“There’s so many of them, Princess.”
“Don’t be intimidated, my faithful student. Just keep noting them down.”
"It was amazing darling! I thought we'd never get out of there with all of those ponies wanting to shake your hoof," Rarity laughed.
Twilight beamed at the praise. She was hardly in denial of her obvious ability, but acknowledging it had always felt slightly crass to her. But when someone came along and said all those things she wanted dearly to think about herself, she could relax and take solace in their conviction and sincerity.
The cocktails were also helping in this regard. She and Rarity had made their way to one of Canterlot's various bars and were enjoying some drinks on the outside terrace. The whole city was out and about, revelling in the long midsummer night. Twilight couldn't think of a way the day could have gone better.
"It went very well, but any pony with a decent understanding could have done what I did."
"Could have, but didn't," Rarity pointed out, and Twilight grinned despite herself, "I imagine you're going to be the talk of the academic world in the next few days darling."
"Kind of, but not as much as you'd think," Twilight began, giggling slightly as Rarity immediately perked up to protest, "Only because the information won't be properly out there until I publish."
"But won't everyone who was there start talking dear?"
"Oh they'll talk, but they won't give away anything specific. It's considered incredibly bad form to spoil someone's research before they formally publish. Ponies have lost their careers over less." Rarity raised an eyebrow, demonstrably sceptical over the extent to which they could expect the discretion of so many ponies.
"It's like Dr. Sunspire. I was able to avoid finding out the content of his work because it hasn't been published. Then I got his approval to use it in the way I did today. All ponies were saying was 'Dr Sunspire has found an interesting new mineral', and all they’ll say until I publish is 'Twilight Sparkle has an interesting new spell'."
"A groundbreaking new spell more like," Rarity pointed out, making Twilight laugh again.
"Rarity, my head's not gonna be able to fit through the library door at this rate,” she said.
Don’t stop, she thought.
"I know I know, but you never take any credit for yourself darling. Someone has to." Rarity said, a kind smile on her face, "There was one question I wanted to ask though. How did you get it to access so much information?"
"Well," Twilight said, pausing briefly to take another sip of her drink, "The literature is always connected to a magical signal to allow it to be skimmed with a particular spell. It's not just physical sciences either, it's the sum total of Equestrian literature and academia, I'll show you."
Twilight's horn ignited as she performed the spell and peered over at the dress Rarity was wearing. Even someone as non-concerned with fashion as Twilight could tell it was the mare's own creation. Twilight smiled fondly at her friend’s work.
Once she felt it complete, she linked the output to target the condensation on Rarity's glass. Rarity squealed in delight as a bunch of Prench words presumably describing the style of her dress wrote themselves on the side of her drink, and clapped her hooves appreciatively.
"So you see, it can give conceptual descriptions as well as physical ones if the basis is there. Can't say I've read much on the study of fashion personally but it's nice to see it work."
"You've done really well darling. You should be proud of yourself, I know I am."
Twilight did feel proud if she was being honest with herself. She had always been proud to be an Element of Harmony, and of course a stained glass window in the palace is nothing to sniff at. But her heart had always yearned to be remembered for her academic mind. The idea that she might get a mention when the historians of the future were compiling the more significant spells of her time was exhilarating.
It made her want more.
She looked up at the night sky, excited for what was to come next. Once the research was published the real work would begin. Scholars would look at the spell's implementations in full, they'd look at how they could tweak it, improve it. The sky was the limit.
But that was it, wasn't it?
The sky wasn't the limit, her eyes were the limit.
Anything she could see, anything anyone could see, dissected and described with minimal effort. As she stared upwards, she traced the line where the sun’s rays began to lose out to the a much darker canvas. Luna's painting was marvellous, shades of black and blue and purple danced in an understated kaleidoscope, peppered with stars.
Celestia had always taught Twilight to appreciate the night sky, it was a lifelong love-affair at this point.
But there had always been an issue for her. The study of the heavens was always more fit for poets than scholars. Confined to their sphere, they could only look skywards and appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the aether that formed life’s ceiling, high above.
