//------------------------------// // 13 - Researching // Story: Spilled Ink // by Fiddlove Enfemme //------------------------------// When I returned to the castle, I did not go looking for Starlight. I did not go out to participate in the festivities. I did not go to bed. Instead, I went into the castle library. The books from my abandoned magic lesson were still stacked on one of the tables, but I had different plans for my reading material. I needed history books, as many as Starlight had in the library. But right now I didn't want to try and track her down to enlist her help. No, this was going to be an endeavor all my own. And it was going to take awhile. Without knowing how the books were organised, if at all, I would have to go shelf by shelf. Lacking telekinesis, I would have to use the rolley ladder and pull out each book manually. That was where I encountered my first problem. This task I'd given myself would take longer than I'd first thought. It would take the rest of the evening, maybe even the week, to go through all the shelves and find all of the relevant materials. So instead of wasting time feeling sorry for myself, I got to work. I moved carefully, scanning each shelf in succession from top to bottom, looking for anything that might be a history book, anything that might be useful. I picked out dry archaeological textbooks, I took out old scrolls and books whose bindings were wearing away, I pulled out volume after volume of near identical brown books, searching for something, anything that could give me a lead. I sorted each of them onto the tables, by loose associations they had with eachother. Some of them resembled your typical dry, uninteresting scholarly writings and essays with nondescript binding and uninspired names. A few were the more modern type with flashy covers that had some kind of graphic related to the content inside. The scrolls and even older writings that seemed interesting were carefully placed aside. Then there was a pile of them that I wasn't quite sure about, which had names that seemed more in line with some kind of fiction but to my surprise were accredited publications. After several hours working at it, I had searched all of the shelves on the first floor of the library, though my eyelids had become heavy with sleep. I didn't intend on stopping any time soon, so I made a brief foray to the kitchen to boil the kettle and make a pot of tea, one with extra caffeine. I also made sure to scrounge some paper from... various sources... to use to chart my findings. It didn't matter what it was, just that I could write on it. When there was a spare moment, I made sure to clean off the chalkboard as well to use it for the big ideas. Tape? I needed tape too, to attach paper to the board. Determined as I was, no one could stave off the need for sleep forever. My movements grew weak and sluggish, my mind slowed to a crawl, and every single time I blinked I risked my eyes staying closed for too long, and bringing on sleep. I dreaded it, I ran from it, but it arrived all the same. A fire crackled softly. Around us, the trees rustled in the wind. I was lying on the ground, my back towards the flames. The sweet scent of wood smoke filled my nose as I breathed shallowly. It cast a dim red and orange light, but to my eyes it was a beacon shining in darkness. I tried to shut my eyes and sleep, but after a few seconds something made me open them again. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't. I blinked, and turned over. The stars were bright tonight. I looked at them as they shone, tiny specks of white on a backdrop of deep, deep blue. Paintings didn't compare. Pictures didn't compare. The view through my helmet camera didn't compare. They all lacked... depth. That was all I could call it, really. Hard to think that thousands upon thousands upon even more thousands of miles away, those were just like our sun. They gave heat, they gave light, and maybe they even gave life. Somewhere out there, there could be life. Hell, we knew unequivocally that there was, just not the kind we were hoping for. But maybe, somewhere out there, there was life that thought, that breathed, that loved, that hated, that did everything we did. Someone like us. Someone who could be our friend. And maybe that someone was doing a lot better than we were. Maybe that someone could help us. I turned over again. Now, I faced the fire, and my comrades. There were five of us here, gathered around, trying to sleep, eating rations, keeping watch, sewing rips, writing letters that would never get mailed. We were traveling. I didn't know where. It didn't really matter that much. There wasn't much left to travel to. I sat up, and looked deep into the fire. "Hey, you can keep sleeping. You're not on watch for another two rotations," someone off to my left said. "Can't sleep." I said in response. The fire twisted and writhed, like there was something inside of it. I did my best to ignore it, and looked off into the darkness around us. We'd been traveling for a few days now. We were currently camped in a heavily forested area, down a side road as far as we could go before the darkness had become oppressive. I looked over to our vehicle, over to the heavy calibre gun mounted to the top of it. Seeing that thing made me almost feel safer, because I'd seen what it could do to unarmoured