PRIVATE LESSONS
How many days have I been sat in the middle of this unwieldily, makeshift excuse for a spell? Hunger used to be a viable method by which I could gauge something as trivial as the passage of time, but with the addition of a sustain spell to the growingly complex matrix of runic inscriptions, even hunger has been erased from my sense of perception. It may have been minutes, it may have been weeks. When the spell takes hold, it's no longer possible for me to be sure, though I decide it’s time to come back up.
I throw my head back, gasping for air as if I were breaching the surface of an oppressive body of water, held fast in its' depths and suffocating within a hair's breadth of losing myself. With a panicked gaze I take in the flat stone walls of my casting chamber, reeling from my vision, searching for an anchor to reality.
This vision was clearer, more focused. The minotaurs mean to ambush the Crystal Empire's representatives and their caravan from the east, no more than three hours time from now judging by the dim light that I saw in the vision. I struggle and fail to keep myself anchored, my eyes glazing over as the spell sucks me back in, showing me every gruesome detail of the events to come.
With the element of surprise, the minotaurs make easy work of the ponies, shattering their fragile gemstone bodies against the ground, harvesting the remains for use as barter. They cry, they scream and beg and plead the whole time, but in swathes they’re broken apart and sundered. I see a chieftain reach down and rip a Fire Ruby that once served as the diplomat’s heart from her chest, still thrumming with magic.
It's a barbaric and horrifying display, and the lingering afterimage of their bodies splayed and shattered across the ground bucks me in the stomach, heart, and head, knocking me off my flank and onto my back as my concentration finally snaps, fully cutting the circle from its’ power supply.
"Your Highness!"
The stallion's voice registers, but only barely so as I recite my internal calming ritual to root myself in my reality. Deep breath in; feel the pressure buildup inside, expanding my lungs and renewing my body for another cycle. Wings pressed hard against my side, feathers brushing against my coat. Clear my head and my horn, now let them stay empty for as long as I can hold the breath. When I exhale, the thoughts will go with it. When I exhale, I'll be in control.
Deep breath out.
I sit up.
"Send a rapid rescue team northwest with any armed pegasus still willing to aid the crown. Promise ten bits a piece to those who can make the first wave, three for those who leave within the hour.”
Ever since Luna’s rebellion, faith in the kingdom (and by extension my leadership) has faltered greatly over the years. This spell is my hope to restore that faith- my Chronomancy. With it I allow the powers that be to direct my gaze across the infinite possibilities of Equestria. In exchange for my power, they show me what I need to see. Assassins, civil uprisings, meals slyly laced with manticore venom, and most recently a tribe of Minotaur ambushing a caravan from the Crystal Empire. It bears a diplomat appointed my Princess Amore, no doubt to renegotiate the terms of our mutual defense agreement in light of the Everfree’s internal struggles as of late. I don't blame her, though it's a selfish move.
My aide looks down at me with worry, and I can’t stop myself from snapping at him. He should already be out the door and down the hall.
“Now!” I yell, and that kick starts his hooves as he darts towards the door to round up the town criers and local militia leaders. I should have specified the threat more clearly, but I’ll announce it to them before they set off.
Ten bits is a hard sell for volunteer combatants, but it’s the most I’ll be able to get by the newly-erected head of treasury without a third bout of round-robin tax debate.
Ugh. I’m getting sick of all of these meetings, too many bureaucratic issues to attend while managing the needs of the Everfree Empire as a whole. I’ve half a mind to go myself, but if I were to fall in battle the tenuous peace I’ve managed here will be undone within the week.
Until I find some sort of new direction or solution for this nation, I must remain safe in my castle and work my way through this mess.
Ten minutes pass and I make my way through the long and empty halls of Everfree Castle until the rattling of horseshoes on stone reach my ears. I turn the last corner and step out into the courtyard, and am greeted by my rapid response volunteers.
All three of them.