The study of the heavens was a fledgling science due to the impossibility of analysing the spheres with anything other than telescopes, which were a relatively recent invention. Optical telescopes. Telescopes that ponies stared into all day.
Twilight’s smile grew wider.
"...Twilight?"
She snapped her head down to Rarity, stirred from her trance, and found herself being stared at with a quizzical expression.
"Oh, uh, sorry Rarity. Just thought of something to spice up the paper."
"Oh? Care to share?"
"It's okay Rarity. I think I've bored you enough for one night." Twilight chuckled. But it was forced, and performative, done from obligation rather than real consideration. Twilight wasn’t done yet, she wanted to tell Rarity all of her ideas.
She wanted to tell everyone all of her ideas.
And thankfully, the element of generosity was as giving with her time and attention as anything else.
"Nonsense! I may not be a scholar per se, but I'm still interested in the work. What is this new idea of yours?" Rarity insisted.
"Well, it can thoroughly describe anything I can see, yes? And I can see..." Twilight trailed off, and simply pointed above their heads for emphasis, "I'll go to the observatory at the university tomorrow night, see if it works."
"Well," Rarity twiddled with her straw for a second, "Do you want to go now?"
"Celestia above," Rarity gasped when they entered the observatory, "Its enormous!"
"It's the most powerful telescope in Equus," Twilight tried to retain some air of authority on the subject, but she was rather stunned herself.
She had seen pictures during and after the telescope's construction in the university newsletters, but the real thing was in another league entirely. The room was a clear twenty metres high, and the telescope extended up and through the roof.
A series of gears, breathtaking in their complexity, lined the walls. From the controls it seemed like they guided not only the orientation of the telescope, but the room itself. The whole observatory could rotate a clear 360 degrees without a single enchantment.
It was a marvel of engineering, and Twilight couldn't quite believe she'd never gone to see it until now. It was also, sadly, very underutilised at the moment. Twilight hadn't lied about the study of the heavens being only in its infancy. The telescope had been future-proofing as opposed to satisfying some current pressing need. There was quite simply not enough researchers in the field to make full use of the equipment for the time being.
But interest was growing, especially in light of Luna’s return. Maybe Twilight's spell could help with that as well.
The thought was thrilling to say the least.
"So, what are you hoping to find up there?" Rarity began, finally breaking the awed silence.
"It's not so much that I'm hoping to find anything specific. It's mainly just an interesting proof of principle. We know there are four orders of heavenly spheres. Lunae, which orbit the Terrae, which themselves orbit the Astrolae. Then there are things like comets which are classed as Minutae." Twilight explained as she set up a quill and parchment, "It was assumed that the invention of these larger telescopes would lead to a renaissance in the field, but without a way of analysing or interacting with the heavens we're somewhat stunted.
"All the recent advancements tend to be the finding and naming of new bodies such as nebulae or galaxies, followed by massive arguments about where we order them, whether we need new orders, whether we need orders at all and so on. But since my spell gets all its information from image created by your eye. I can't see why I shouldn't be able to analyse heavenly bodies more comprehensively than ever before."
Twilight walked over to the telescope. The number wheels displayed '1008400302', which Twilight assumed was where the telescope was directed. The specific coordinate system being used was a mystery to her, but it didn't really matter for what she wanted to do.
"Okay," Rarity called over, "How about if you look through the telescope and cast the spell, and I can read out what the quill is writing?"
"Sounds great!" Twilight replied. Even with her excitement, though, she couldn't have possibly been prepared for what she saw when she looked through the eyepiece. She realised then what a poor approximation her personal telescope back in the library gave of the heavens. Their majesty was beyond comprehension.
The canvas was awash with a glittering sea of stars. Streaks of colour bled from the void, like the world's most humbling painting. What looked like pinpricks of light without magnification were rendered in awe-inspiring detail. She almost felt embarrassed to have been talking about the four puny orders just moments ago, when confronted with the mind-boggling scale of galaxies.
After the shock wore off, Twilight regained her wits and cast the spell. She allowed a few seconds for it to do its work.
"It just says 'the heavens', Twilight," Rarity called over.
"I thought this might happen," Twilight replied, trying not to sound as miffed as she was. She looked around the controls until she found the dials that controlled the magnification, "At the moment we can't see anything specific enough to analyse. I'm gonna zoom a little and try again. Tell me if it says anything interesting."
"Will do."
She dialled up the magnification by several orders of magnitude. Then, ahead of looking back into the eyepiece, Twilight noted down the current coordinates before changing the orientation to a random series of numbers. She at least wanted to look in a patch of sky of her own if she were to find anything interesting.
"Okay, here we go."
She looked again, and was satisfied to find she had been quite lucky. The blackness of the void was clearly visible in between multiple discreet points of light. To the far right of the view was a colourful looking nebula. While in practise it wouldn't be exactly hard to find something like this, it would have been very time consuming. Twilight had been fortunate indeed.
And yet…
She cast the spell again, staring firmly into the blackness, and part of her was pleased to hear Rarity call out that the quill had written 'space'. At least that meant the spell was working. She looked over to the nebula, and held both her eye contact and the spell.
"What are you looking at right now Twilight?" Rarity asked.
"Why, is it saying something interesting?"
"It's written, 'hydrogen, helium, gas cloud'."
"Rarity! It just told us what the nebula is made of!" Twilight cried out, "This is beyond my original estimations, not only did it confirm that gases that could be found in Equus could be found in the void, but it can separate and individually identify specific components!"
"You got all that from one cast of the spell?"
"The literature must have more applicable research than I had thought. Imagine all the things we’ve not discovered simply because we couldn’t find the right paper!" Twilight replied giddily.
Despite the fact that there were plenty of nebulae to scan, Twilight found her eyes drawn to those dark, boring spaces between the lights. She so often found herself peering into them when looking at the night sky. It was a lesson she’d learned so long ago.
How the boldest secrets could hide in those dark, negative spaces.
And every time she looked into a boring, black space, Twilight had to fight some frustration at hearing Rarity call out that the quill had simply written ‘Void’, or some variation of such.
After a few tries though, Rarity went quiet.
"Rarity, did it write space again?" Twilight asked without looking up.
"Oh! Are you sure you cast it dear? It didn't write anything at all."
"Hmm, I'll try again." Twilight was certain she had cast the spell, but it was new magic after all. It wasn't surprising that it would be somewhat temperamental. She looked at the same area and cast it, only to have Rarity reconfirm that the quill hadn't even moved this time.
Now that was interesting. Twilight reached out for the manual motion controls and moved the telescope until that spot was in the direct centre of the view. She then flicked on a few more magnification levels and made sure to note the coordinates down. It didn't reveal anything interesting however, it still just looked like an unremarkable area of the void. She cast the spell again, and Rarity told her the quill still hadn't moved.
Twilight chewed her bottom lip in a mixture of excitement and anxiety. She glanced at one of the points of light and cast it once more, and Rarity called out that the quill had written 'star'.
That at least confirmed the spell hadn't stopped working, but that didn't make her feel much better. If her charm had an issue, then she could at least fix it. This, however, was way out of her area of expertise.
Twilight magnified it again, to the point that the view was now totally black. There was absolutely nothing in that black either. She really tried, straining her eyes just in case there was anything at all to pick out. But it was futile, the telescope might has well have not been working for all she could see. Twilight shrugged and, deciding there was nothing to lose at this point, cast the spell.
This time, Rarity spoke up.
"Twilight, what are you looking at?"
"Did it write something?"
"Well... what are you looking at?" Rarity insisted, and Twilight could hear how unsettled she was.
"Nothing. Well, nothing that I could see in any case. It just looked like a blank area of space. Did the quill write something down this time?" she pressed, still peering into the black to see if there was anything hiding in there.
"Twilight... it wrote the word 'corpse'."
That was enough to make Twilight look over at her friend, who was already holding up the parchment to show her. Unless Rarity was playing a very uncharacteristic and inappropriate prank, it had indeed written what she had said.
"It's like I said," Twilight began, decidedly not in the same nervous headspace as her friend, "The literature in astronomy is fledgling at best right now. The spell clearly doesn't have enough information to accurately describe what it's analysing."
"But you just said there was more applicable research than you realised. It even knew enough to identify all those gases earlier.” Rarity countered, and, despite herself, Twilight did internally agree that was a fair point, “And even with all that, it chose to write..."
"More applicable research about nebulae, Rarity. This could very well be something totally new to ponykind,” Twilight said, and realised her attempt at reassurance was just making her friend more apprehensive, “Or, it could be nothing at all. This is a completely new spell, Rarity, being honest I’m amazed this is the first issue we’ve ran into.”
She peered back down into the eyepiece and cast the spell again, straining her vision to try to pick out anything in the black.
"Anything?"
"Twilight, I don't like this."
"There's nothing to be scared of Rarity," Twilight bristled, because despite all her attempts to calm Rarity, she was lying. She didn’t believe there was nothing in that area of space anymore than her friend did. There probably was something incredible in there. Something Twilight could be the first to discover, with a method she developed independently, no less.
The drive of being so close to something truly new overrode her usual caring demeanour, and so she shot her friend down and continued to cast her spell. She wanted to know what was out there.
She needed to.
"All the spell does is describe things, Rarity. If we don't have the right frame of reference at the moment, it will use the words it determines to be the closest… Look, we don't have to stay that much longer, just do me a favour and read out the things it's writing," Twilight said, her tone softening.
She heard Rarity huff, but offer nothing in the way of further complaint. Twilight concentrated on the view and found it still to reveal nothing at all. Nothing other than the infinite dark that was the blank canvas of the heavens. Twilight cast the spell again. After a couple of seconds, Rarity began to read aloud the output.
"Corpse, corpse, remains, corpse, dead, death, no escape, no escape, corpse, dead, dead, black, can't escape, dead, impossible, corpse... Twilight enough of this! We need to stop!"
"Just one more try," Twilight murmured. The spell was picking something up. There was enough information in what she was seeing for the spell to give a consistent output, ergo there must have been something in that black. Something in the images made in her eye. Something she didn't even realise she could see.
Twilight flicked the magnification one more time, and at once she heard Rarity cry out and the sound of furious writing.
But Twilight had to know. She stared ever deeper into the void, desperately trying to pick out for herself what the spell had picked up.
Because the spell had picked it up, the black void wasn’t a void at all. The spell could see it, so she had to be able to see it.
She was seeing it right now.
She just needed more information, more concentration, more magnification, more light, more images from the dark, just more…
"Twilight!" Rarity screamed, pulling Twilight away from the eyepiece. At once, the quill fell to the table like a puppet with cut strings. With the spell severed, some sense returned to Twilight and she immediately rushed over to check on Rarity.
"Rarity! I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me there!" she babbled.
"It's fine Twilight," she replied breathlessly, insincerely, "It's been a bit of an odd night and... it's fine. Can we just go now?" Rarity was clearly quite shaken, and Twilight felt guilt gnaw at her. She should have noted down the coordinates and done this on her own time.
"Of course we can," Twilight soothed, "The night's still young, we can just pick up where we left off earlier."
"I'd like that," Rarity replied with a weak smile, "I'll wait outside while you..."
She didn't finish the sentence, and instead just cast a furtive glance towards the piece of parchment. which said enough.
Twilight looked over at it too. She had completely forgotten about it in all the commotion. While Rarity trotted out into the hall, Twilight took a few cautious steps towards the table on which it lay beneath the now-still quill.
She could see all the words Rarity had called out written in a neat line. Beneath that, however, was the source of the scribbling sound.
The quill had continued to write things like 'corpse' and 'dead' and 'no escape', but in a wild, erratic scrawl that formed a vast circle of ink. And as the words got closer to the centre, so did they get denser and harder to tell apart. Until finally they all seemed to coalesce, forming a menacing circle of deep, pure black.