hooves from behind a bookshelf and scurrying over. For such a small alicorn, she had an impressive hug, making Luna’s ribs creak. “This is—” Twilight paused and licked her lips with an expression of intense concentration, making her words come out one syllable at a time “—Vorel’aurix-levethuix Maekrix-book-rasvim, of the Northern Provinces. This is Princess Luna, of Canterlot, Princess of Equestria and…” She looked up with those big purple eyes and Luna could not help but smile. “Do not be concerned about my list of titles. A full recitation could take hours. Now, please allow me to speak with your guest.” ~ ~ ✶ ~ ~ Trixie was contemplating zebracide. Oh, not for the entire race. Just the annoying ones. She figured that would leave two or three breeding pairs in the whole country, at best, which Celestia would appreciate. She liked her diversity, after all, and keeping a few zebra around to remind other ponies how obnoxious they were would count toward that goal. The housing crisis Trixie was facing right now was really one that Trixie had caused. After all, Trixie had brought the five zebra into town, so she was responsible for them. Trixie was the mayor, and that made her responsible for the zebra too. Trixie was also technically the primary magic tutor for the Imetabiriwa na Anga, the name which the zebra insisted on calling Twilight, and that made Trixie responsible yet again. It was a lot more responsibility than Trixie was really comfortable with. While sober. Although she sounded quite happy about having her husband back, Zecora had no interest in having the other five Imetabiriwa stay in her hollow tree. She claimed the police officer and the decryption specialist looking over her zebra library were two ponies too many, anyway. The Cakes did not want the five zebra staying in their residence/business either, no matter how well the twins got along with their ibex servants or how much Pinkie Pie begged. The library was full of dragon, so that was a bust. Besides, Spike and his new friend were having a Ogres and Oubliettes game in the basement with Big Mac, and the idea of letting the annoying zebra and fire-breathing dragons occupy the same flammable library… no. And the Town Hall was very specifically not zoned for residential. There was a small stall and breakfast in town that they could have stayed at, but the zebra balked at that concept. And in verse. Which left Trixie out in the middle of the town square in the middle of the afternoon, arguing with five zebra who thought that arguing was their national team sport. Admittedly, eighteen hours of argument until sunrise would solve the problem quite well, but Trixie was still unwashed and still thinking about a tub full of hot water and bubbles whenever she closed her eyes. Although, she was abruptly wide awake when a deafening voice shook the trees and brought down a few leaves ahead of schedule. “Begone, wyrm!” bellowed the voice of what only could have been Luna in full princess-mode. “This land is my lair! Leave before I destroy you utterly!” “How dare you!” bellowed Vorel in return, almost as loudly. “I come at the command of my Dragonlord, as a favor for her…” The voice wavered a little, and continued somewhat quieter, “...friend.” “Then I, Princess Luna of Equestria, grant thee leave to remain within my domain for a brief period of time, until thy task is complete. However, we demand a selection from your treasure in exchange for our favor.” “How dare you! It is I who am owed a favor, and it is I who demand a treasure from your hoard as payment for my inconvenience. Like that first edition of Liberations over on the far shelf, by the purple book. No, one to the left of that.” “That book is priceless!” Nay, thou shalt not have it unless I possess that artist book of dragon wingspans, unbound under that stack to your left. Nay, your left. Yes, that one.” “Ah,” said Trixie to the group of stunned zebra. “I don’t believe any of you have met Princess Luna yet. Let us stroll over to the library—” Trixie winced at the sound of breaking glass as one of the powerful voices managed to finish off one of the last library skylights that Rainbow Dash treated as targets “—and I’ll introduce you to her. Come on. Don’t be shy.” ~ ~ ☽ ~ ~ Big Mac looked up at the root-covered ceiling of the library basement and the small particles of dirt trickling down from the muffled roaring. Then he looked at the two smaller dragons, who were both bent over the rule book, trying to find out if the Spectral Blast spell had any effect on the Blind Bat-Buzzards of Blart, and totally ignoring whatever was happening upstairs. “Um. Spike? I mean Garbunkle the Magician.” Big Mac pointed upward with a hoof. “It’s just a dragon hoard dominance contest,” said ‘Lady Lazertorch, the Sapphire Sorceress’ without even looking up from the rule book. “You’d have to be a blithering idiot to get between them.” ~ ~ ✶ ~ ~ Dragons were awesome. Monster stood in awed silence in the library, barely able to keep her sound muffling spells over her ears with the stentorian bellows between Princess and Patron. Just like Trixie had taught in one of their lessons, Luna was ‘nose first’ into the problem, head down and matching Vorel’s voice decibel for decibel while engaging in a cutthroat bargaining session for books. Then Trixie stepped into the library. At first, neither of the two bellowing participants even noticed, but