“Where are the volunteers?” I ask, and I'm met by silence from both the two pegasus under my employ and the lone earth pony volunteer clad in tattered faux-leather armor. I see my aide half-hidden behind a pillar at the edge of the yard, and he doesn’t meet my gaze.
“There were none, your highness. Nopony else would volunteer for duty for only ten bits.”
I stare blankly forward at the pathetic service. The proper response would be to go out into the public myself to seek aid, and to promise greater rewards, but I don’t know exactly when the ambush will occur, only that it’s late in the afternoon, and the sun is already hanging low in the sky. Any longer delay and I risk the reinforcements arriving to a slaughter.
“Tartarus with it, then.” I curse, flaring my wings and shaking my hoof regalia off. I’ve never wanted to shift my style of governance to a dictatorship, though the thought is starting to cross my mind.
“Princess, you can’t just-!”
I stoop down low, then with a blast of violent wind launch myself into the sky, leaving my minders standing with mouthsagape in the wake of my flight. It’s been weeks since I’ve flown. Even though the situation is dire, I still relish the feeling as I zip north towards the border.
- - - -
“And then what happened? Did you make it to the convoy in time?”
Twilight’s eyes are wide in anticipation of my retelling, waiting with bated breath as I run my tale from beginning to end. It started as a quip about the first time I abandoned my throne, though her genuine curiosity quickly put a stop to our second pass over fusion principles as I slipped into a storyteller persona, making wide, sweeping gestures and flaring my wings as I announce my intent to save the crystal ponies. It’s a little silly, though she seems almost entranced by it, and her attention possessed me to continue the theatrics.
“I did...” Some of the grandiose luster of my tale fades away as we reach the end. A different memory plays through my mind like a slide projector playing old photographs, clear images like feelings painted upon canvas. The shards I couldn’t piece back together, the ponies I couldn’t save. “But I wasn’t enough. I managed only to save the representative and a young filly of hers. The rest were sundered before us as I took to the sky with the two.”
It pains me to say such things aloud. I keep such gruesome incidents mostly hidden from the public, usually just mentioning them in passing as part of some larger issue. But Twilight deserves to know the truth, and she needs to know if she’s going to be able to trust me moving forward. I fear her innocence will be compromised, but then again I’ve feared that ever since Chrysalis invaded Canterlot. All I can do is try to ease the blow as her jaw begins to hang low indisappointment.
"I see..." Her words sound flat, with a forced calm I can only commend her for. "And without any amulets, I assume you weren’t able to…?"
I shake my head, and she looks up at me for a few seconds with a lost expression. I want to tell her that they felt no pain, or that they were in a better place, though we both know it’d be empty rhetoric.
What I do instead, is unfurl a massive wing and lay it over her back comfortingly. She leans into it slightly and I feel some of her tension dissipate, but it’s troubling for her young mind to process the ravages of the old tribalistic minotaurs’ ways.
“It was a different time, Twilight. These things happened often, it’s why I vowed to turn Equestria into a land of peace by any means necessary when it came to be. And because of brave ponies like them, who were willing to brave the wilds in order to maintain diplomacy, eventually it came to be.”
She’s staring down into an open book on the cloud-proof table, though her eyes are seeing past it with a faraway look. After a few seconds she clears her throat, and her eyes narrow as she makes some connection or realization.
"Was this before or after King Sombra had enslaved them all? When we were there at first, nopony seemed to remember anything after his rule. Because of that I’m inclined to believe it was before, though the nature of their collective amnesia makes it an unreliable educated guess more than anything.”
I let a small smile come back to my lips as my student takes the opportunity to learn something new from the story. Astute as always.
“Before both Sombra’s rise and Luna’s banishment. It was that very unicorn filly whom I rescued that eve who warned us of the evil that beset Sombra. Her name eludes me, but she was a kind soul. Much like your friend Fluttershy I might add, though perhaps not quite so timid.” I give her a small knowing grin, and she nods and returns the gesture as I continue.
