“I think that’s enough math for today,” Twilight said. “What would you like to work on next, Cease?”
I heaved a sigh. We’d been working for an hour and a half, and my brain already felt like oatmeal. I glanced over at Twi, and blanched.
For the following questions, Princess Celestia (C) is 13 years old. Twilight Sparkle (T) is 11.
1. If C received her wings one year ago, how much longer until she gets used to them?
2. If the difference between Blueblood’s (B) and C’s ages is the same as between C’s and T’s ages, how many more years until B becomes something other than a useless lump?
3. If Whirligig boards a train leaving Canterlot travelling C miles per hour at T o’clock, and—
I shook my head. “Anything else,” I croaked, dropping my head to my desk.
Twilight smiled weakly. She thought for a moment, then dug in her bag.
As she rooted around, I turned to look at her and smiled. I was gonna miss her, at least for a little bit.
My birthday was next month. I was gonna be fourteen. Which meant that, after this year, I was going to have to leave the Royal Academy, and go to a high school. Aunt Velvet was trying to convince me to go to a private school, but I didn’t really want to. Lyra was already at CHS, and she said it was nice. Even so, I was a little sad—it meant that I’d have to leave Twilight behind, at least for a little while. But hey, she’d make school friends of her own, wouldn’t she? I mean, she’d have to—
Twilight dropped a heavy textbook on the table, and I jumped. “How about this,” she said. I sat up a little and looked at the cover: it had a stack of old scrolls on the front, flanked by a stylized sun and moon.
“I…” She hesitated, then giggled a little. “I was wondering if you could help me. With history.”
I sat up. History was one of the few things I was good at. Probably had something to do with the fact that I grew up hearing the legends over the breakfast table every morning…
“What topic?” I asked.
She giggled nervously. “The… the Succession Crisis,” she admitted. “I can never get the names right…”
I raised an eyebrow. Hadn’t we gone over this before?
“Okay, well…” I said slowly, “The names are easier if you remember the story. So, let’s start there…”
Twilight nodded and got out her spiral-bound notebook. As she flipped to a blank page, I started talking.
“So,” I began, “like, a thousand years ago, there were no Princesses. There was only one ruler, and she was a Queen. The Cosmic Queen. And the last one was called Celestia.”
Twilight looked up. “Like you?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. She was Celestia the First. But she was a Queen, not a Princess.” I coughed a little. “There’s… lots of Celestias. Don’t get confused.”
Twilight made a note in her book.
“Anyways,” I said. “The Cosmic Queen was supposed to move both the sun and the moon at the same time, and she used the Cosmic Stone to do it.”
“Which was both the Sun and Moon Stone at once,” Twilight interjected.
“More or less,” I said, “So: Queen Celestia had a set of twin daughters, Solis and Luna. They were both equally good and smart, and Queen Celestia couldn’t decide who should get the Cosmic Stone.”
“Shouldn’t it have been the older twin?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it was a C-section or something. Anyways, she couldn’t decide. So she split it: Solis got the Sun Stone, and Luna got the Moon Stone.”
“But now there’s only one,” Twilight interrupted. “The Sun Stone.”
“Basically,” I said. “Okay. So, Princess Solis and Princess Luna had to work together to move the sun and the moon, each using their own Stone. And things worked well, until Solis died.” I peered down at Twilight’s notes. “You getting all this?” I asked.
Twilight made a few hurried notes, then nodded.
“Anyways. Solis died, and it was time to decide who should get the Sun Stone. Solis willed the Stone to her daughter, Helia—”
“And she’s the one who built Canterlot, right?”
I nodded “First act as Princess. So, Helia ended up with the Stone, even though Princess Luna thought it should go to her daughter, Selene, who was three years older.”
Twilight jotted something down, then nodded. “So then she—”
I nodded. “Princess Luna became super-jealous of Helia, so she turned into a monster called Nightmare Moon, who wanted to make sure the sun never rose again. So Princess Helia had to use the Sun Stone, plus the Elements of Harmony—”
“What’re those?” Twilight interrupted again.
I shrugged. “Musical instruments? Anyways, she had to use her Stone to banish Nightmare Moon, and the Moon Stone with her.”
Twilight nodded slowly. “So, now there’s only one Princess.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“And that’s you.”
“Yep.”
Twilight made a little note. “Queen Celestia,” she muttered to herself. “Solis, Luna, Helia, Selene…” She glanced up. “Isn’t there a prophecy, too?”
“Huh?” I asked looking at her.
“A prophecy,” she repeated. “I… thought I read it somewhere?”
“That’s not history, though.”
“Yeah—but still.” She smiled awkwardly. “I like old stuff like that.”
I sighed dramatically. “Fine,” I said. “Yeah, there’s a prophecy. Supposedly, Nightmare Moon is going to come back someday. And, supposedly, ‘The power of Sun, Moon, and Stars’ will stop her,” I added, with generous air quotes. “Though no one really believes that stuff.”
Twilight nodded, and scribbled in her book.
I watched her write for a second—then did a double take. I leaned closer… yes, I was right. she had nothing written down. Just a bunch of little nonsense marks, and “Sun, Moon, and Stars.” I looked sharply up at her, and she grinned sheepishly.
I raised an eyebrow. “Do I… do I need to go over it again?”
She shook her head, then closed her notebook. “No,” she said, “I got it.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I got it, Cease.”
Something clicked in my brain. “And you’re sure you weren’t just giving me a chance to show off, because we’d just finished our math?”
Twilight shrugged, but didn’t meet my eye. “I like old stuff like that,” she repeated, then shoved her notebook in her bag. “You ready for physics?” she asked.
I stared at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded.