“Are those… highways? roads?”
“The Equestrian Inter-Region. Yes, they’re highways with a big H. We built them roughly between 1018 to 1022 After Lunar Banishment. It’s actually a project conceived by yours truly.” Twilight said, pointing her hoof at herself. “It’s meant to spur economic growth in the more remote regions of Equestria, you can guess with Ponyville below how that turned out.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Speaking of Ponyville, just how big is it? and what in Tartarus are those trains?!?”
“The Intercity Express and the ‘Growth Spurt’ period of Ponyville. Well, at least that’s what the government in Canterlot calls them. Firstly, the Express train, yeah. We built that roughly at the same time we built the highways. Felt appropriate to modernize our rail lines after we poured funds to improve our roads. Side effect of those two projects is further immigration into Ponyville. It’s nowhere near as big as Manehattan or Fillydelphia, but it is certainly not the small town I used to live in.”
Heeding Twilight’s words, I peered into the city once more. Noticing the still similar layout it has. That aside though, everything felt a bit too similar, yet bizarre at the same time. Asphalt roads now dot the streets of the small town. Some buildings are still built with the thatched roofs I’m familiar with, but some of them are built eerily similar to the older buildings I usually see back in Canterlot City.
It feels that I’ve missed out on a very important period of Equestria’s history. Finding more questions than answers the more I hear Twilight explain things, I promptly sat on my rump and sighed. “It feels like I missed out on a lot of stuff. What happened Twilight? The last time I was here, Equestria was nowhere near as… well, I guess I can say advanced, as today.”
Twilight’s face suddenly turned darker. As if my words there forced her to recount something that hurt her very, very deeply. She put her left hoof on her chest, her eyes closing, and she gritted her teeth.
Have you ever noticed when someone has a powerful emotional reaction just from the slightest of things? A single word uttered, a simple hoof gesture, even maybe the way you walk. Triggering something within them that makes them change their very nature. Perhaps it’s some trauma in the past, perhaps it’s some bad memory they couldn’t truly get rid of, perhaps it is something outside your control that disgusts them to their very core. Have you’ve ever seen it?
I’m seeing it right now, happening in front of my eyes. The Princess of Friendship’s demeanor changing from the somepony pleasant, into someone that I cannot recognize at all. This Twilight felt alien, unnatural, dark even.
What happened to her?
“I guess that the time dilation due to the portal spell breaking does have it’s own curses.” The purple alicorn said. Her face maintaining her darkened demeanor. “I guess that, since you haven’t aged a bit, that It’s only been, what? 2 years? 3 years down in your timeline?”
“Umm, I guess. Don’t you think that’s weird? Do you wanna explore it more Twilight? I can bring my research notes from my house. Just let me go to the portal for a while and-”
My attempted distraction, some effort to at least change Twilight’s alien demeanor has failed. I only saw a hoof stopping me from speaking further. It is a hoof-gesture I never thought Twilight would use, a single outstretched hoof with her face staring down at me. I only see it in Celestia whenever a couple of rabble rousers were turning courtly discussion away from being productive. It is something that she used incredibly sparingly. Only used whenever she felt that things needed to be settled here and now, and on her terms.
Twilight Sparkle imitated that gesture almost to a T. Stopping me from speaking at all. What happened?!? Why is she using that gesture?!?
“I don’t think that will be necessary Sunset.” She said, her voice now sterner and more neutral. “While I do like having you around, I think that what I have to inform you won’t be to your liking. I will have guards escort Sonata into appropriate accommodations. Sunset, will you follow me please?”
Not wanting to explore her changed demeanor further, I nodded and waved my goodbyes to Sonata. The seapony/siren woman only nodding at me in understanding as I left the room.
“As you can see, a lot has changed.” Twilight began, showcasing the scenery around her. From the cars parked at a car park near the castle to the maids using vacuum cleaners to clean the floor. “What I didn’t tell you is how much it cost us in the process.”
I see Twilight leading me towards a room. Opening it and showing me it’s insides, my eyes marveled at what was inside it. Staring in front of me were rows upon rows of books, thousands of them lining up in a neatly organized fashion. This is a grand library, a library to rival that of the Canterlot library and the Manehattan royal library. Perhaps even combined!
Twilight trotted past me and I followed her inside. The studious part inside of me was more than willing to lock myself up in this very room and peruse the thousands of books lining the shelves. “Princess Luna built this when we were expanding the castle grounds, said she ‘wanted to preserve the memories of those who were lost, and to create new memories for the ones we will make.’ Construction and organisation of this library took some 5 years to complete, an exhaustive effort to insure that everything within each of the official records here are as accurate as they can be, and it shows”
“Little wonder that it’s both officially called and popularly named as the Lunar Library of Memories, roughly half of the records and books here were printed within the last 25 years, and the other half being the slightly older books, printed just before or a couple centuries before Nightmare Moon’s return. Almost everything here is brand new.”
Twilight’s horn glowed, and a single book was floated off its shelves, falling down the table with a thud. The Princess of friendship motioning me to sit and read it. “Please, read it.” She urged. “I think it is best that you keep up to date with what has happened recently in Equestria.”
I nodded before sitting down, looking intently at the book. As I stared at the title, my mind wandered once again at what Twilight just said, how much did it cost? Expansion of castle grounds? Lunar library of memories? Everything felt so… blurry, now that I think of it. She seemed to be in such a hurry, almost desiring to bring me here and inform me of recent happenings.
Are the contents of this book that important? Now that I think about it, I didn’t manage to read the title, a bit distracted by my thoughts on the matter. No matter, I turned my face towards the face of the book, and in front of it, read.
‘A Record of The Recent History of Equestria. The Times of Turbulence. Rapid Modernization. And The Two Great Wars It Endured.’
‘By: Paperline Graph.’
My face turned towards Twilight. “Paperline Graph wrote this?” I asked. To read a book written by one of the most prestigious historians of Equestria, and by the looks of it, a recent one at that. This will certainly be an intriguing read.
I activated my horn, eager to discover it’s contents, after flipping a couple pages, mostly just a glossary and some random accessory blank pages. My eyes stumbled onto something unusual.
It is the ‘dedicated to’ section more specifically. Normally, being an academic myself, I usually glanced at the ‘dedicated to’ section and left it there, that section may be of some use, perhaps to highlight the author’s intentions or to be accounted for when analyzing the source’s biases. Nothing too special in all honesty.
This is perhaps the first time though, that I felt my face glued into that simple section. My face showing signs of confusion, horror, anger, fear. All not pleasant emotions, just from a simple section.
‘Dedicated towards the more than 9.800.000 Million lives, be they Pony, Griffon, Buffalo, Yak, or some other species, who died fighting for our country in both the Changeling-Equestrian War and the Imperial-Equestrian War. Without their sacrifices, writing this book would have been an impossibility.’
As soon as my brain had fully processed what I just read, my head turned towards the purple Alicorn Princess. Just like her, my demeanor had turned, now much more distraught and confused than the more solemn look of Twilight. I struggled to open up my mouth, my head buzzing with all sorts of random thoughts, trying to rationalize what I just read.
“9.8 million…” I said, my voice visibly quieter this time around. “Twilight, I’m sorry for sounding rude, but, I think I want to cast an instant-spell into this book, I don’t think I want to spend days reading this. I… feel like I want to, nay, NEED to finish reading this book ASAP.”
Fortunately, Twilight nodded her head, but not before cautioning me against the action. “I wouldn’t object, but please understand. The facts you are going to read will not be to your liking, are you sure you want to cast an instant-read spell?”
“I think I’ve been three decades overdue from casting such a thing.” I read. “Yes, I have to cast this, if only to fully grasp what happened.”
And from that moment, my horn glowed, it’s red tint enveloping the book, floating it as I began casting my spell. It is a spell most unicorns, okay, most unicorns who are scholars, usually learn when they’re in higher education. It makes them fully grasp the contents of the book, but it forces the caster’s brain to fully absorb an enormous amount of information at once. Typically resulting in a period of heightened emotion for the caster, depending on the book’s content, it can vary from happiness, to anger, to disgust, and even sadness.
My horn grew brighter, and the spell was cast. The book was dropped down onto the table as I finished doing the deed.