Vorel’aurix-levethuix Maekrix-book-rasvim soon spotted the new observer and turned in Trixie’s direction with her furry green eyebrows lowering and her lips turned up in a toothy snarl. “Begone!” she bellowed. “Trixie!” proclaimed Luna, turning around in a whirl and dashing over to the stunned unicorn with a broad hug and a nuzzle that turned into a wrinkled-up nose. “It is good that thou hast hastened thy pace homeward to be with thy student, but you could have at least washed. Oh, and I see you hath brought your… companions.” Luna looked at the stunned zebra Imetabiriwa behind Trixie, then cast a look at Monster, who had moved forward just far enough to show she was not afraid, even though she was. The aggravated dragon let out a huff of warm breath, which swirled around their hooves with the scent of dust and dry ink. “Beg pardon, Honored Dragon.” Luna turned in Vorel’s direction and nodded. “This is my other egg-sib, not of my shell, to whom I owe my life. Lady Librarian Trixie Lulamoon, this Honored Dragon is Vorel’aurix-levethuix Maekrix-book-rasvim, the keeper of a great library in the north.” “We’ve met,” said Trixie a little unsteadily due to the dragon’s baleful glare, which was interrupted by several abrupt blinks and the astonished expression which followed. “Librarian?” The dragon bobbed her head, which was about as low as she could go while stuck in the library doorway. “Do not be angered, Honored Librarian. I did not know of your lineage. I thought this was the hoard of the Dragonlord Spike.” “That’s… fine,” said Trixie with a distracted wave. “He’s my assistant. Um, I’ve got something to discuss with Princess Luna, Honored Patron. Twilight, see about getting our—” Trixie looked at the stuck dragon and shook her head “—guest a library card.” Trixie and Luna headed for the back porch door, but Monster really wanted to hear what they were going to discuss. She went through the motions of producing a library card at such a rapid pace that the form was smoking slightly when the camera flash went off, and the card was still a little melty when she floated it over to land in front of the dragon. “Welcome patron of the Golden Oak Library you may peruse any book on the shelf except for the books in the restricted section which require a permission slip from the Librarian we hope you enjoy your stay and don’t forget to consider donating to the library expansion fund on the check-out table thank you—” The last words were thrown over Monster’s shoulder, but the dragon was already reading a book with the same intensity a foal would eat free chocolate, and most likely did not even notice. ~ ~ ✶ ~ ~ “Ah, there you are.” Luna swept a wing down to embrace Monster for a brief moment, then used it to encourage her to trot alongside while Her Lunar Highness began to head away from the library and down the town street. “Let us be off!” She wanted to ask about their destination, but Monster was distracted by the zebra Imetabiriwa striding along behind them with their servants bringing up the rear. Trixie walked along Luna’s other side, casting curious looks at Monster when she could see, and finally asking the question Monster was still trying to formulate. “Princess Luna, where are we going?” “To Zebrica, of course,” she responded in the same casual voice as one might announce a trip to the ice cream shop. “But I don’t want to go to Zebrica,” blurted out Monster. “It shall only be for the eve.” Luna glanced up at the setting sun and quickened her pace. “We shall be back in time for the evening repast and to finish our negotiations over the disposition of our library.” They turned the corner of the street, and to Monster’s brief surprise, both Zecora and Tallgrass fell into step with the rest of the zebra Imetabiriwa. Tallgrass was once again wearing his zebra disguise, which only made the other Imetabiriwa nervous while they followed Luna, but they still trotted or strode along. Even Old Kavu was using her walking stick to good effect and keeping up on their strange trip, but not all of the zebra were happy about it. “Our journey was long Four moons we traveled to here Fool idiot horn.” “Mshairi,” said Tallgrass very deliberately while keeping up his brisk stride. “Be silent. Respect your elder.” “Nay, changeling.” Luna did not break her stride to look back, but her voice remained pleasant, even if it was too firm for Monster’s comfort. “We have learned our lesson about ignoring the advice of others, even if we find it distasteful. If one had spoken when I went astray so many years ago, perhaps Nightmare Moon would never have been born. We must open ourselves to new ideas and review that which has been discarded. Since it took four moons for you to travel to our fair Equestria, it is obvious to me that much knowledge has been lost among your kind as well.” “The annoying one Should not travel with our kind Secrets she knows not.” “Secrets?” asked Trixie, stopping cold in the street and turning on the tall zebra in much the same way as an irritated panther might eye an unwary mouse which had the audacity to bite her. “I presume you are talking about the grand and glorious secret history and predictions of the Six Zebra Tribes, which each of your tribes felt so important to keep from each other that they scrambled them up to make their own knowledge unreadable by the other tribes? The Turtle Tribe—” “Tortoise,” said Monster. “Tortoise Tribe, for