targets. Yes, it would keep us safe; If someone could reach it in time during an emergency. He laughed nervously, "Don't blame you. I'm still shaken from... well, I think we're all shaken from it, really." I didn't find it very funny, but gave him a shallow smile anyway. It didn't last very long. "I wish I'd never left home," I sighed. "I think everything would still have happened even if you hadn't." he shrugged. "Well, even if it had... a lot of people would have been happier." "What do you mean?" he asked with a frown. "My grandparents. I'd still be with them. I'd be there for them, I'd be able to help them." I shook my head, disappointed with myself. Stupid. I'd been so stupid. "No, no, come on man! You were just a kid when you left, you couldn't have known what would happen. No one did." "That's where you and I are different," I muttered, "You joined because you wanted to make a difference for people, I joined because I was running away from being sad." "Yeah, and look where it got the two of us. Two misguided morons fighting a war on the other side of the world, and for what? Money? Pensions? Free dental care? A pat on the back and a knife in the ribs when we decided it wasn't worth it anymore?" I couldn't help but smile at that. "Wonder where our pensions are now? Can't imagine we're still getting them." "Oh, they're right over there with those new uniforms we were promised. Five years ago!" he laughed. I don't know what exactly it was, but something made me look back up at the stars. I was drawn in by them, trying to look past them. When I looked at those tiny motes of light, arrayed stunningly across the canvas of the night, everything here seemed so small and insignificant. But then something happened. The stars, they started to move, they started to warp. A chill went down my spine as a face began to materialise across the night sky. Seeing it frightened me, and I wished that I had something, anything to hide from its gaze. It seemed to piece me, look deep into my soul. An ethereal voice that I'd head before echoed in my mind. "I SEE YOU!" My eyes shot open. Where was I? What happened? Another dream... and a voice. What was the voice? Was it the parasite? No, not likely. The parasite would be inside me, looking out. This voice, it came from something outside that looked in. I was still inside the library, lying on the cold crystal floor where I'd passed out in the middle of trying to read a book. There was a blanket draped over me, though what little heat it helped me retain quickly got leached away by the crystal flooring. "Good morning," said Starlight from the balcony. She was leaning on the railing, looking out over the landscape. The sun shone down through the large windows, down onto the balcony, down on the tables of books I'd laid out last night. I said nothing, only getting up and looking around to find where the book I'd been reading had fallen. "Brushing up on our history, are we?" Starlight questioned. "Shouldn't you be at work?" I countered. "Tradition says that the day after the Summer Sun Celebration is one for reflection and rest. Just because it's the Festival of the Two Sisters now doesn't mean that everything's changed. It's also a statutory holiday," she replied effortlessly. "I thought I'd take your advice, seeing as most of my paperwork is done." "Wasn't there one last Friday?" "Yeah, funny how this year worked out. That other holiday works off of an older calendar that isn't really relevant anymore, but because it's "traditional" it's still scheduled with the old calendar, which doesn't line up very well with the new one." While that was an interesting bit of trivia, it didn't help me at all. I turned away from her and tried to pick up where I'd left off. My reading was suddenly interrupted by a hoof, obscuring the page. I looked up at Starlight, who eyed me with a disappointed frown. "What happened?" she asked. "A lot of things. I already made amends with Pinkie." I dismissed her, turning to a different book. "She told me as much," Starlight sighed, "I just wanted to hear it from you. Whatever it was that you remembered." "Not really something I remembered outright. I managed to put together some pieces and filled in the gaps myself. Do you want to know the process, or do you want to know the results?" "Tell me the process later, what were the results?" I sat down and rubbed my eyes, vainly trying to wake myself up some more. "I think I was a soldier before my memory got deep-sixed. Oh, and it's not a curse. It's some kind of magical parasite." "Oh," said Starlight, and she frowned some more as she thought about the implications. "That does explain why I experienced that magical feedback, and somewhat explains what happened the other night. But what's with all the history books?" "I'm hoping that researching past and present military conflicts would give me any leads about myself. If it was present or even recent history, there'll be some sort of paper trail. If it's past? Well, at least there'll be an old battlefield or archaeological exhibit to visit. Of course that is working off of the twin assumptions that the war was well documented and that I served on behalf of Equestria." I rambled, glad to have somepony to explain it to. Maybe talking it out would help me organise my thoughts and discoveries. "Well, at least it won't be that hard. Equestria has