At first, I felt nothing, almost as if my brain was slowly but surely absorbing the information given to me. As the minutes flow through however. I began to realize just what I learned.
Tears began welling up inside of me as I fully understand what had happened. Gods! What happened? Knowing the full extent of the carnage, I turned my head towards the Princess, tears welling up within my eye, and asked the one question I had to ask.
“How much did it cost?” I asked. “For victory. How much did it cost?”
“The soul of a generation, more than 9 million lives, and the previous social order. I’m sorry Sunset. The portal malfunctioned just at the worst time of the crisis. Chrysalis’s defeat at the first battle for Canterlot forced her to think in a more… brutal manner, now wanting all lands in Equestria to be hers. She mobilized the military for a more formal, more militaristic push into Equestrian territory. All of us were warned about the impending attack, when Chrysalis began waging war on our neighbors, we were concerned, but not necessarily fearful, when Chrysalis began voicing speeches with such vitriol we ignored her threats. It was only when the bombs fell on Vanhoover that we realized that all of it wasn't just for show.”
Twilight continued. “Chrysalis’s armies were… modern, unlike anything we’d ever seen, hulking armored beasts rolling through the Equestrian grassland, it’s weaponry much more fearsome than we ever imagined, Changeling infiltrators disrupting our day to day activities, and on top of that, the millions of lives dying in the defense of the country. It was absolute chaos of the highest degree, and it cost us millions of lives just within those early years of war alone. I obviously don’t need to tell you this, but after our victory, other powers, like say, a resurgent Griffonian Empire, began looking at our newfound strength with fear, fear that we may use it against them. Against our will, just as we had finished one of our bloodiest wars in history, another bloody chapter was opened, and this time, we were more vengeful, and much, much less merciful towards the Griffonian aggressors.”
“And you won both of them.” I uttered. “You won two major wars against insurmountable odds, even if it cost Equestria millions of lives in the process.”
“Unfortunately, yes.” She replied, now casting her changed mood in a more understanding light. “Those roads you see there Sunset? They’re built explicitly to make it easier to channel military equipment throughout Equestria in the event of an attack. The railways will play a part too, but to a lesser extent, at least that is the original design of it.”
“And your changed demeanor?” I asked. Now deducing what happened to her. “You’re a lot colder than I remembered Twilight. Is this because of-”
“The wars? Partly. Just the burden of sharing duties with the other two Princesses would also do that to you, especially when what you’re doing amounts to wartime administration. Having to make decisions, hard decisions, decisions that can cost hundreds of thousands of lives to be sacrificed everyday? and when you know that the elements cannot work in this instance? yeah. That changes you, warps you, turns you into something you, nay, I myself, cannot recognize.”
I noticed a single tear coming down from the purple alicorn, her voice slowly breaking as Twilight seemed to realize what she has become. “Oh, what have I turned into… I’m sorry, Sunset, I’m sorry I couldn’t open the portal sooner, it’s just, it’s too heavy.”
Her tears fell down on me like a thunderstorm. All this time, I couldn’t have known any better. Her now teary eyes meeting mine, Twilight over realizing the implications of her actions, and mine about not acting at all, tears fell down both of our eyes as we both hugged each other. Myself and Twilight crying ourselves out within the library. “I’m sorry Twilight! I’m sorry!” I wailed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner. Now I know I should’ve investigated the portal sooner!! Gods!”
“It’s… It’s fine Sunset, you have your responsibilities, but… but.” Twilight hesitated, her face looking very much unprincess-like. “I couldn’t. I was busy fighting a war. I’m sorry Sunset, i’m sorry that I became something unrecognizable for you.”
We both cried for a good couple minutes, hugging and comforting each other as slowly the crying stopped. The library, once filled with the sounds of sobbing and one too many ‘I’m sorry’s!’ slowly but surely fell into it’s silence once more. Leaving both of us with only our emotions and bodily warmth to keep us comforted, realizing just how long we’ve been separated, and how much it hurt for us both certainly makes this reunion much more powerful.
I think I will be staying in Equestria for a bit longer. I have to tell Sonata about this. I hope she understands my reasoning.