example,” continued Trixie without missing a beat, “uses near-lethal poisons on their writings to kill unwary readers and render others nearly incoherent, but it’s the only way to read that gibberish in the moonlight and understand it. Or the Stone Tribe who decided to make their lore into an insane math puzzle across a bunch of sharp stone tiles that only make sense when arranged in a particular logical sequence. At least their library won’t kill anypony who screws up reading it. And all of you—” Trixie waved a hoof across the zebra around her “—sent Zecora here with copies of your own specific lore without any way to translate it! If you’re the wisest zebra in your lands, I’d hate to see what—” Trixie bit her tongue and cast a quick glance at Monster, who nodded encouragement. “Anyway,” snapped Trixie, picking up as if she had never even paused, “Zecora was expected to teach your new Imetabiriwa na Anga all the wisdom of your tribes over the last twelve years from a set of libraries that she could not read. Good luck with that!” The oldest zebra prodded Trixie in the side with her walking stick, although due to their recent brisk walk, it took a few more moments for Old Kavu to catch her breath enough to speak. “That is why we must bring the Imetabiriwa na Anga to our tribes. She must learn the hidden knowledge from each of the tribes in turn before she can bring peace to the spirits of our troubled land.” “Really?” Trixie raised one eyebrow. “Just out of curiousity, which tribe had the super-special unique story of a zebra named Aaesunuthluth and her record of Luna’s first visit to Zebrica? ‘Another’s come with wretched wings. What kind of evil will it bring?’” “How dare you!” spat Tafadhali, taking a step forward to nearly butt heads with Zecora, except for the way her hooves suddenly stuck to the dirt road. She struggled for a brief moment, giving the quiet form of Monster a vicious glare before snapping, “The secrets of our tribe are not to be shared with any others but the Imetabiriwa na Anga! How did that—” Tafadhali moved to jab a hoof at Trixie, except she was still stuck to the road “—imbecile get access to our sacred writings!” Trixie scanned across the rest of the zebra with one eyebrow raised just enough for Monster to recognize her practiced pose of provocative ego-jabbing, as she called it. “I’m a librarian now,” she said in a slow, aggressive way. “We go places where others fear to tread and turn secrets into common knowledge. I asked Zecora if I could get your stupid libraries translated for my good friend, Twilight Sparkle, and up until two weeks ago when I set off for a trip to the Dragonlands, my translators were unable to find anything in any of your stories that was not duplicated in each of the other tribes’ collection. That’s right. Duplicated. You’ve all been hiding your stories and spying on each other for so long that every single bit of your ‘secret ancient lore’ is an exact copy of every other tribe’s stories! The only secret you have left is that you have no secrets!” The elderly zebra were speechless. Luna, not so much. “Aaesunuthluth was of the Gopher Tribe,” said Luna. “I’ve always wondered if her protruding front teeth were related to her tribe or just poor jaw structure. In any event, she is long gone, so it matters not. It is good that her words are known by all. She was indeed very wise, if a little difficult to understand.” “As long as we are remembered, we do not truly die.” Monster swallowed and shuffled sideways until she could brush up against Trixie’s side and give her a nuzzle, although she wrinkled up her nose afterwards. Trixie lifted her bright orange leg and sniffed it. “Yeah, I’m not dead, I just smell like it. This stench is going to be remembered for a long time. I may just have to wait until my blue winter coat grows in before it’s gone. Ah…” She took a quick look at Luna and gave Monster a brief squeeze. “Do you want me to go to Zebrica with you? I mean since Luna said you’ll be back in a few hours, I thought I could go scrub up, maybe order some pizza, but if you need me…” Monster shook her head and wrinkled up her nose again. “No. Want you to come. Need you to wash. Pizza is good. We have a tab at Little Antonios. Bring enough for our friends?” “Sounds like a plan.” Trixie rubbed the top of Monster’s head. “You two be careful in Zebrica. I’m not going to be there to keep you out of trouble like I… like we did when Princess Luna came back.” After one last nuzzle, Trixie looked at the glowering zebra Imetabiriwa. “And that goes for you troublemakers too. If you hurt my friends, I don’t care if I have to go to the other side of the world, I’ll find you.” “We shall all be perfectly safe,” declared Luna. “You have my word. Come, Twilight. We shall need to hurry if we are to make it back in time for this… pizza.” With that, Luna returned to her brisk pace in the direction of the Everfree Forest with Monster trotting alongside and the rest following behind. She did take one glance behind before Trixie was out of sight, and smiled a little to see her teacher and adopted sister touch her own nose and nod. It gave Monster a spring to her step and an arch to her neck as their path wound into the nearby woods with the memory of Trixie’s lesson still echoing in her mind. While going into trouble, make sure to keep your nose pointed forward. That way you can see what’s happening when everything goes wrong.