“It was soon after they returned to the Crystal Empire that Luna and I were summoned to stop him, and though we succeeded in reverting him to an umbrum shadow form, the one you know him to be, he laid a curse on the empire causing it to vanish into his realm for some thousand years. It was only a few years later that Luna was consumed by her Nightmare, and… Well, the rest is history, as they say.”
My student purses her lips for a moment, though thankfully she seems to be more focused on constructing a mental timeline of the events rather than lingering on the tragedy of the events.
“That doesn’t follow.” She remarks, rubbing a hoof against her chin. I tilt my head curiously, but she abruptly stands up and gallops out of my wing, leaving a chilly wisp of empty cloud vapor in her wake.
“What doesn’t follow, Twilight?”
“That series of events, the timeline doesn’t…” She trails off, and I can see the beginning of a series of mental gymnastics in her head as she trots in a wide circle around the table and myself, kicking up some of the loosely-packed fluffy surface as she does so.
“You’re restating your hypothesis, Twilight.” I remind her of one of the core foundations of her lessons from her younger years, levitating a quill and her newly-bound notebook for her to take. “Show your work.”
Her face softens at that, and she shakes her head a bit, letting her bangs fly side to side with a chuckle.
“Sorry. You’re right, here-“ She returns to my side and takes the quill, scratching a straight line across one of the pages,then making some vertical lines through it at either end. Two at the start, two at the end. “So Princess Luna was banished for a thousand years, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But the Crystal Empire was also missing for a thousand years, according to you. If Princess Luna was there to seal away King Sombra,” She marks the first line on her timeline with a ‘-S’ denoting (presumably) the banishment of Sombra, and the second with a ‘-L’ for what I assume to be the same for Luna. “So if both were gone a thousand years, the same period of time, logically it would stand to expectation that King Sombra, and by extension the Crystal Empire, would have returned first, but-“
I hold up a hoof to interrupt her as she marks the first line with a ‘+L?’ on the page just above it.
“Another sharp observation, Twilight, well done as always.” I once again reach out a wing and curl it around her again with a proud squeeze. I see her flush a bit at the praise, but I continue. “Luna was indeed gone a thousand years, the Summer Sun Celebration marking the first night of her absence as an appeal to the commonpony that there was no longer a threat to the empire’s stability. The Crystal Empire, however, took time to fade. Time for them began to drastically slow, over the course of nearly four years they continued to decouple from our very reality, until one day they reached a breaking point when their relativity finally reached a standstill, effectively removing them from the timeline. Temporalobliteration.”
I pause for a moment to let her catch up in her fervent scratching of notes, bringing the memories back in my own mind and reconciling them with the barebones line she’d drawn in her notebook.
“It was studying this effect that became the basis for my iteration of Chronomancy you know of today, and shortly thereafter Star Swirl’s inspiration as well. He had hoped to recreate such a leap in time, to disappear for a thousand years just as the city had. Given that he is still somehow alive today, I think it’s prudent that we assume he has.”
“Delay.” I hear her mutter, and the scratching stops suddenly.
“Beg your pardon?” I lean a bit away to look down at her properly, but she claps the notebook closed and drops it on the table, looking up and turning to face me directly. I lower my wing and do the same.
“His spell. It’s called ’Delay’. I… saw it, in Goldfish’s memory- The pegasus who, you know.” Her concentration turns a bit frantic as she searches through old memories for a moment, tapping a forehoof against the side of her muzzle.“He was trying to become immortal? To exist for thousands and thousands of years like an Alicorn?”
I nod slightly, contemplating the worst, though she seems more enthralled by the prospect of discovery.
“In a way, yes, though in the end Star Swirl the Unicorn will only persist for, at best, two hundred years from his own relative perspective. Even if he were to skip a week for every day, he would still be nearing the end of his lifespan so far into the future. For him to still be spry, it would mean there’s been times where he’s had significant stretches of time to skip freely, likely he skips straight to two centuries ago entirely and begins there…” I’m lost in thought now too, more-so thinking aloud than I am explaining now. It would make sense, why I can never find him despite how much I scried all those years- He’s just not there to be found. Completely disentangled from the timeline.