only been to war... once, maybe twice tops, in living memory." Starlight chuckled. "Four, actually. The first and second King Sombra incidents, the Changeling Incursions, as well as the Storm King's invasion. Now that number would be accurate if you exclusively defined a war as a large scale military conflict with smaller scale engagements contributing to its conclusion. The thing is, I can't find any references to Equestria having a large scale, united military force! It's all relatively feudal and decentralised, with individual cities and towns tasked with raising and running their own civil defense force, which usually amounts to some sort of citizen's watch in the case of Ponyville, or a more organised policing force in larger cities such as Manehattan. There is no "Modern Equestrian Military"! Every single conflict has been mostly fought by partisans and ad-hoc militias wielding some bizarre magical artifacts! But clearly, I was trained in some sort of formal military because I falsely registered Pinkie's cannon as a threat and responded accordingly!" Starlight frowned and eyed me skeptically, but I'd only just begun my rant. "So, that means I have to go back further in time to look at older conflicts! But I know what you're thinking, that doesn't make sense because we're roughly the same age. That assumes we are chronologically consistent, that we were born within the same era and have remained in said era for our natural lives up to this point! And because magic can be unpredictable as stated in the opening paragraphs of the very magic manual you assigned me to read, we cannot therefore assume that there hasn't been some kind of incident where one or more ponies are displaced through time! Even if that were the case, there are two such incidents I can name off the top of my head because they were significant enough for some bastard put in a book. The Crystal Empire in the frozen north, and the so-called Pillars of Equestra. Now without getting into semantics, I know for certain that I wasn't time warped by either of those events." "You should try talking to the Doctor, he's all about time." Starlight commented when I took a moment to breathe. "Oh, but I'm not finished! I looked at the Crystal Empire first, because they, you know, had an actual military at one point. Except there's actually a lot of things that don't make sense about me being from there. They existed over 1000 years ago, disappearing and then reappearing within the last decade, up in what is now the frozen north. If I'd been from there, I'd have reappeared at the same time as the rest of them, and, you know? I'd actually be up in the Crystal Empire, not rinky-dink Ponyville! And cannons as used in military applications only start to appear only 500 years ago, mostly in naval applications. The use of explosive powder goes way further back, but why would anypony care about explosive powder when there were unicorns running around who could make explosions with their minds! And you know what the cincher is? Ponies from the Crystal Empire have a unique crystalline appearance, which they retain even after leaving the Crystal Empire. If I'd been from the Crystal Empire in the first place, I'd damn well look the part wouldn't I? And let's not get started on the Pillars of Equestria deal!" "So what do you even get from all of that? Did you get any sort of answer, AT ALL?" Starlight asked exasperatedly. "NO!" I cried, "I have the information, but none of it lines up with my experience! I looked at some of the older stuff, but it was so long ago that any of the details are either over-embellished and falsified, or lost to time! The only answer that makes sense with what I've found so far is that I never served in an Equestrian military at all!" Starlight sputtered in abject confusion, "Wh-wh, WHAT? That makes complete sense! Why didn't you lead with that?" "Because if I was in some other military, why did I wake up in the middle of a goddamned forest an unfathomable distance away from where I presumably came from? I looked at the world atlas, Starlight, there aren't very many countries with Pony demographics out there! And the ones that do? Very. Far. Away." I concluded, slapping the table for emphasis. There was a long stretch of silence. "...That's a good point." Starlight said finally. "Finally! We come to an agreement!" "I would offer some help, but you seem to have things under... some sort of control, I think. At least learning is self-enriching and not... entirely self-destructive?" Starlight tentatively replied. "Yeah, I'm not entirely certain that I won't go insane trying to figure this out. Have fun doing, uh, whatever it is you do." I quipped. I spent most of the day continuing to peruse the vast sums of knowledge within the library. A lot of what I was going through seemed largely irrelevant to my search, probably due to the fact that the Princess before Ms. Sparkle had reigned for a little over a whopping 1000 years on her own, not even counting the decades spent with her younger sister. When my attempts to stay on course failed, I quickly fell down that particular rabbit hole. From what I'd gathered, this period had seen peace and prosperity at the cost of little societal change. Despite the advent of new technologies, traditional methods and lifestyles survived and in some cases thrived alongside modern, more