//------------------------------// // That old unicorn's horn-writing was always atrocious // Story: 6 new princesses?! // by sykko //------------------------------// Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle all stood around the reading table that currently held Starswirl the Bearded's book that contained the spells and prophesies written by the greatest wizard of Equestria's classical period. Applejack squinted her eyes as she twisted her head side-to-side as she attempted to make sense of what was written. "Uh, Twi...Ah can't seem to make head nor hooves outta this. Are ya sure it was written by Starswirl? It looks like a whole buncha-- "Scribbles and squiggles!", Pinkie shouted, cutting AJ off. She then picked the book, flipped through the pages and began twisting her head around and around until her neck was twisted up like a rubber band and her head was upside down. "Brr-rrr-rrr-rrr!", she blubbered as her head spun around in a pink blur until it was right-side up. Her blue eyes spun in their sockets. "Whoo! Spinny!" "Careful, Pinkie!", Twilight scolded as she took the book in her magic from the pink earth pony and gently placed it on the reading table. "This book is very old and irreplaceable. We don't want to do anything to damage it." She carefully turned the pages until it was back to the first entry. "It was said that Starswirl had terrible horn-writing." She clicked her tongue, chewed her lip as she attempted to make sense of the writing. Levitating a stack of paper, a box of quills and an inkpot, she attempted to write down what was on the page. "No. No. Wait...no. No-no-no-no-no! I can't tell if this is a thorn, a schwa or a yordle! I can't tell if he was drunk when he wrote this or if his horn-writing is just that bad! Ugh!" She flopped onto her plot, threw her forehooves over he head in frustration, then plopped onto her back. "I'm going to fail Princess Celestia's test!" Twilight writhed on the floor of Golden Oaks library. Her mane became a frazzled mess and individual hairs began sticking out with *ping* sounds. "She's going to recall me from Ponyville, take my cutie mark and send me back to magic kindergarten! Then I'll never see any of you again-hen-hen-hen!", she exclaimed as she started to breakdown in panicked, hysterical crying. "Uh, Twi, why don't we take a l'il break a'fore we have 'nother Smartypants incident? We have been at this for a l'il while,", Applejack said. "Indubitaly, darling." Rarity said. "Why don't you have a nice soothing cup of tea? Oh Spiiiiiiiiike~!" Spike trotted up as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him. Hearts danced in his eyes and he let out a wistful sigh as he looked upon the white-furred unicorn. "Yes, Rarity?" Rainbow Dash gestured at her open mouth with a hoof as she made gagging sounds. "Could you make Twilight a cup of tea to calm her nerves? I'm thinking something like a nice clover-chamomile or a raspberry-lily." Spike sighed and nodded his head. "For you, Rarity, anything." "Why thank you, Spikey-wikey!" As Spike trotted off to make Twilight a cup of tea, Rarity levitated her stylish red-rimmed reading glasses onto her snout and began to examine the page the book was opened to. "I might not be able to read old Ponish, but maybe I can transcribe something for Twilight. I have received orders that had simply atrocious horn-writing, wing-writing and mouth-writing. I even received an order that was nothing but some poorly scribbled doodles and was able to figure it out. Hmm...now let's see." Rarity studied the horn-writing on the page for an hour. She looked at it front-ways, back-ways, side-ways, she even looked at it square-ways and triangle-ways to no avail. "I give up! That unicorn has the worst horn-writing I've ever seen!" She tossed the quill she had been levitating aside in disgust with herself. "I simply can't it! Wah-hah-hah-hah!" As she threw herself into a histrionic fit, she swooned and collapsed onto a fainting couch that wasn't there a moment ago. "Om-nom-nom-nom! Om-nom-nom-nom!" She shoved spoonful after spoonful of vanilla-chocolate chip ice cream into her mouth. Neither the spoon nor the pint of ice cream had been there a second before. Fluttershy looked at the page. "Um...Rainbow? C-could you come over here for a moment?" "Why, 'Shy? You know as well as anypony that I can't read old Ponish. I'm not some egghead. Uh, no offence, Twilight." "Uh, yeah, some taken.", Twilight said, then plopped her head onto the table with a *clunk*. "Why bother? I'm doomed! Doomed! Doooooooomed!" "I don't need you to read it, Rainbow. You have the worst wing-writing of anypony I know. I just need you to copy what you see on this onto this paper." "Hey, yeah. One time you gave me an order that was so poorly written that Ah had to take it to Flutters 'cause Ah couldn't make heads nor hooves of it.", Applejack said. Rarity stopped shoving ice cream into her mouth. "That's right, darling. You once sent me a wing-written order for the Wonderbolts and I had to have Fluttershy interpret it for me. I thought you had written something that had been interpreted from Ponish into Griffonian, then into Diamond Dog-ese, then dictated it back in Ponish to a blind pony." "Not cool, guys. I'm not some egghead!" Pinkie gave Rainbow big puppy dog eyes and batted her eyelashes. "Oh Dashie, please-please-please-please-pleeeeeeaaaaaaase! If you do this, I'l let you look in my super-duper-looper, octuple classified, twelfth-level secret big book of pranks and practical jokes!" "You mean the one that you never show anypony?" "Mm-hmm!" "The one that holds the ultra-mega-super-most-ultimate-prank-of-all-time?" "On no! I keep that prank locked away behind a triple-layered secure vault door that even I don't know where it is!" "Uh, wait...how do you not--" "Ya know better'n to ask that. This is Pinkie Pie we're talking about here." Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Fine! But that book better have the most super-awesome-to-the-max pranks ever." She snatched up a quill in her wing and aggressively dipped the tip into the inkpot, sending blobs of ink sailing through the air. "Careful!", Rarity shrieked as she darted over, grabbed the blobs of ink in her magic and levitated them back into the inkpot. "We don't want to ruin this old book. Be a little more careful, darling." "Whatever.", Rainbow replied in a tone full of overconfidence and snark. "You're just jealous that I'm going to transcribe this in the most awesome, radical, awesome, cool and awesome way ever!" "Uh, RD, those words all mean the same thing and you said awesome at least three times.", AJ replied. Rainbow Dash had her usual cocky, self-assured and hubristic(I know they all mean the same thing. This is Rainbow Dash we're talking about after all.) lopsided grin on her face as she scribbled down the words onto the paper in blinding speed. Once she finished, she held up the tip of the quill in front of her face, which had a small flame blazing on the end and blew it out. "Done! His horn-writing wasn't that bad, even if I can't read old Ponish." Fluttershy then took the paper from Rainbow Dash, neatly laid out a fresh sheet of paper, gingerly picked up a fresh quill in her teeth and daintily dipped the tip into the inkpot. She looked back and forth between Rainbow Dash's nearly ineligible wing-writing as she transcribed it into her neat and formal swooshy mouth-writing. Rarity looked at the finished writing. "Darling! You always have the most absolutely beautiful mouth-writing. This looks like something Princess Celestia wrote centuries ago. This makes me want to learn old Ponish so I can read what she wrote all those centuries ago." Twilight trotted over and looked at Fluttershy's mouth-writing. "By Celestia's glorious golden shoes! This is the first time anypony has been able to transcribe any of Starswirl's original writings. Rainbow, Fluttershy, you're both geniuses!" "I'm just used to having to read Rainbow's wing-writing and interpret it.", the butter yellow pegasus squeaked. Rainbow huffed on her hoof and smugly buffed it against her chest floof. "yeah well, you know, it's not every day everypony can see my awesome, spectacular, awesome, super, awesome and awesome genius at work. Just don't go thinking I some egghead, because I'm not." The other five mares simply rolled their eyes. "Alright...", Twilight said, the confidence having returned to her. "Just give me a moment." Everypony wait for a few seconds as twilight entered into her mind palace. Twilight cleared her throat. "It says that Starswirl and the other Pillars trekked into the Everfree Forest following a voice. They discovered a cave full of gems that had a strange crystalline tree growing in it that glowed with light from within. The voice was calling out to them from the tree. It had eight odd marks on its trunk that they had never seen before. They each left a personal item in the boughs of the trees and buried six gems at its roots. Hmm...it doesn't say what the tree was saying." She read over the transcription again and re-entered into her mind palace. "Nope. He never wrote down what the words were. Odd." Throughout the remainder of the day and well into the night Rainbow copied down in her atrocious wing-writing what was written in Starswirl's book, while the five mares and one dragon took turns shielding the book from flying ink blobs with their magic, wings, bodies and sheets of paper. When she would finish, Fluttershy would transcribe the wing-writing into more legible writing. It was late when they finished. Rainbow flexed her stiff and achy wings and pinion feathers, while Fluttershy massaged her sore jaw muscles. "Alright *yawn* everypony. Let's call it a *yawn* night. I'll begin reading this in the morning and when you all come over, I'll share what I've discovered.", Twilight said sleepily. The five mares, exhausted and longing for their warm, comfy beds, trundled out of the library. In Canterlot Castle Celestia watched Golden Oaks library through her telescope, stopping to take care of her royal duties, and to lower the sun in the evening and raise it in the morning. Fatigue fled her as she danced and pranced in place on her tip-hooves. Shortly after the sun had been raised for the morning, Luna, with bags under her eyes, her ethereal flowing mane a mess in dire need brushing, and her fur in dire need of grooming, walked by her elder sister still peering down at Ponyville through her telescope. She yawned and smacked her lips,mentally noting that she needed to brush her teeth. "Sister?" No answer. "Sister?" Again, no answer. "Tia." No sign she was even heard. Luna walked next to her sister, took in a deep breath and summoned up the Royal Canterlot Voice. "CELESTIA!" "IA! IA! IA! IA!", the voice echoed across the city. Celestia looked up from the telescope. "Oh! Luna! I didn't hear you there." Luna grumbled to herself as she pinched the bridge of her snout. "Pray tell, why are you watching Ponyville through your telescope?" "Oh, it's so wonderful! I've been watching Twilight, with help from her friends to transcribe Starswirl's book that held his thoughts, spells and prophesies. I think today is the day that his final prophesy and Twilight realizes her true fate. Ooh! I'm absolutely giddy!" "Putting aside the whole stalker-y thing...you should know better than anypony not to put too much faith into prophesies that were more often than not vague and cryptic. I mean his horn-writing was so bad that it drove Bluebeard the Wise into madness when he tried to transcribe that book and he thought he was a horrific blaadbeast for a decade, and had to be sequestered away for his own safety in a sanitarium. So again I ask...no! You've been meddling with the lives of ponies after I was banished." "How callous of you, Luna. I've never meddled in the lives of our little ponies. I may have ever so gently guided them with a hoof...from time-to-time." With a harrumph, Celestia turned her attention back to the telescope. "Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe, dear sister. I'm going to get a bath, then lay down and leave you to...this...whatever you want to call it." Luna walked off to her room, desiring a nice warm bath and her comfy bed.