“Uh, Princess? I think you lost me. What do you mean ‘Starts there?’” She looks up, blinking in confusion at my words. I sigh heavily.
“Star Swirl’s consciousness is anchored in time, nearly a thousand years ago. Whenever he perishes, he returns to that point in time with all that he learned from his previous lives. I didn’t think it was possible, and to be honest I still refrain from accepting it as fact, that a unicorn could cast such an intricate and demanding spell. Never before have I successfully cast it, nor anypony in all the years I’ve been alive. Including-“ I motion to the collection of advanced technology and magical theorum before both of us, trying to let its’ incalculable impossibility set in.
“I mean, he was a genius- or, is- anyway, is it really that hard to believe he solved it?”
She furrows her brow and watches my expression carefully, watching my reaction closely enough that I’m not sure if I should fake a tell just to satiate her.
“Yes.” I finally retort, and though she seems surprised, I elaborate before she can interject. “Genius or no, it is unbelievable. Chronomancy was a pinnacle discovery in the golden age in which I was raised, it was the holy grail of magic research, the apex achievement a magician could ever hope to contribute to, alongside true alchemy and restoration magic. If anypony were to crack it, it would mean more time to learn more spells, and more spells to gain more time, ad infinitum.”
“I’m guessing all the past tense means…?”
“In the several hundred years before the megaspells wiped everypony back to the stone ages, no, it was never so much as observed to function properly to my knowledge. Even this ‘delay’ spell sounds improbable, though there is little other explanation to explain his longevity. I hesitate to even label such magic similar to my own, being so vastly different in function.”
I feel something nudge at my side, and with a startled blink I see Twilight poking at me with a gentle hoof, smiling patiently.
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Princess, if I could remember the spell matrix for all the components for his spell circle… Could you recreate it? To verify its’ existence, I mean. Purely informative purposes.”
I stare at her blankly for a few moments after she asks that particular question. Star Swirl’s spell matrix? She can’t mean going and seeking him out in person, can she?
“I don’t think speaking to him directly again would-“
She holds up a hoof to cut me off this time. It’s strange to be on the receiving end of the gesture, but I silence myself nonetheless. Her mouth opens a bit as she looks between me and her hoof, then sheepishly chuckles.
“Uh, sorry. Picking up your habit, I think.” I raise an eyebrow, not certain if I should be insulted. “But no, I mean I’ve seen it. Again, in here.” She taps her hoof against her own head a few times, and the meaning clicks.
“Goldfish memorizes everything she reads…” I breathe in disbelief, remembering the details of the prisoner Luna had taken nary a week ago before I locked myself up for a divining spree.
“…And she’s read his spell circle. That’s why he killed her, or at least thought he did.” My ever-enlightening student finishes for me. While my mind wanders along that train of thought, Twilight begins sketching a multi-layer high-power spell in a fresh page of her notebook.
During the nights’ many discussions and revelations she’d managed to fill nearly half of the massive thing with both shorthoof recaps of topics in addition to her own ideas for their possible implementation. Her new spellbook has a few utility spells from the golden age, but nothing of cataclysmic danger should she actually cast them. After her fifth layer, however, I pull myself away and linger over her shoulder as she continues to add onto it, over and over etching more hastily-scratched runes when I thought she was wrapping the last matrix up.
I recognize a heavily modified ’Cyr’s Seeing,’ ‘Momentum,’ and an old pre-rune enchantment recreation of ’Jer’rahd’s Reinforcement’. There’s another patchwork circle of runes, but she stops frequently mid-etch, lost in indecision, clearly struggling to recall the formation. She levitates the bit pouch she was wearing when I whisked her away and pulls out a piece of parchment from it, folded over itself many times.
I lean forward over her shoulder to take a look at its’ contents, but as it’s wrapped in Twilight’s lavender aura, it stops and hovers midair.
“Uh, Princess?”
“Hmm?” I ask, turning my head to her and inadvertently shoving her face with my own. I apologize and step aside to give her room to turn herself and get comfortable again, then I sit beside her and wait patiently for her to finish what she’s doing.
She laughs it off, and inside of the note I see a much more hastily-written version of what she’s already inscribed. She hovers the quill over the fourth and final rune from her notepad and comparing it to the paper, though there’s nothing on the loose paper she hadn’t already inscribed. With a frustrated groan she crumbles it up and tosses it aside, and I reach out subconsciously grabbing it in my own magic before it falls through the cloud and to the world below.
“You need to be careful with this, Twilight. If the wrong pony found this,”
“Sorry, sorry, I know, It’s just… It’s infuriating! I’ve seen it before, heck I cast a spell with this and I can’t even remember half of it!” She taps a forehoof impatiently against the table, and I watch as she takes a deep breath, holds still, and lets it out alongside a fluid motion with her other hoof. A trick Cadence taught her, if I’m not mistaken, and that I taught Cadence.
“This is Luna’s custom rune, you cast a spell with this?” I ask, surprised she even knows about the rune, let alone cast something with it without harmonizing to Luna’s magical signature. ’Twilight, you truly never cease to amaze.’
“I did, but subconsciously. It’s Star Swirl’s spell, it utilizes Luna’s spell matrix styling as well as her custom major rune. I think whatever ailment I temporarily had from Goldfish is responsible, and I’m almost certain that it’s the key to figuring out what this is.” She taps on a fifth, completely empty circle where a spell flux modifier would feed into. A five-stage Mitè-Major spell in an unharmonized matrix is ludicrous, even I couldn’t freecast this, I’m certain of it.
“And this spell, what does it do when you cast it in its’ entirety?” I can infer it’s an enhancement spell of some kind. Jer’rahd’s reinforcement is a way for a caster to temporarily gain the strength to rival that of an Earth Pony, though their bodies are generally too frail to sustain it for long. Cyr’s Seeing has a strange tweak, casting divination magic as an enchantment spell, targeting the eyes. A way to see in the dark, perhaps? Momentum ties in directly with the two, though it’s modified to he released as a slow burn over a period of… Zero. Instant release of a long-term boon. That’s a very peculiar and seemingly useless modification.
“I think it stops time.” She responds simply, continuing to pour over her notes in search of anything that could aid her.
I stare at the side of her head in shock. Time stoppage… How much power must a spell like that require? Ten Vis? Twenty? Fifty? I thought I was ahead if her all this time, but…
My thoughts trail far behind as she continues describing the rest of the diagram, which includes modifications to her minor rune spells and new additions. I nod along, but when she quiets down and waits for my response, I’m not quite sure what to say.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, Twilight. Truly.”
I see her chest swell up, but when neither of say anything for a few seconds she starts to understand the implication of that.
“You mean…?”
“If your hypothesis is correct… Yes. This is new magic. The kind even the Alicorns of old were never able to synthesize.” I look down at my hooves with a grim expression. In one instant I am filled with both hope and nerves beyond belief. This could be a discovery worthy of great praise, though there’s little to suggest it’s true besides her word. I’ve seldom known Twilight to outright lie, if ever, though the possibility that she’s somehow cracked what could be arguably the most cataclysmic school of reality-defining magic known to Equus unnerves me infinitely more than it comforts me.
Is this truly how it culminates? The final dawn I’ve seen so many times, is Twilight really to be the one to stumble upon something we can never un-learn? There’s still the chance she would heed an order- No, a plea to leave it be. To let me handle Star Swirl and modify her memory-
“Princess, you’re shaking…” I feel Twilight's hoof lay itself over my own, and it pulls me away from the chaotic frenzy of desperate ploys and excuses. I look down at her and open my mouth, but the words don't come as I bid them. She looks increasingly more concerned every second I don't say anything, and I force back the uncertainty and try again.
“I- So I am. I apologize, I'm just... Considering the implications." I give her a weak smile, but she's starting to piece together my concern faster than I can think of a way to explain what assuming true control over the fourth dimension could mean.
"You don't want me to learn this." She guesses. Her hoof presses down more tightly on my own, and I still have nothing to offer her. "You're scared of the potential something this unpredictable could exert over Equestria?" Her eyes narrow and give me a hard stare, and I continue to sit in silence as she follows my line of thinking on her own.
"If this really is new, and you've never seen something like it before, that means he can't have either! Unless... Unless he has seen it, and tried coming back again after learning about it."
"Looped.” I offer. She tilts her head and thinks about it, but nods her head quickly.
“Yeah, if he’s seen it and… Looped, then either he doesn’t think it matters, or he knows he can counter it. The alternate possibility is that this is the first iteration of this timeline to progress this far, and it’s our best shot to catch him by surprise with something he won’t expect.”
We share smiles as she finishes her tangent, but her point brings to mind a great deal. Every other attempt to stop Star Swirl during his rampages has failed. Each and every time an overwhelming amount of planning and resources were dedicated to entrapping him, and every time he’s seen them coming.
Twilight has an excellent point in that he may have been this far, he may have even somehow circumvented my ace in the hole spell, though it’s incredibly unlikely.
“I agree completely, my faithful student. It would be a great boon, and… Though its’ potential does indeed frighten me, I realize now that I could think of nopony better to entrust it to.”
She flushes a bit, but accepts the praise without argument and smiles again.
“Princess Luna said she could arrange a meeting with Goldfish if we weren’t able to figure it out, I guess that’s the next logical step. If she can’t remember, or won’t help, the only options we have are Star Swirl himself, or messing my brain up again until I accidentally cas-“
“Absolutely not.” I stiffen my back and reassert my authority. “It’s dangerous enough to undergo reconstruction once with your own data, especially for the brain. Until your body renews itself naturally, the risk of complication is not something I’m willing to let you risk.” She stares at me wide-eyed as I explain, taking her hoof back to her own chest.
“I didn’t realize there was a chance for complications… The amulet seemed to have every part of the pony listed, down to the atom.”
“And so it does, but it is not your mind you're attempting to meld with, remember. Just because you survived the first time being merged with foreign input does not mean you would do so again. Neural paths develop and erode continually, and there is no guarantee that enough would connect to allow you to function. With or without Luna to fix any complications, I cannot condone such a reckless decision.”
I look down at her with a stern warning gaze, but there’s an apologetic undertone to it. It’s a good idea if you follow her logic, but any credible risk to her is too much to gamble right now.
“Okay… I won’t use Goldfish’s soulgem. Cross my- I mean, I promise.” She raises her hoof to her chest and hesitates before lowering it again with a chuckle.
I raise a hoof in the air, and then place it gently over one of her eyes. Pinkie promises may as well be legally binding. She chuckles again, but brushes my hoof away as we both look down at her notebook, and the unfathomably convoluted half-spell that’s scratched into it.
“I don’t suppose you’d mayyyybe let me take those books home with me~?” Twilight asks, arching her back and tilting her head to exacerbate the wide-eyed persuasiveness she’s attempting.
“These texts contain information from centuries of research, if they were to fall into the wrong hooves-“
“I know, I know, doom equestria and erase cities. I had to ask.” She interrupts my explanation, and the act drops into areserved disappointment.
“…Perhaps ‘Dimensional Awareness’ and ’Industrial Reactor Maintenance’ could be done without for a few nights. You’ll need to transmogriphy them whenever you’re not within hoof’s reach-“
“I will! I’ve been practicing illusion magic ever since you showed me that hologram of the Crystal Empire, they’ll be safe with me!”
I’m taken aback by the enthusiasm for a moment, but between the stars in her eyes and the fervor she sorts through our lesson material to find the two books, I feel content just watching her be happy for a little while. About ten seconds later, she has the lot sorted and alphabetized with her two levitating above her.
“I’ll bring them with us and pass them off to you on the ground. I must prepare for Day Court, and you need to speak with Luna, assuming she hasn’t already turned in for the morning.” I wrap all the books up in my telekinesis and float them gently into my saddlebags, weighing me down at least an extra hundred pounds.
Once the table is clear of obstruction, I wrap it in my magic and it begins to collapse back in on itself, the metal condensing and compacting back into the thin, dense rod of material, ready to reshape at a moment’s notice.
“Come now, I’ll take you home. Try to sleep after you speak with Luna. I don’t want you pursuing this for a week with no sleep.” I pack the metallic rod away as well, then I lower myself to the now-empty cloud top, tucking a wing and leaning a bit to the side to allow her to climb onto my back.
Instead she stares at my saddlebags, not moving. Her forehead’s creased in some kind of discontent, and I tilt my head in return.
“Is something the matter, my dear student?” I prompt, and she shakes her head, but the creases and the brows don’t fall away. “Are you still uncertain of my sincerity?” I ask plainly. I try to withhold any hurt from the suggestion, but the possibility that even after everything she may still distrust me does sting a bit.
“No! No, nothing like that, Princess.” She shakes her head again and looks up with a gentle smile, though it almost seems… Melancholic?
I lay myself down fully on the cloud and let my wings splay freely, leaning down slightly to be eye-to-eye with her, but she quickly averts her gaze to her own forehooves.
“You can tell me anything, Twilight. Even if you think I won’t like whatever it is.”
She shifts uneasily, rocking her weight from her left side to her right and biting at the inside of her lip. She looks back up to me, away, then back again.
“It’s just that… We haven’t had a private lesson like today since I left Canterlot.” She says softly, avoiding my gaze.
I blink, and my mouth opens the slightest bit before I command it closed again. It’s true I haven’t instructed her directly on academic topics in many years, though that’s mostly on account of her knowing nearly as much as I do on most subjects. Anything I could have taught her would have been beyond her time.
“I’m sorry if you feel I’ve neglected you as a student, Twilight, I’ve just been of the mind that you were progressing rather successfully with your self-studies and independent research. Frankly, you’ve begun teaching me these last few years.”
She laughs, shaking her mane out and raising a hoof to rub behind her ears nervously.
“You’re right, I’ve been doing fine with Spike’s help back home, but I meant more like…”
Oh.
“I… See.” I respond. It’s a lackluster reply, and it fails to address anything, though it fills the silence for a moment while I think. “I’ve missed our time together as well, Twilight. Unfortunately life has a way of keeping ponies apart sometimes, be it friends, royal duties, or impending doom.” I smirk, and she gives me a little chuckle out of pity.
I let out a small sigh through my nose, and once again I reach a wing out in front of me and hold it against her side. She leans into it a bit, but looks up with curiosity.
“However, it seems that I have some new material for you now, and I am one of the two ponies alive who could instruct you in it. Perhaps we could find some time for each other on a more regular basis? For research’s sake.”
Her eyes glean and her mouth breaks into a wide grin at the suggestion, and she rushes up to hug me.
“That sounds amazing. I’m sorry for snapping at you at the castle, that wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t ha-“
I wrap both wings around her and press her fast against me with moderate force, silencing her apology and bringing my hooves up to her back, patting her shoulders in a calming motion.
“There’s nothing to apologize for, my faithful student. And nothing to forgive.”
Day Court starts soon. I’m already going to be late after taking her home, but this moment supersedes any possible scheduling conflict that doesn’t involve direct, imminent threats to Equestria.
I hold her for a few more minutes to ease her mind. I’d love nothing more than to indulge her with further lessons and quality time alone, though I’ve neglected my duties too long already. I lift my head from hers and turn my gaze east, lighting my horn and summoning my birthright to wipe away the final vestiges of twilight from the sky.
Eventually I convince her to climb up onto my back willingly, though she puts up a fuss about it being an imposition on me. But when she sees the deadpan stare I’m meeting her qualms with the mare finally relents.
We leave the clouds behind and fly atop the newly brightened skies. I took us a bit further from canterlot than I’d meant to, but it’s hardly a strain to glide further along the side of the grand mountain before descending towards the city from above.
“Wow, I’ve never seen it from way up here before. It’s gorgeous!” Twilight chimes, and indeed the city is quite lovely. The castle shines with the early morning light, flaunting its’ golden accents and ivory towers as the king piece of the sprawling districts layered below. I duck my head a bit down and to the side so she can get a better look before we fall below the skyline.
“You have, actually, though I don’t fault you for not remembering. You were still a young filly, and to be candid I thought you would never want to fly again with how scared you were.” The memory brings a fond smile to my face.
“Oh, wow, I can’t believe I don’t remember that. Though I guess it would make sense, ponies tend to suppress traumatic events at a young age. Common theory claims those kinds of suppressed memories are the root of most common phobias; Claustrophobia, from being locked up in some small space, arachnophobia in areas more densely populated with insectoids, et cetera.” She rattles off what she learned about trauma induced mental blocks, and despite the rather dour subject I find myself smiling at the thought.
“Perhaps it’s manifested itself in a fear of heights, then?” I tease, banking wide to the left and right to give her a more direct line of sight to the city below. I feel her chuckle on my back in retort.
“Nope, can’t say I feel any acrophobic manifestations, nor signs of concerning levels of stress due to exposure.” She shoots back, disarming the verbal prod the way only she can; With far too many syllables.
True to my word, when we touch down before her parents’ home I furl a wing and kneel for her to hop off, drawing the two promised tomes I promised her and offering them up for her to take. She wraps them up with her kinetic field and claims them happily, giving me one last hug before taking her leave and heading inside with a promise of getting some sleep before going to see sister. In the busy morning there’s a number of passers-by that stop what they’re doing to stare and gawk, doubly so when they see Twilight hop off my back like a filly.
I give them all a cordial nod, then launch myself into the air before anypony can get a picture.
I’ll need to have Luna make sure Twilight actually finds her way to her bed, and not to a lectern. I try not to make a habit of spying on law abiding ponies, though I make infrequent exceptions when it’s justifiable. Before any of that, though, I should prepare for Day Court. The line is likely already piling over itself with ponies trying to vie for first crack at their proposal or voice some grievance.
With a groan belaying the frustration of a restless day to come I charge up my horn, teleporting directly to the only transpositionally-unwarded section of the Royal wing, my hidden study, the one fifty feet below my quarters and two hundred feet deep in the mountain.
Theoretically it’s possible for somepony to stumble upon this backdoor to the most heavily-guarded section of the castle, though without knowing precisely where it is the risk of teleporting into solid matter is a very lethal deterrent from trying, assuming anypony even knew if it to begin with.
I stash the Rod of Density and the assortment of books, scrolls, and tomes back to their respective shelves and dividers. There’s maybe two hundred books and a few dozen research papers here I deemed important enough to salvage from the old castle, all from varying ages and stages of industrial and magical progress in time. Once things calm down, perhaps I’ll bring Twilight here directly to explain more about how a nuclear reactor works.
She’d appreciate that, the prospect of harnessing chemical reactions for energy enthralled her for a large portion of the night, I had to practically rip her away from industrialism to get her to focus more on her own special talent.
After everything is sorted and stowed in the various wooden storage solutions, I take a minute to produce a quill and parchment, scratching an extremely shorthand version of the patchwork matrix series’ of Star Swirl Twilight was struggling with earlier.
Maybe I can make some headway on it tomorrow while she speaks with that Goldfish mare. I’ve half a mind to speak to her myself as a primer, though sister is correct that it’d be unwise. I’ll settle for a role helping where I must, here in the Castle. I’m sure Twilight can handle it on her own.
I turn around and trot through the single door to the room, making the journey slower than I could through the long hallway back to my study. I’m already ten minutes late by now, another five won’t hurt.