advanced methods. For example, the Apple Family continued to harvest apples the way they had when Ponyville had been founded, despite the development of machines that could take an entire tree's crop in seconds. Though, some things felt... odd to me as I read them. I couldn't quite place why. While electricity was widespread and used extensively in homes built within the last two centuries, it was mostly used for appliances like the common toaster. Central heating was usually done with boilers and radiators. Travel was often done by hoof, hoof and cart if you were packing more than what you could carry on your own back. Trains mostly saw use by the wealthy, or when it was a long-distance journey. Carriages were odd, because they only saw use in larger or wealthier cities. Most regions were autonomous, paying tribute to the crown in Canterlot in exchange for some sort of magical protections. It seemed that those protections precluded the need for a sizable standing army, only needing enough personnel to keep things peaceful. The land itself seemed full of dangerous magical creatures, but they mostly avoided populated areas. Or, perhaps the ponies avoided living near the creatures. Despite that, the majority of Equestria was safe for even an unprepared traveller. The less dangerous creatures welcomed ponykind, even forming symbiotic relationships similar to what Fluttershy had been doing. The pegasi ability to manipulate clouds meant that they could exert their control on the weather, making it rain or snow or thunder at will, blocking out the sun, tornados, hurricanes, the list went on. It seemed that due to this, the ponies collectively performed something called a "Winter Wrap-Up" in the spring, removing the snow, waking creatures from hibernation, and a few other things. It seemed like a waste, considering it was easier to just let the weather and the animals do their things instead of micromanaging them. But of course, I hadn't grown up with the ability to control whether the clouds were out or not, so I probably had a different view of the situation. Really, ponies seemed to have a much greater amount of control over the world around them than met the eye. All three of the - what had that legend called them, tribes? - had such gifts. Earth Ponies intrinsically understood the properties of plants, and were able to accelerate their growth or even coax them to grow out of season or in unfavourable conditions. Pegasi could fly and manipulate the weather, as already mentioned. And Unicorns, well, could use magic. Allegedly, the rulers of Equestria held power over the sun and moon, which if proven to be true had... untold cosmic implications. Said rulers were traditionally "Alicorns", which had the abilities of all three multiplied together. Even just the surface level applications seemed much more powerful than, say, being able to breathe flames like dragons did, or having talons like griffons did. And that was without mentioning the other two pony tribes, one of which seemed like an offshoot of pegasi, and another that could burst into flames when angered. All of this research gave me some surprising insights. If unchecked and unrestrained, these powers could have potentially world shaking consequences. Earth Ponies, turning cities and potential battlefields into jungles overnight. Pegasi, bringing forth typhoons, blizzards, electrical storms. Unicorns, manipulating reality, casting illusions, making explosions with their minds. And then Alicorns, who could force an everlasting day or night, leaving one side of the world in blistering heat while casting the other in darkness. If I had control over that kind of power, I'd have to do my damnedest to keep it from being used; the world would be irrevocably changed if that power was used with ill intent. If, for example, Equestria went to war, the temptation to use that power to get an edge over the nation's enemies would skyrocket. And of course, assuming it were used, everyone else who had similar powers would be inclined to use theirs as well, or risk intentionally handicapping themselves in the long run. Why, oh why did that last point sound so familiar? At least it explained why Equestria hadn't had very many wars in its long history. And if there was war on the horizon, it was quickly nipped in the bud by the Elements of Harmony and the Magic of Friendship, both hopelessly intertwined. The "Magic of Friendship", seemed to mostly be a philosophical concept, describing how friends could do more together than they could apart, in the end benefiting the friend group as a whole. The Elements of Harmony were therefore a manifestation of that, representing the five core elements that made a friendship last despite the occasional mishaps, with the sixth element emerging when they were all present in sufficient amounts. At one point, there were physical artifacts to go along with these, appearing alternately as jewelry or orbs depending on the artist's interpretation of the legend. When the sixth element emerged, the Elements could be used as a powerful weapon to exert the wielder's will upon the world, projecting a beam of rainbows. If you ask me, the rainbows part seemed like an artistic embellishment. But that left me in the same pickle as before. The only place where learning what I did made any practical sense, was in a formal military. Equestria, having spent its history avoiding war, didn't have a formal military. What military it did have was mostly for show, easily trounced in situations that they could have managed to deal with. Those few military engagements and incidents from before? King Sombra took over the Crystal Empire and invaded almost effortlessly, though he at least had an edge with being able to use mind control. But what about the Changelings? The Changelings subverted the Canterlot Royal Guard without them even putting up a fight, only being defeated on the invasion day by what amounted to chance. And the Storm King? His forces descended upon Canterlot and spread out over the surroundings to pillage and destroy at their leisure. Every time, the magic that protected the citizens of Equestria failed, and the few soldiers it had were unable to put up any sort of meaningful defense aside from standing around and looking pretty. Every time, they relied on using the Elements of Harmony and its wielders to protect the realm and save the day. Unless... Unless that was only another illusion. Unless they had a covert force dedicated to protecting the land outside of the public eye, written outside of the history books. I earmarked that idea for later. What about the other two tribes? One of them, the Kirin, lived far to the southeast, isolated from the greater pony society. But the other was much more mysterious, living at the fringes. I could only find a few solid references to them, the rest were myths and folk tales that said they drank blood. Those references were always tied to the younger princess, the one who had rebelled: Princess Luna, associated with the moon and stars. Some historical documents suggested that the fifth tribe served her in some capacity, shadowy counterparts to Celestia's Royal Guard. Artistic depictions were few and far between, though at one point I had encountered a Manual of Arms that had been "borrowed" from the Royal Guard Training Program. A lot of it was garbage, drill commands and ceremonies, but a small section of it was dedicated to armour maintenance. The standard armour was gold plated and shiny, with blue plumes, representing the sun and sky above. A footnote compared the current Royal Guard armour to a quote unquote, "archaic Lunar pattern", which by contrast was silver and grey with a darker blue plume. That pattern was said to be over 1000 years old. It didn't show any diagrams, just a historical set of the armour on a stand, but it provided the link that I was looking for. At one point, Luna had her own guard, composed of the fifth tribe. When she rebelled, the fifth tribe supported her. As she was defeated and forced into exile, the fifth tribe either withdrew from society or was ostracised for their involvement. A lot of literature seemed to doubt their existence, which was to be expected when their last public presence was over 1000 years ago. I didn't have the data, but I would have put money on the "vampire" sightings increasing in frequency after Princess Luna's return. At first, I thought it was a little odd that they wouldn't return to the public eye when Luna returned, but then something clicked. It would upset the balance and social order too greatly for the fifth tribe, long thought to be just another legend, to return at the same time as her. Then, with all of the turmoil in the following years, there wouldn't be a convenient time for them to reappear. It would be much easier for them to continue with the status quo. As non-persons, they could be anywhere they were needed, and everywhere the public wasn't looking. I'm not going to say they served Luna in as large a capacity as they had before, but if I were in her position I would definitely have used them in covert operations. Unfortunately, while this was all very interesting, I likely had no involvement with any of those covert operations. As far as I knew, I was a Unicorn, not a member of the fifth tribe. Though if I was some sort of auxiliary operative it wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility- I frowned. Something was wrong. A long shadow was cast over the library. I looked to the balcony, which reflected the setting sunlight. Or at least it would have, if there hadn't been a figure standing there, wings spread wide. I squinted and tried to see who it was... "Hey, wanna go flying?" I blinked. "Gyro? What are you doing on the balcony?" "I flew. Wanna go flying?" the eager griffon asked. "What do you mean, go flying?" I asked back. With one beat of her wings, she hopped into the air and glided over to land on the table where my books and writings were arrayed. "You're drafted, nestling!" she said mockingly, saluting and puffing out her chest feathers. Then, she hopped down and started pushing me towards the balcony. I was too confused to protest. Gyro, once I was onto the balcony, hopped onto the railing and perched there, her tail flicking around like a cat's. I couldn't tell why, but she was grinning madly. "What exactly do you want?" I finally said as I leaned on the railing beside her. "I asked if you wanna go flying," she replied enigmatically. With a roll of her eyes, she leapt from the balcony railing "Gyro, I can't fly!" I shouted at her She laughed, and swooped overhead, then looped in lazy circles down to the ground below us. And that's when I saw it. Her latest flying machine.